1. |
Stand Looking Around You
01:24
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Stand Looking Around You (3/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Prepared 12-string guitar, vocals
(Words are from the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians)
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2. |
3am
03:39
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3am (11/86) (A Film Score)
Sue Ann Harkey - Zither, Bowed 12-string guitar, Cut-Up Tape
(Jungle sounds recorded in Tikal, Guatemala and El Cacao, Nicaragua by Robert Hinrix)
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3. |
Expansionism
04:54
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Expansionism (4/86 & 9/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Toy Piano Insides, Chinese String Drum, 25¢ Sitar, Various percussion and whistles
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4. |
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Thousands Of Years And Thousands Of Miles (6/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Mandolin, words and vocals
Cinnie Cole - Banjo and Bass
(Banjo and Mandolin were recording live as an improvisation)
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Thousands Of Years And Thousands Of Miles
The smell of campfire lingers on my Huipil
I see the dripping weight pounded against the stone
The river mud reaches this city from my back
It can rot the weave
The green and brown of the natural world
The florescent cultures bounce from their spectra
Woven into images
They tell a story
A tune of the people
A passage of ancient time
Those primitive complexities
Allow time to know the abstractions
The comprehensions of the natural world
Once the time to see the stars
To study the connections
To know the earth as life
We as modern beings
Have lost that
By knowing
Everything but it
The instincts of a wild world
Challenged our own
Unfortunately we won
This cat of mine is my Milkyway
This city is my canyon
This subway my river
This job is my harvest
These Con-Ed bills are my seasons
This TV is my moon
This alarm clock my sun
The hard times in the midst of nature
When she determined us
When we read her rather than wrote her
Those times with time
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5. |
Wood and Steel
02:55
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Wood & Steel (8/85)
Sue Ann Harkey - Steel Drum and Gato Drum
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6. |
Industrialization
05:07
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Industrialization (8/85 & 4/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Steel Drum, Balafon, Toy Drums, Bells
Paul Hoskin - Contrabass and Soprano Clarinets
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7. |
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We Can't Expect A Government To Say To Children Something Like This…
Sue Ann Harkey - Piano and Cut-Up Tape
(Monologue by Doris Lessing
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8. |
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There Is No Such Thing As The Masses
Sue Ann Harkey - Tenor Guitar, Mandolin, words and vocals
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There's No Such Thing As Then Masses
Will they blame you
Will they blame you for
For their life
Blame them for their lives
Or will we blame them
For our death
And distraction of this planet
There will be no change
There will be no BIG change
No revolution
No resurrection
There is only the slow steady pace
Of this planet in motion
If there were no wars
If there were no boundaries
Do you think that moralities would
Become like nations?
There's no such thing as the masses
The military is a class of its own
Death is for the living
"History is a recent invention"
I feel like I am in the midst of a very slow dawn
The shadows show themselves gradually, timidly
You can't use violence against a violent society
Because they are prepared for it
Because they are better at it
Because they are the ones who built the arsenal
I'm not fighting for their arsenal
One-by-one we unite as pacifists
Leaving no one for their armies
Leaving no one for their factories
peaselovelifepeacelovelifepeacelovelife
Only if they would destroy it themselves
peaselovelifepeacelovelifepeacelovelife
Only if they will destroy it themselves
I feel like I have just let go of a balloon
And am watching it be pulled up into the sky
The means is the end in pacifism
"Passivity does not mean non-action
It's abstaining from activity contrary to nature"
Governments are doing nothing more than
Practicing their own personal politics
July 1987
(Quotes from Paul Hoskin and Marilyn French, Beyond Power)
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9. |
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Las Madres Del Plaza De Mayo (1/85 & 10/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Three Zither Tracks, Cut-Up Tape
(Monologue by John Stockwell)
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10. |
The Greenhouse Effect
07:30
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The Greenhouse Effect (6/85)
