The new Steve Earle album "Jerusalem" came out this week. It's another in a string of really great albums dating back to his, um, little incarceration issue. Unfortunately all the press he's getting is over one particular track, "John Walker Blues." Some idiot DJ in Nashville starting comparing Steve to Jane Fonda a few months ago when advance word of the track came out. I actually corresponded with that guy via e-mail for a bit after he started his schtick and the guy is completely off-the-wall. He's never really listened to the track, obviously. It's not a glorification of Walker's actions. It's just the story of a confused kid. As Steve says...
"I'm happy with the way the song came out, but I'm nervous, not for myself, but I have taken some serious liberties with Walker, speaking as him, in his voice. I'm trying to make clear that wherever he got to, he didn't arrive there in a vacuum. I don't condone what he did. Still, he's a 20 year-old kid. My son Justin is almost exactly Walker's age. Would I be upset if he suddenly turned up fighting for the Islamic Jihad? Sure, absolutely. Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion too. But there are circumstances. Walker was from a very bohemian household, from Marin County. His father had just come out of the closet. It's hard to say how that played out in Walker's mind. He went to Yemen because that's where they teach the purest kind of Arabic. He didn't just sit on the couch and watch the box, get depressed and complain. He was a smart kid, he graduated from high school early, the culture here didn't impress him, so he went out looking for something to believe in."
So, as a public service, here are the lyrics. It's also on the cd that I'm gonna get sent out one day. I know, I promised. Oops!
John Walker's Blues
I'm just an American boy raised on MTV
And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads
But none of 'em looked like me
So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
Of Mohammed, peace be upon him
chorus:
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God
If my daddy could see me now – chains around my feet
He don't understand that sometimes a man
Has got to fight for what he believes
And I believe God is great, all praise due to him
And if I should die, I'll rise up to the sky
Just like Jesus, peace be upon him
chorus
We came to fight the Jihad and our hearts were pure and strong
As death filled the air, we all offered up prayers
And prepared for our martyrdom
But Allah had some other plan, some secret not revealed
Now they're draggin' me back with my head in a sack
To the land of the infidel
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah