Electro – willowdot21

Good morning and welcome to Song Lyric Sunday. Jim Adams our indupitale and very gracious host has sent us this request.”This week the theme is to find a song that was released on an album titled Greatest Hits or Best Of. ” Thank you Jim for, as ever, organising and producing this prompt every week!

Now with a name like Alabama 3 you’d expect these guys to be from the US. Deep south even but no they are from Brixton London England. A great group introduced to me by my eldest son who’s a fan. ..Techo and garage / warehouse were his scene being a seventies child he discovered them early eighties. He has often been to see them in Brixton and lots of other places too. Now the word Hits is in the title of this Album and it does have a plethora of their best tracks so I am going with the Album Hits and Exit Wounds.

Here is a playlist !

Alabama 3 are a British musical group founded in Brixton, London, in 1995. Their track “Woke Up This Morning” was used for the opening credits of the TV series The Sopranos. In the United States, the band is known as A3, to avoid legal conflict with the country music band Alabama.

The band formed when Jake Black (born in Glasgow, Scotland; 27 April 1960 – 21 May 2019) met Rob Spragg (from Wales) at a rave in Peckham. They decided that a fusion of country music with acid house was a musical possibility. Other members of the band were added later: Nick Reynolds is the son of one of the Great Train Robbers; Rob Spragg was at university with Piers Marsh, the harmonica-player and synthesiser programmer for the band; while Orlando Harrison, the group’s keyboardist, used to live with Jake Black.

Forming initially under the name the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK), and having been dismissed by the mainstream media as a novelty act, the group switched names to Alabama 3. As with their performances under the previous name, their sound fuses electronic pop with elements of country and blues styles. They signed with One Little Indian Records in 1997 for the release of their debut album, Exile on Coldharbour Lane. Every member of the group has an alias, the band’s founding members adopting the personas Larry Love (Rob Spragg) and The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love (Jake Black). Their second album, La Peste, featured bassist John “Segs” Jennings of the Ruts under the stage name Frank Zappatista.

In August 2007, the group toured under the name of Alabama 3: Acoustic and Unplugged, with Harpo Strangelove and Devlin Love, to promote new album M.O.R.. Bassist John “Segs” Jennings left the band, saying he was “busy elsewhere and [he doesn’t] have the time”. M.O.R. included a cover of Jerry Reed‘s 1970s hit “Amos Moses”, and features The Proclaimers on the track “Sweet Joy”. Having recorded and toured with the band in the early days, Aurora Dawn rejoined the band in 2009. Between late 2010 and early 2011, programmer, harmonicist and founding member Piers Marsh left the band.

Jake Black, a founding band member and songwriter, died of Addison’s disease on 21 May 2019, several days after falling ill during a show at Highest Point Festival in Lancashire. He was 59.

This is the Track I want to highlight.

Ain’t Goin’ To Goa”

Larry Love, do you remember when I came upon you in that place of suffering in the Valley of Darkness? I took away all your pain and put love in your cold, cold heart. And from that day forward told you to go out and spread my word through music, sweet, pretty, country-acid-house music. Well that day Larry, you not only joined my church, you embraced my whole philosophy, my whole way of life. Because remember little man, don’t you go to Goa

I believe I’m gonna shut down my chakra, shift Shiva off of my shelf
Take down my tie-dyes, my Tibetan bells
Cool down my karma with a can of O.P.T
Ain’t no call for Casteneda in my Frontline library

‘Cause there’s one thing I know, Lord above
I ain’t goin’a go
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now

Yeah, people in the house

I ain’t dancing Trance, no thanks, no chance to t-t-tranquilise me
I ain’t sipping no Smart Bar drinks, yo, that don’t satisfy me
Dosing up my dharma with-a a drop of gasoline
I ain’t down with Mr McKenna, tantric mantra talking don’t move me

‘Cause there’s one thing I know, Lord above
I ain’t goin’a go
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now

I don’t need no freaky-deaky fractal geometry, crystal silicone chip
I ain’t walking ‘long lay-lines, reading no High Times, put me on another bad trip
Ah well, Timothy Leary, just check out this theory, he sold acid for the FBI
Well, he ain’t no website wonder, the guru just went under, you can keep your California sunshine

Yeah, I believe you D-Wayne

‘Cause the righteous truth is there ain’t nothing worse than some fool lying on some third-world beach in spandex psychedelic trousers smoking damn dope and pretending he getting consciousness expansion. I want consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle and I sing!

I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now
I ain’t goin’a Goa
Ain’t goin’a Goa now

Writer(s): Robert Spragg, Simon Edwards, Jake Black, Piers Watson Marsh A to Z Lyrics

A little unashamed advertising