Resistance Song for Day 38 - "Common Sense" by John Prine

Day 38 - "Common Sense" by John Prine

Songwriter John Prine.

      Issues that face Democrats include, but are not limited to:  unity, coherence, planning, law enforcement, and immigration.  This John Prine tune addresses all of these, advocating common (read:  very uncommon, it seems) sense as the solution.

     The style is unmistakable:  solid but unspectacular guitar music and trinary (i.e. roughly anapest, de-de-DUM) rhythms in the verses.  In this particular case the choruses are (de-DUM) iambic.  It is these things, coupled with the simple--often childlike--themes and language, that make it difficult to rid ourselves of these earworms.  No one writes a more singable song than John Prine.

     Yesterday's DNC vote was a rare example of common sense in action.  Knowing that it came down to a polarizing choice between Tom Perez and Keith Ellison, the two frontrunners went to dinner together and agreed to share power.  Cynics who think "Deputy Chair" might be a meaningless position should ask themselves if Ellison would accept such an arrangement for long.  He becomes the canary in the mine shaft;  if he disappears the party loses.  Again.  Somehow, centrist and progressive leaders have figured out they can't win on their own.  The Party is like a boxer who wakes up one morning and discovers he has a left arm.  Brilliant!

Lyrics:

You can't live together
You can't live alone
Considering the weather
Oh my, how you've grown
From the men in the factories
To the wild kangaroo
Like those birds of a feather
They're gathering together
And feeling
Exactly like you
 

See also:  "The masses are asses."

They got mesmerized
By lullabies
And limbo danced
In pairs
Please lock that door
It don't make much sense
That common sense
Don't make no sense
No more

Just between you and me
It's like pulling
When you ought to be shovin,
Like a nun
With her head in the oven
Please don't tell me
That this really wasn't nothing

One of these days
One of these nights
You'll take off your hat
And they'll read you
Your rights
You'll wanna get high
Every time you feel low
Hey, Queen Isabella
Stay away from that fella
He'll just get you
Into trouble, you know?

But they came here by boat
And they came here by plane
They blistered their hands
And they burned out their brain
All dreaming a dream
That'll never come true
Hey, don't give me no trouble
Or I'll call up my double
We'll play piggy-in-the-middle
With you

You'll get mesmerized
By alibis
And limbo dance in pairs
Please lock that door
It don't make much sense
That common sense
Don't make no sense
No more