Dancing Socialist Infiltration of Texas!

Album notes for my new CD:
TEXAS SOCIALIST INFILTRATION DANCE SONGS INSTIGATED AND AGITATED BY BURL DUNN

I titled this album with tongue slightly in cheek. But, I do not believe that “In the beginning God created heaven and the earth” so that T. Boone Pickens could own and control the water. I do not believe that “And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good” so that Monsanto could co-opt the sacred process and become the god of seeds.

I do believe in the Public Library, Public Health Departments, and Community Fire Departments. You see, much of what Socialism does is to provide a democratic control of things that, by logic and By God belong to the People and for the People. The early basis for laws governing broadcast radio and later TV, was that the “airwaves” belong to the People. I see no difference now that we have cable and the internet. The electromagnetic spectrum was always in the “airwaves.”

Many grandparents and great-grandparents of today’s Texans were farmers and they knew exactly who their enemies were: national banks, corporate and private monopolies topped the list. Lampasas and Parker Counties were hotbeds of activity for populist causes like cooperatives and water rights. And, Texas was the only southern state whose Farmer’s Alliance was open to black farmers!

Remember, before George W. and Rick Perry the Governor of Texas was Ann Richards. Jim Hightower was the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. Mr. Hightower (who, by the way, has great taste in hats as well as quips) managed the presidential campaign of the great Oklahoma Senator Fred Roy Harris. In one of Senator Harris’ novels an Okie grandmother expresses Biblically based disgust at the practice of making money from loans instead of work.

So just put it out of your heads that Texas is nothing but a bunch of gun-nut, racist yahoos. It’s half progressive and overdue for a progressive comeback. So keep on coming to Austin in the springtime. Keep on being the freak you are and don’t let the current national insanity overwhelm you. Don’t blame Texas.

If you take out the tragedy of the Viet Nam War from the legacy of LBJ he was one fine president. I am no more a party-line Socialist than I am a party-line Democrat. As to the title, I'll quote an old Seattle friend named Robert Smith, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!"

Search the iTunes Store for "Burl Dunn," It's also here on CD Baby. It will be available on Amazon, eMusic, and at all the usual downloading suspects.