Ten Years Later...Do The Evolution

Testing testing testingHey, kewl...I'm posting this froma friends blackberry I am not even at my blog. FUN! This sure makes a bus ride a lot more interesting.


YIELD sits on my desktop and I often give it a listen (in fact, writing this answer gave me an excuse to play it again). A teacher once told me that even though he wasn’t teaching ISHMAEL or the material in ISHMAEL, the book had changed the WAY he teaches. This pleased me more than if he’d said he was teaching my ideas. Another went to a lot of trouble to try to capture all the ideas in my books in a ninety-minute “motivational” speech. I told him he shouldn’t just try to capture my ideas in his words, he had to go BEYOND my ideas to find his OWN ideas, his OWN way of motivating people. This is what Eddie Vedder has done. He hasn’t tried to express my ideas in his songs. Changed by reading my work, he’s written songs he wouldn’t have written two years ago—but his own songs, not any songs I would ever write (if I were a song-writer). Inspiration is very different from recapitulation. The credits of he movie INSTINCT say it was “inspired” by ISHMAEL, but it makes no effort to recapitulate ISHMAEL. Of the songs in YIELD, “Do the Evolution” comes closest to being an expression of my ideas, but I suspect Vedder would find many other, more subtle connections. Two or three writers have changed my life forever in works I haven’t read for decades. I’m certainly not writing anything they would write---but the “inspiration” they gave me never goes away. Daniel Quinn 1998.


Woo..
Im ahead, Im a man
Im the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
Im at peace with my lust
I can kill cause in God I trust, yeah
Its evolution, baby

Im at piece, Im the man
Buying stocks on the day of the crash
On the loose, Im a truck
All the rolling hills, Ill flatten em out, yeah
Its herd behavior, uh huh
Its evolution, baby

Admire me, admire my home
Admire my song, heres my coat
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This land is mine, this land is free
Ill do what I want but irresponsibly
Its evolution, baby

Im a thief, Im a liar
Theres my church, I sing in the choir:
(hallelujah hallelujah)

Admire me, admire my home
Admire my song, admire my clothes
cause we know, appetite for a nightly feast
Those ignorant indians got nothin on me
Nothin, why?
Because, its evolution, baby!

I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now Im higher
Twenty-ten, watch it go to fire
Its evolution, baby (2x)
Do the evolution
Come on, come on, come on