Almost Cut My Hair

Quick on the heels of new project, Rock Stars Against Freedom, and their re-interpretation of Neil Young’s song Helpless, re-imagined as Gutless, is a second song, which is another re-imagining of an old classic, again with a Neil Young connection, this time Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s 1970 hippie anthem of defiance, Almost Cut My Hair, which has now become Almost Didn’t Get My Booster Shot.

*Actually, stepping away from satire, I’ve just looked up that song Almost Cut My Hair, which involves standing strong in attitude against the oppression of the establishment - as demonstrated by not getting a haircut - and to be honest the only words from it I consciously knew were the title itself, but I see now it’s actually uncanny how fitting it is for my purpose.

If you remember, 60s icons like Neil “Rockin’ in the Free World” Young and Joni Mitchell demanded Spotify remove Joe Rogan from its platform in protest of his speaking to genuine medical experts like Robert Malone, who had very different things to say about lockdowns, forced vaccines, and how safe and effective these unproven “vaccines” were.  Oh my God! Misinformation! Shut him down! He’s going to get us all killed! 

So when Spotify stuck with Joe Rogan and the little bit of free speech still doing the rounds, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, obediently at one in ethos with the establishment and also presumably obediently terrified of death, removed their music from the platform in protest of said free speech. 

So anyway, the actual lyrics below to Almost Cut My Hair:

Almost cut my hair 

Happened just the other day 
It's gettin' kind of long 
I could've said it was in my way

But I didn't and I wonder why 
I feel like letting my freak flag fly 
And I feel like I owe it, yeah ... to someone, yeah

Well, must be because I had the flu this Christmas 
Oh, yeah and I'm not feeling up to par 
Oh, I tell you baby this increases my paranoia 
Yeah, like looking in my mirror and seeing a police car

Well, well, I'm not, I'm not giving in an inch to fear 
Well, you know I've promised myself this year 
Well, I feel oh, like I owe it, I owe, I owe it to someone 
Oh ... like I owe it to someone

. . . Separate the wheat from some chaff 
Oh, and I feel ... 
Like I owe it, yeah ... to someone

So just cos he had the flu didn’t mean he was going to give in an inch to fear. That’s the attitude. The wheat was going to get separated from the chaff, with the wheat standing strong and, consumed with said fear,  the chaff bowing down. And this below from Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock:

I came upon a child of God

He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm *
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free 

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

So beautiful. This fearless child of God. There’s nothing higher than spirit. Except maybe complete faith in government coercion and endless fear for the demise of the physical body - which of course, however much fear it tries to defend itself with, is going to die regardless. So there had been a slight shift from the sentiment of Timothy Leary’s 60s mantra of “Turn on, tune in drop out” towards an attitude of more, “Turn on the mainstream media, tune in, bow down.” By contrast, I don’t think Van Morrison ever made too much self-eulogising noise about flying his freak flag, but here was his response when the pressure came on hard and the relentless propaganda of fear and coercion was pouring out:

 No more lockdown 

No more government overreach 
No more fascist police 
Disturbing our peace

No more taking our freedom 
And our God-given rights 
Pretending it's for our safety 
When it's really to enslave

Who's running our country? 
Who's running our world? 
Examine it closely 
And watch it unfurl

No more lockdown 
No more threats 
No more Imperial College scientists makin' up crooked facts

No more lockdown 
No more pulling the wool over our eyes 
No more celebrities tellin' us 
Tellin' us what wе're supposed to feel 
No more status quo 
Put your shouldеr to the wind

And in another song, Where Have all the Rebels Gone he said about these supposed rebels and their spirit, or absence of, now when it really mattered:

Where's the spirit, where's the soul? 
Where have all the rebels gone?

Why don't they come out of the woodwork now? 
One for the money, two for the show 
It's not very rock and roll 
Where have all the rebels gone?

Where have all the rebels gone? 
Waitin' for someone else to make a move 
Why are they sittin' on the fence? 
Well, it's some kind of pretence 
They're not sayin' much at all 
Where have all the rebels gone?

Were they really all that tough? 
Or was it just a PR stunt? 
One for the money, two for the show 
Where have all the rebels gone?

I can't find anyone 
Where have all the rebels gone? 
I can't find, no not one 
Bravo

So the wheat really did get separated from the chaff. Just a reminder, in the wake of the relentless apocalyptic fear-mongering that had those tuning into it paranoid and terrified, of my own idea for a song: Why Didn’t Covid Wipe Out the Homeless?