Songs about the Middle East

Was just listening to Banshees' JuJu. Great lyrics on several of these.
Check out the content of Arabian Knights

---

The jewel
The prize

Looking into your eyes, cool pools drown your mind
What else will you find?

I heard a rumour (it was just a rumour?)
What have you done to her?

Myriad lights (they said I'd be impressed), Arabian nights
At your primitive best

A tourist oasis reflects, in seedy sunshades,
a monstrous oil tanker, its wound bleeding in seas

Veiled behind screens, kept as your "baby machine",
whilst you conquer more orifices of boys, goats and things
Ripped out sheep's eyes
No forks or knives...



Post Edited (04-13-11 21:26)

Can't be bothered to try to rack my brain for other songs about the Middle East just now, but I will weigh in with how much I love Juju.

The Sun and the Moon - Arabs and Americans
Siouxsie - Israel

That's all I've got.

There is that infamous Meatmen song...

I get the feeling that "Palestine, Texas" by T Bone Burnett is supposed to be some sort of commentary on the Middle East and the Bush family's ties to it, but since Burnett is deep in his obtuse and impenetrable smugly-clever ass-hat mode on the song, I really don't have a clue if that's what it's actually about.

breno wrote:

> I get the feeling that "Palestine, Texas" by T Bone Burnett is
> supposed to be some sort of commentary on the Middle East and
> the Bush family's ties to it, but since Burnett is deep in his
> obtuse and impenetrable smugly-clever ass-hat mode on the song,
> I really don't have a clue if that's what it's actually about.

From Chicago Sun Times - May 21, 2006 article Burnett's 'Identity' Found In The Woods By Dave Hoekstra as found on T-Bone Burnett's website...

Quote

Burnett accomplishes this in "Palestine, Texas" where he evokes the Rat Pack (Frank, Sam, Dean and even Shecky, as in Greene) into commentary about the confined shadows of contemporary America. He said, "At one time this was the live-and-let-live, mind-your-own-business kind of country. It wasn't the rattled country we've been living in the last 30 years. There was a time we were able to deal with problems in a state-of-the-art way, and those guys represented that to a lot of people. They certainly do for me. Sinatra is still as good as it gets."

Thanks Nile. That clears that up. Sort of.

Also:
Stump - "Charlton Heston"

"Jerusalem" - Sinead O'Connor

"Memphis, Egypt" - Mekons (BTW, the cover by The Sadies and Jon Langford on In Concert Volume One is highly recommended)

"I Ran" - Flock of Seagulls

Can't forget:

Walk Like an Egyptian - Bangles
King Tut - Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons

Can't believe I'm the first to mention The Cure's "Killing an Arab."

- "Egyptian Cream" - RH & The Es
- "Armenia City in the Sky" - The Who (more like Asia Minor, but "Killing An Arab" refers to Algiers, which is N Africa, so cut me slack)
- "Jerusalem" - The Fall
- Eyeless in Gaza
- "Tel Aviv" - Duran Duran
- "The Lebanon" - Human League
- That Flock of Seagulls crack was funny - had to double back on that.
- "Secret Life of Arabia" - Bowie (and "African Night Flight?")
- that one Clash song off Combat Rock
- "John Walker Lindh Blues" - Steve Earle
- "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - The Pogues
- "Turkish Song of the Damned" - The Pogues
- "Shah Shah A Go-Go" - Stranglers

(BTW, the cover by The Sadies and Jon Langford on In Concert Volume One is highly recommended)

It's a pretty good American Pageant on that platter, too.


Oh, and anything by this bunch - [www.themiddleeastmusic.com]#

Quote

that one Clash song off Combat Rock

I had no idea "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" was about the Middle East. I can see it now as a thinly veiled reference to Israel and the settlements.

"Should I cool it, or should I blow?"

"If I go there will be trouble, and if I stay it will be double."

.
.
.

Guess it makes sense.

I thought the Combat Rock reference was to "Know Your Rights."

"If I go, here come the goy
But if I settle, well then - Oy!"

Did anyone mention the Pixies' "River Euphrates" yet?

The thing that freaked me out was that I've heard this song dozens of times and only now understood what this stanza means:

Veiled behind screens, kept as your "baby machine",
whilst you conquer more orifices of boys, goats and things
------------
edit::
What a buncha music geeks. Responding with lists.



Post Edited (04-14-11 22:53)

I can still get surprised by Banshees lyrics, i.e. "blood and sperm" jumped out a few months ago during "Melt!"

Based on the lyrics to Arabian Knights and the early version of "Love in Void," Siouxsie is in zero danger of being enlisted as a Mid-East peace envoy.

SWEET BIRD OF TRUTH

6 o'clock in the morning
And I'm the last person in this plane still awake
Y'know I can almost smell the blood
Washing against the shores
Of this land that can't forget its past
Oh, the wind that carries this plane
Is the wind of change
Heaven sent and hell bent
Over the mountain tops we go
Just like all the other G.I. Joe's
Ee aye ee aye adios!

This is your captain calling
With an urgent warning
We're above the Gulf of Arabia
Our altitude is falling
And I can't hold her up
There's no time for thinking
All hands on deck
This bird is sinking

Across the beaches and cranes
Rivers and trains
All the money I've made
Bodies I've maimed
Time was when I seemed to know
Just like any other G.I. Joe
Should I cry like a baby
Or die like a man?
While all the planets little wars
Start joining hands
Oh, what a heaven what a hell
Y'know there's nothing can be done
In this whole wide world

I don't know what's wrong or right
I'm just a regular guy
With bottled up insides
I ain't ever been to church
Or believed in Jesus Christ
But I'm praying
That God's with you when you die

This is your captain calling
With an urgent warning
We're above the Gulf of Arabia
Our altitude is falling
And I can't hold her up
There's no time for thinking
All hands on deck
This bird is sinking

whatever song we go with, make it soft, slow, and sensual...

true love

The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave - Butthole Surfers
Fuck the Middle East - Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D.)

Jeff

A couple of good songs from the Teardrop Explodes: Like Leila Khaled Said and Seven Views of Jerusalem

Fire in Cairo by the Cure

Yassassin by Bowie