Sue Ann Harkey - 25¢ Sitar, Prepared 12-string guitar, Balafon, various Percussion and Whistles, Cut-Up Tape
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11. |
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Prepared 12-String Guitar Solo Improvisation (11/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Prepared 12-String Guitar
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12. |
So Long
04:33
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So Long
Sue Ann Harkey - Words and Vocals, Ambience Recording
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So Long
I could imagine what the rest of his body might look like
From glancing at his wrists
Which he adorned with strands of black leather
That together formed a wide band around the slender neck of his arm
Like a paisley design, his muscles widened from there
And disappeared under the sleeve of his many shirts
The skin was so white…
Contrasted by the individual black hairs
Which lay in a very intentional direction
Just like the hair on a cat's nose
I indulge in the thought
That these same characteristics would occur
Just below his narrow waist
Starting at the navel in a thin
Downward line of black hair
Like the great continental divide
East from West and Right from Left
And I would smooth out the symmetry
With the tips of my fingers
Gently stroking the hairs into place
Like the calm caressing of my cat
Once he settles into my lap
A young Che Guevara
With a young beard
Who carries the only dark eyes
Which have absorbed me from any first encounter
Now shows me the awkwardness of an attraction being avoided
Here with each week that passes
I realize how much I fill all my cups of hope in vain
Tantalized by just the thought of A potential
How in my conceit I improvise a vessel for my affections
Flirting with the prospect as well as the neglect
Of a too-busy no-fault situation
Whose fate teaches me where it does and does not matter
And how who never really mattered
… so long …
So long as we are accepting and responsive
Who turn to vulnerability
As the true conduit to love
So long as our glance is effortless
And emanates an invitation to the inside
So long as the scent from a shoulder blade
Is a breath of affirmation
… so long …
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13. |
The Beltane Fires
02:22
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The Beltane Fires (3/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Bowed 12-String Guitar, Percussion on harp body
Sharon Gannon - Long Horn Harp, Slide Whistle through echo-pled
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14. |
Bayonne, NJ
07:45
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Bayonne, NJ (4/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Prepared 12-String Guitar
Chris Cochrane - Two Guitar Tracks
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15. |
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It's Not About Them It's About Us (1/86)
Sue Ann Harkey - Tenor Guitar, Words and Vocals
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It's Not About Them, It's About Us
It's not about them, it's about us
I'm the one touching
And the one being touched
What comfort comes from
A common enemy
Its been the easy way out for too long
I have no pride
I have no shame
I have no guilt
Not hiding behind blame
It's not about them, it's about us
We are them and they are us
My thoughts have been forming as words
Silently on my lips
Details turn into generalities
Righteousness stays nice and clean
Polished by blame
Hope is replaced by disappointment
Disappointment into acceptance
nations of the dissatisfied
Rage scares me because of its effectiveness
The potential harm with or without intent
By resorting to their own methods
To achieve our objectives of peace
We enslave ourselves to the rifle forever
In defense we forsake our cause
Fascism is in every 'ISM'
Every person in every nation
Pessimism is in optimism
Truth is found in sarcasm
Hypocrisy is not unrecognizable
But it goes unrecognized
Subjectively objectified
Simple in its complexity
The end of violence
It stops at the beginning
Before it gets started
We become like them otherwise
Get them to lay down their guns
It's not up to us to pick them up
Fascism is in every 'ISM'
Every person in every nation
Pessimism is in optimism
Truth is found in sarcasm
It's not about them, it's about us
We are them and they are us
Jan. 1986
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16. |
Acoustic Improvisation
06:41
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Acoustic Improvisation (12/86)
Sue Ann Harkey - Tenor Guitar
Robert Hinrix - Acoustic 6-String Guitar
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17. |
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The Voice That Beautifies The Land (3/87)
Sue Ann Harkey - Prepared 12-String Guitar, Vocals
(word's are from the Navajo Night Chant)
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Sue Ann Harkey Seattle, Washington
Seattle - New York - London | free improvisation | prepared guitar | folktronica | weird american | indie | alternative | singer | songs | instrumentals | underground | DIY
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