Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)

Subject: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 01:10 PM

Art Thieme just sent out a link to this new song from Bruce "Utah" Phillips. We have spoken on the Mudcat before about how unhappy some of us are that NPR's format has become so mainstream. Well, Utah, who calls hmself the Man With No Rant Control has written a great song about it and said to pass it around, so please click here to hear him sing it.

Here is a link to the page at his website which has the lyrics.

GREAT SONG!! Thanks, Art, for passing it on!

kat

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 01:16 PM

Got the song kat, but I couldn't get the site you linked.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 01:24 PM

Sorry about that, thanks, Spaw...try this one, instead.

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: JenEllen
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 02:59 PM

Got it to work, great song, thanks for passing it along.
~Elle

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 04:48 PM

Great link, Kat! It's so true- every time I get the fleeting thought that maybe I should break down and send a check to the local NPR station, within 5 minutes something happens on the air to make me change my mind!

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 10:31 PM

Thanks Kat. Maybe some day I'll be able to put up with my computer long enough to learn how to do all that stuff. In the mean time, for a guy with not a lot of stuff to do, I manage to fill the hours pretty darn well. So your expertise is greatly appreciated.

Art

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jul 00 - 10:52 PM

Anytime, darlin', anytime....luvya

Subject: RE: Great NPR Rant Song by UTAH PHILLIPS!
From: Jim Krause
Date: 19 Jul 00 - 12:32 PM

Usually I don't do other folks' material, because of copyright laws and such. Probably some misunderstanding of all the vagueries of the law on my part. Methinks I may make an exception here. Except my local NPR station is the only one in these parts that would play stuff by Woody, and Utah, and Bill Staines, and Kate Wolf, and Christine Lavin, and all the rest. So when they come around every year with their tin cup out, I usually cave in and fork over a few bucks.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE TALKING NPR BLUES (Utah Phillips)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 11:11 PM

Might as well have the lyrics here, don't you think? Utah's website says "Pass it around."

THE TALKING NPR BLUES
By U. Utah Phillips

I turned on my radio, spun the dial,
Thought I'd listen to some news for a while.
I grabbed the knob, spun it around,
Got NPR… Here's what I found:

Real news? Hardly a trace,
Just one damn marathon market place.
The NASDAQ's up, the Dow's in the cellar,
And NPR sold out to Rockefeller.

Hostile takeover… Real hostile.

Well, I hear about all the anti-trust
And all the day-traders who bit the dust,
Mergers, buyouts and acquisitions,
Low down crooks in high positions,

Wheelers, dealers, and CEO's
Fired and paid off through the nose,
Buying yachts and fancy homes
With the bailout money from the savings and loans.

And I get pissed… Off, that is.

It's dot-com this and dot-com that.
The underwriters are getting fat
On airwaves stole from you and me
By a bunch of thieves called the FCC.

They don't give a damn what we want and need.
They've all caved in to corporate greed
And sold us out to the ruling class.
Well, the whole damn bunch can kiss my… Dot-Com!

This is a family show, folks.
The FCC says watch your language.
English.
What's yours?

I got tired of being treated like a veg
So I called up the station and canceled my pledge.
In a mighty act of liberation,
Sent the money off to my community station.

I said, "I love you, but if you blow it,
I'll sure as hell let you know it.
I'll knock the radio off the shelf,
Buy a transmitter, and do it myself."

Whitebeard the Pirate.

This is radio station H O B O
Broadcasting on a vagrancy of 60 to 90 days
Signing off
For now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 10:26 PM

I dunno what Utah Phillips' local NPR station is like, but that situation doesn't pertain at KUOW-FM, my local NPR affiliate. News programs from NPR, Public Radio International, and the BBC, along with some excellent local programming, including hour-long monthly interviews with the Mayor of Seattle, the King County Executive, and the State Governor, and other officials, during which people can call in and ask tough questions—which, believe me, they do! And KUOW has some of its own overseas correspondents.

This, along with interviews and features with authors, musicians, and other notables, both in and traveling through the area. The interviewers, Steve Sher, Ross Reynolds, Marcy Silman, and the rest are sharp and on top of things.

Weekends, along with plenty of news, are usually given over to programs such as "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" (comedy news quiz), Prairie Home Companion, This American Life, and similar features.

I can't complain at all. Excellent coverage, along with no perceivable biases. About as genuinely "fair and balanced" as there is out there.

Just had to get that in there.

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, there are two other NPR affiliated stations in this area:   KBCS-FM in Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle (Bellevue Community College), which, along with the NPR news features, plays a lot of folk music of various kinds; and KPLU-FM in Tacoma (about 30 miles south of Seattle, at Pacific Lutheran University). Same news source, but local programming is mostly jazz.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)
From: mousethief
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 12:23 AM

This doesn't sound anything like my local NPR station, KPLU (Tacoma/Seattle). There's a little business news but most of it is regular news about what's going on in the world, and the long-format news stories that they do so well and that nobody else does.

I wonder what is meant by NPR "going mainstream". What's mainstream? And opposed to what? When did this horrible change take place? I've been listening to NPR for 20+ years and haven't noticed a great tidal wave of change in their news coverage. What have I been missing?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 09:15 AM

Love the song!
I live in the intersection of two very different public radio stations. WEPR is part of the South Carolina Educational Radio Network and is what you would call 'mainstream,' in format, content, and the way they run their operation. (Of course to an old conservative like me, 'mainstream' is still pretty well synonymous with 'left.' Perceivable bias is of course in the eye of the perceiver!)
The other station I can pull in (which I prefer) is WNCW, a college-town station in North Carolina. Their format is about as far from public-radio-top-forty as you can get. The majority of their music is indie, local, folk, roots, old-time, bluegrass, etc... you pretty much never know what you're going to hear next, which is a delightful change from just about every other station I can receive.
-Glenn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)
From: open mike
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:49 PM

all those previous links went to "404 not found" so i am glad the lyrics were posted here...Utah did have a radio show called the
Hobo's Jungle of the Mind or something like that...broadcast from KVMR in Nevada City, and syndicated over several other stations (probably not NPR affiliates??)


Greg Brown has a lyric similar to "smug as a commentator from NPR" in one of his songs...I think it is set to rhyme with "thump thump car" or something describing vehicles with boom box speakers that nearly shatter your ears (and the car windows)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)
From: Mark Ross
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 01:28 PM

http://www.thelongmemory.com/
Talking NPR Blues can be heard on the jukebox at this site.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Talking NPR Blues (Utah Phillips)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 May 12 - 07:45 AM

SPAM ALERT