Recommended: Every Bloody Emperor

The stuff that’s been going down in North Africa and Middle East has sprung especially one song to my mind. It’s Every Bloody Emperor by Van der Graaf Generator. VdGG is a progressive rock group formed in the late 1960s and brought back from the dead in the noughts. This song is from their comeback album Present released in 2005. They also have a brand new album A Grounding in Numbers out on Esoteric Records.

Peter Hammill sings at Bluesfest 2009. Originally posted to Flickr by ceedub13 (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence)

Dictators clinging to their throne, angry people, propaganda, it’s all in the lyric of Peter Hammill. Here are few chosen lines:

Truth’s been beaten to its knees; the lies embed ad infinitum
till their repetition becomes a dictum
we’re traitors to disbelieve.
With what impotence we grieve for the democratic process
as our glorious leaders conspire to feed us
the last dregs of imperious disdain
in the new empire’s name.

Here’s a live performance of the song that has found its way to YouTube:

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