{"id":1033,"date":"2010-05-11T15:14:30","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T19:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2010-05-13T06:57:33","modified_gmt":"2010-05-13T10:57:33","slug":"new-york-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/new-york-5\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\/Slogan and a Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

We’re all a bit jumpy here in New York since the discovery of an SUV in Times Square with a makeshift bomb in it, though it was a fairly crude device that had very little chance of working in the way it was intended. The ease with which something like this can be placed is unnerving, but the fact that people (a t-shirt vendor for one) responded alertly was gratifying.<\/p>\n

In this morning’s New York Times there is an article about the phrase<\/a> “If you see something, Say something,” which has become ubiquitous on ads in the subway system. The slogan was penned by Allen Kay of \u00a0Korey Kay & Partners on assignment from the Transit Authority. It’s meant as an unintimidating prod, post 9\/11, to stay watchful for potential terrorism. For many, however, the phrase, which has seeped into the consciousness of the city and beyond, is one more sign of a growing paranoia that is eating at our souls and our sense of confidence as a society.<\/p>\n

Not long ago I wrote a song based on the phrase, played it once at Jack Hardy’s songwriters’ exchange, but have never recorded it. This morning, after reading the article, I pulled out a cheap microphone, fired up Garageband, and the result can be listened to here:<\/p>\n

if you see something say something<\/a><\/p>\n

the man in the coat looks uncomfortably hot
\nhe prays from a book he rocks back and forth
\nthe train rumbles through the rock blasted earth
\neyes shift in sockets there’s a bulge in a pocket
\nipods play private reveries<\/p>\n

roll on roll on subterranean train<\/em>
\nthrough the blind tunnel of fate<\/em>
\nroll on roll on with a fearful freight<\/em>
\nif you see something say something <\/em>
\nbefore it’s too late<\/em><\/p>\n

school kids swarm in and swing from the poles
\na mariachi band plays besame mucho
\na family from somewhere not anywhere near here
\nclings to their map of the world underground
\nipods play private reveries<\/p>\n

down in the glare air conditioned hades
\nfire and brimstone in an unattended package
\neach sudden lurch and with each random search
\neyes pry deeper into unattended musings
\nipods play private reveries<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Brian Rose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re all a bit jumpy here in New York since the discovery of an SUV in Times Square with a makeshift bomb in it, though it was a fairly crude device that had very little chance of working in the way it was intended. The ease with which something like this can be placed is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1057,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}