WEBVTT

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We don't remember but I imagine
that a baby yells so much,

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it must be very indignant.

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It must really want to go back.

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[FROM AUDIENCE] You were
splashed the first minute

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you ever wrote.

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[THOM GUNN] Right.

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[LAUGHTER]

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There's some very good
line in Shakespeare

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about we cry when
we leave the world,

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and we cry when we come into it.

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An awful place
the world must be.

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First thing you know is
being slapped, right?

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This is a rather
different kind of song.

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Until fairly recent times, most
selling of goods was done--

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well, not in stores but
in more movable places.

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That is, people carry--

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in villages, in small
towns, in market towns,

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even in large towns like
London, maybe early New York,

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people carry trays
around or set up

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stalls, which would
be strictly movable.

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And I think this was probably
the origin of street cries.

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And that you would want
to know where you could

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buy such and such a thing.

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It wasn't just a
question of going round

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to a store you know
was going to be there,

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you have to keep your ears open.

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And so they had street
cries, sweet lavender,

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and fresh bread and all that.

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And sometimes these developed
into rhymes or even songs.

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And the Elizabethans
particularly

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were fond of making
highly ornate and literary

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songs called street songs
that probably were much too

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sophisticated ever
to be sung on streets

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but which you find in some of
the Elizabethan collections

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of songs.

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Well, this was about three,
four years ago, about 1968.

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I wrote a modern street
sign for a famous street

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in San Francisco.

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I call it just "Street Song."

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"I am too young to grow
a beard but yes man it

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was me you heard in dirty
denim and dark glasses.

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I look through
everyone who passes.

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But ask him clear,
I do not plead,

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keys lids acid and speed.

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My grass is not oregano,.

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Some of it grew in Mexico.

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You cannot guess
the weed I hold.

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Clara Green, Acapulco
Gold, Panama Red,

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you name it man, best on
the street since I began.

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My methedrine, my
double-sun, will give you

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two lives in your one,
five days of power

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before you crash, at which
time use these lumps of hash.

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They burn so sweet,
they smoke so smooth,

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they make you sharper
while they soothe.

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Now here, the best
I've got to show,

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made by a righteous cat I know.

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Pure acid.

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It will scrape your brain and
make it something else again.

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Call it heaven, call
it hell, join me

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and see the world I sell.

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Join me, and I will
take you there,

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your head will cut out from
your hair into whichever self

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you choose.

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With Midday Mick
man you can't lose,

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I'll get you anything you need.

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Keys lids acid and speed."

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