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 Homage to Young Men - with Nizlopi

Homage to Young Men

Click here for 7 minute BBC interview & "Rap"

(Broadcast 1010, 16 February 2006, on the MacAulay & Co show)

Download MP3 of the Homage track here for free (10MB)

(by generous courtesy of Nizlopi)

Right: Performance of the Homage at the Glasgow ABC,  16 September 2006, with Nizlopi's John Parker (left) & Luke Concannon (centre) - Photo: Cat Vernal, Luath Press.

Words by Alastair McIntosh based on an extemporary performance with Nizlopi at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, 19 January 2006, following on from performance of their No. 1 hit single, the JCB Song, which is about fathers and sons. 

Critic's Review: Campaigning academic, lecturer, speaker, writer, poet, broadcaster and best selling author of Soil and Soul Alastair McIntosh made a special guest appearance on stage with the boys. As Luke and John took a back seat, playing their instruments in the background, Alastair spoke his inspiring, thought provoking poem 'Homage to Young Men', it worked brilliantly and the crowd loved it! -  5* concert review in icScotland

The Homage has now been recorded with Nizlopi for release on 4th September on their new album - ExtraOrdinary - see www.Nizlopi.com. My poetry collection from Luath Press, Love and Revolution, contains the Homage text and is being published on the same day. I will be performing the Homage live with Nizlopi at the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham on Sunday 27 August, and at the ABC in Glasgow on Saturday 16 September 2006. Love and Revolution can be advance-ordered from Amazon, and is available at a special price bundled with ExtraOrdinary from Recordstore. ExtraOrdinary can also be bought bundled with my earlier book, Soil and Soul, which has just sold its 10,000th copy. 

By the way, the Homage is fake "rap" from somebody's old man who's half deaf, struggles to understand these young folk's music, and wonders why the album can't be made available on vinyl or cassette tape - so don't be fooled ... accept only real fakes - but here's the words to be going on with as printed in Love and Revolution! 

Homage to Young Men

… chorus by Nizlopi’s Luke Concannon

I want to talk to all the young men out there

It’s for the women too, but especially the men,

            'cos it’s tough to be a young man in this world

You have to face so much heartbreak and loss

In love and career and life

It’s easy to forget the meaning and give up

To burn up or sell out to addictions, despair or greed

Easy to forget that life’s a journey

with a beginning, a middle and an end

It’s about navigating the future, your future

It’s about learning to become a man who’s real,

and able to love

Are you waiting for me?

Are your hands down in the dirt?

We belong together

I’ve been longing since my birth

To be arms around you

To be true to who we are

To let all our pain out

To be playing in your heart

So let’s talk about the first stage of life

The departure, when your boat is pushed out on the river

Most of who you are is still your small self

The you your family has made you,

your schooling and your friends

You’ve still not found your deep self, your Great Self,

'cos that’s what the journey’s for

So you set out, full of hope, but with a heavy load

All the baggage of your upbringing

All the love, yes, but the fuckedupness too

Maybe the absent father, or the smothering mother,

or the cold indifference of those around you

It’s no wonder you’ve a rough ride coming

It’s gonna get tough and it’s got to

So you can find yourself

So you can become, a real man

And that’s when you hit the second stage of life

The initiation in the rapids and the storms

That’s when you find the pain of brokenheartedness

Love affairs that fail, failures in career

and all your hopes for what the world might have been

Plenty young men founder grazed on such jagged rocks as these

Bruised and angry in a storm of violence towards self and others

But it doesn’t have to stay like that

No, my friends, not if you push on and open to the inner grace

that will bring you courage

The courage to face reality as it is,

without lies

The courage to know your wound but to outgrow it,

and insist on beauty

The courage to open your heart,

to hold fast to truth,

and to stand each step in dignity

And that’s the courage that brings your boat to the third stage of life

To see how your small self is held in a greater Self

And that you’re fit to be an elder in your community,

able to share the gifts and the blessings

Able to support and inspire what gives life among your people

And to love your beloved,

to love and be loved by the Beloved no less, my friends

Because we’re talking here of love in all its meanings

And you can only love with a deepening heart

And that is why you had to grow courage on this journey to the ocean

That’s what your battle wounds on the field of life were all about

That, my dear friends,

is what qualifies you

to be a man in your community

Capable of loving and able to be loved...

Capable of loving

and able to be loved...

Capable of loving

and able

to be

loved

Download MP3 of the Homage track here for free (10MB)

(by generous courtesy of Nizlopi)

Internet Users Please Note: The material on this page is original text as submitted to the publication stated beneath the title. As the editing process means that some parts may have been cut, altered or corrected after it left my hands, or I might have made minor subsequent amendments, or scanned material may contain scanning errors, please specify in citation “internet version from www.AlastairMcIntosh.com” as well as citing the place of first publication. Note that author particulars, including contact address(es) and organisational affiliations may have changed since first publication.

This material is © Alastair McIntosh and any co-authors and/or first publishers. However (and without prejudice to any legal rights of co-authors or the original or subsequent publishers), I give my permission for it to be freely copied for non-commercial educational purposes provided that due acknowledgement is given. Please advise of any uses that might particularly interest me. For commercial enquires, please contact original publishers and/or email me, mail@AlastairMcIntosh.com. Thanks, folks, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

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 9 February 2006

www.AlastairMcIntosh.com