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CREDITS
Shawn Phillips -- vocals and guitars
Peter Robinson -- keyboards
John Gustafson -- bass
Barry deSouza -- drums
Caleb Quaye -- guitar
Paul Buckmaster -- cello
Raul Mayora -- percussion
Ann Odell -- mellotron on "Starbright"
Produced by Jonathan Weston
Engineered by Django Johnny Punter
Assistant Engineer: Mark Dodson
Recorded in England at Rampart Studio, Battersea
Cover Painting by Guido Daniele and Patrizia Brambilla / Milano, Italy
Photography of Shawn Phillips by Sue Ayres
Group photograph by Michael Putland
Co-ordinated by Mountain Fjord Limited, London
All selections written by Shawn Phillips except "January First" Phillips / Robinson and "Planscape" Phillips / Buckmaster
Musical Direction by Peter Robinson and Paul Buckmaster
Orchestra conducted by Martyn Ford
Special Requirements administered by Henry Neuman
Timely assistance provided by Mary Rigby
Special thanks to: Jane Dadswell, Jeffrey Levinson, Paul Nunn, the Staff at Rampart Studio
LINER NOTES
"If you gonna stand there and moo, you better give milk"
This album was inspired by the poem "Freeway's Child" written by my father, James Atlee Phillips
Freeway's child is full of woe
like being black and eight years old
and slowly gassed by settling fumes
pouring carbon-monoxide down from concrete heaven
thirty feet above his room
Black child, stinking slum, shit on stairs
rat-gnawed crib and pounding juke-box airs,
walled off from heaven by raw cement leaven
of roaring semis and hastening gas-bags bearing victors
to unsafe homes, in this Amerika ...
Danger in the dark and dangerous maze
and freeway's child alert as poisoned rat
learning the big lesson; never call
for those pot-gutted pigs who are in thrall
to Rotary, and good government, and all
those who cringe with fear at Afro-tops
Dark child learns, picks up quick
that pigs in uniform license and allot
crime, nourishment, and visiting clergy
Knives may slash, rapists work, and perversions grow
if you gave at the precinct do ...
Wolf gone, buffalo gone, and passenger pigeon
Indian fading at Wounded Knee
So who furnishes trophy heads for overweight white golfers?
What game animal for the great white hunters of NRA?
I think that I shall never see
Amerikan equality, with a roaring bridge for father
Much less a bus, a sun, a tree
And unless the freeway's fall
I may never know a life at all
Freeway's child, born black and much afraid
aged eight, fixing on carbon-monoxide, trying to escape
the white man's troops and traps
Trying to make it, three meals a day, sweating
pure African sweat, trying to get
to ten year's old ...
A would-be life looks out, attentive
from the eyes of small boy, early filled with pain,
wondering about his options ...
To be a murderer or aspire, to what some people say
is the company of his peers ...
Bang the dread drum now, for freeway's child
black as the gloom he lives in
Toll the knell for his hopeless and defiled
fate, in Amerika ...
Rockabye, black baby, while the semis roll
across your freeway father, the privileged limo
and the politico
Croon a sunless tune to an unseen moon,
courtesy of your Creator, also white, if you have a view
Freeway's child, goodbye!
Copyright 1974 by James Atlee Phillips / All rights reserved / Used by permission |
