Editor’s Note: The potent but rather uneasy relationship between politics and pop music has always been contentious. In America, where “pop music” (i.e. records produced specifically for a market of teenagers) was borne in the 1950’s, it heralded also a shift in how their leaders were elected. Arguably, JFK was the first “pop idol”. There are those who consider the Live Aid concerts in the 1980’s produced by punk also-ran Bob Geldof as the culmination of this union. But between U2’s Bono waving a white flag to Elton John rehashing his Marilyn Monroe tribute for Princess Di, it all just seemed humorless. And that can only be shame since music is after all supposed to be fun. (Politics only less so but just because the joke’s almost always on us.) Perhaps the following piece—written by Philippines Free Press Associate Editor Ricky Torre—is a welcome step back into irreverence.
Can We Just Stop And Talk A While (The Situationist Version)
Music by Jose Mari Chan
Lyrics by Jose Mari Chan and Karl Marx
Fancy meeting you alone in the crowd,
couldn’t help but notice your smile.
While the hoi polloi around us is going about,
can we just stop and talk awhile?
I’ve been often told the pretty-bourgeois
is a social class that’s harder to fight.
Do tell me more about yourself
for my reeducation, if you won’t mind?
A social investigation
awaits the sub-committee
right down in the countryside.
Liberation from cash payment,
hurly-burly of the city life.
Criticism self-criticism.
It’s the first day of the rest of our lives.
Can we just stop and talk awhile
et nous sommes le pouvoir,
sommes tous indesirarles.
There is no place in the struggle for the liberals.
Let’s stop and talk awhile
Let’s stop and talk awhile
Let’s stop and talk awhile
Let’s stop and talk awhile
