Linda Kosut: Music, Video, Radio

• MP3 play whole song, hi-fi (broadband)

This is a piece that Oscar Brown Jr. wrote with just voice and drum.  It's called "Muffled Drums." Before I knew the date of the piece, I thought he wrote it after the assassination of Marin Luther King. But when I found out the year it was written, 1965 (three years earlier than either MLK's or Bobby Kennedy's assassinations), and in conversations with his daughter, Maggie Brown, I discovered it was written about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

It was then that I realized the depth of Oscar's pain. He knew that JFK was a sea change. And the pain JFK's death brought to him and to our culture.

I love this piece and I have performed it many times. However, I will no longer do it for fear that the crazies out there will make it real once more.

(excuse the Garage Band drum track)

MUFFLED DRUMS

Words & Music: Oscar Brown Jr., 1965

 

To the pound of muffled drums

Behold, a fallen chieftain comes

Caissons drawn by steeds snow white

But to his eye now all is night

Cannon boom, a grand salute

But to his ear their mouths are mute

And his mind can give no thought

To grave events the day has brought.

To the pound of muffled drums

And flanked by warriors, here he comes

Past the marble citadels

Wherein our sovereign power dwells

Let the governments of men

And every single citizen

Witness what our native hate

Today has cost our nation state.

To the pound of crepe draped drums

Behold, the man and as he comes

Pray the preacher and the priest

Will draw this parallel at least

That like Jesus he has died

And both of them were crucified

Jesus’ cross on Calvary’s height

The other on a rifle sight.

To the pound of muffled drums

Behold the fallen chieftain comes

Genius blasted into clay

It’s dust we now must cart away

Let a cry that hate is hell

Arise above the bigots yell

Let that be one lesson learned

From this great dust to dust returned.