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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Zor and Zam

   Okay I’ll admit it…I’m a Monkees fan. I’ve been a fan since I was a child and exposure to other music genres and the experiences I’ve had in my life over the last thirty years has not change that fact. Even today, I enjoy the melodies and find many of the lyrics to still have relevance. 
   Recently I listened to a song called Zor and Zam and it got me thinking about the application of the point of the song if applied today…in real life. I mean, what would happen if everyone today did what everyone in the song did?

   Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for anarchy or revolution, I’m just thinking out loud about what the enforcement of the will of the people would look like if we collectively woke up all at once. Of course it’s a pipe dream (as in you have to be smoking the wacky tabacky) to think it could ever happen. Such an undertaking would have to be worldwide, and we can’t even come to one accord in this country, never mind the entire world.


   I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me rewind and clarify the point of the song by taking a look at the lyrics:

The king of Zor, he called for war
And the king of Zam, he answered.
They fashioned their weapons one upon one
Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun.

Out went the call to one and to all
That echoed and rolled like the thunder.
Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar
More upon more.
Rolling the call of "Come now to war."

Throughout the night they fashioned their might
With right on the side of the mighty.
They puzzled their minds plan upon plan
Man upon man
And at dying of dawn the great war began.

They met on the battlefield banner in hand.
They looked out across the vacant land.
And they counted the missing, one upon one,
None upon none.
The war it was over before it begun.

Two little kings playing a game.
They gave a war and nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.

   So the long and short of it is two kings called for war, and the people told them to pound sand. It sounds simplistic, but I hear a whole lot more when I listen to the song and see a whole lot more when I read the lyrics.
  
   I see people taking back the political system by showing up and voting in people that don’t belong to either of the two main political parties. I see solidarity to correct the plague that has become police brutality. I see people taking back their health and showing the medical “industry” that health isn’t about making money but taking care of each other. I see people not always looking at those things that make us different as a way to divide us, but looking at those things we have in common to unite us.

   Maybe I’m looking too hard and seeing too much, but I know things don’t have to stay the way they are and with a little courage to stand up to Zor and Zam, things could not only be different…but better!


   Think about it…then be about it.










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