In the last issue of the Big Issue, London’s magazine dedicated to the homeless, I found an article about Gil Scot-Heron, the Godfather of Rap. I first heard the fiery poet in the early Seventies, when my first wife bought his first record. He was inspiring back then. One line still rings in my ears: “The revolution will not be televised.” This may have been the title of the whole record, too. Scott-Heron is fifty-one now, three years my junior. The revolution has not happened and is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes. Perhaps it would have had a better chance if it could be televised.

Addendum (May 28, 2011)

As I just learned from a quick check of one of the online newspapers I visit almost every day, Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday in New York. He was sixty-two, still three years my junior. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is the title of his best-known song, which was released in 1970, the year I arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And the year I heard the song for the first time. I just heard it again, thanks to the World Wide Web. “The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal,” he raps. “The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, brother.” Wonderful stuff. Amazingly, when I first heard these lines there was hardly any question about the revolution in my mind. It was just behind the corner. Apparently, so thought the Godfather of Rap, as well. Judging from the newspapers I just went through, drug addiction is the most likely cause of his death. Marx’s opiate of the masses turned out to be quite literal in his case.