Happy June 12 birthday to Roy “I Hate the White Man” Harper

While outside in the whitewash
Where the guns are always, always right
A shooting star has summoned
Death’s dark angel from his night

Being present in a world that has divided young from old

Roy Harper

Having taken a few months off from writing, I was anxious to see what an older person with much life experience and social commentary thought of the new world we find ourselves in. Who better to ask than musician Roy Harper?

I caught up with him over the phone. When I initially made contact with Roy, he said that he was entirely obsessed with what he is writing and thinking at present. He afforded me a rare glimpse into the mind of an artist. He explains: “I’ve been eighteen months writing this one song. It’s a difficult song. It doesn’t sound like it should be because it’s right up my street, but it requires quite a bit of concert to stay on track with it, because of shifting social sands, you know?—the pivoting points of the moral compass sort of thing? You don’t know where you are. I mean every day I hear something that confirms or denies something that I thought I knew.

The song is a tentative emotional picture of attempted mass action, written in musical prose.”

“It’s difficult to nail this down. It’s a song called ‘Politically Correct’ (at least that’s the working title.) Where is society going to now? Where is it driving itself to in such clattering confusion?

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