Yesterday I told you about You Can't Do That! - a jazz celebration of the right to smoke and drink without officialdom poking its PC nose in, from the Boisdale Blue Rhythm Band.
The eighteen smoke-easy classics are bookended by two new tracks deploring the ban on consensual smoking in public, I'm Going Outside, with musing by BBC Jazz Musician of the Year Alan Barnes, and words by playwright Alan Plater:
I'm going outside, I may be some time
It was good enough for Churchill, but now it’s a crime
The puritans in Whitehall say I’m lower than slime
So I'm going outside and I may be some time
They've issued banning orders to the taprooms and clubs
You can only have a smoke if you’re in Wormwood Scrubs
The wagging of the fingers and the shaking of heads
Have sent us all a-scurrying to the cycle sheds.
And The Last Smoker has music by Boisdale pianist Simon Wallace and words by the great Fran Landesman:
The last smoker stares hopelessly out in the rain
The last smoker is searching his pockets in vain
The smoke police are closing in, their sniffers never fail
If they detect a whiff of smoke, the culprit goes to jail
The new people are clean living god fearing folk
They drink nothing that’s stronger than diet Coke...
It's great fun, and normally costs £10. But I've sweet-talked Simon Clark of Forest, the Free Society organization, to offer up 50 copies to our UK and European readers free of charge! Simon will send a free CD (postage paid) to the first 50 UK and European readers (one CD only per household) who email their full name and address to him at contact@forestonline.org . Simon's only keeping the offer open for 14 days, so move fast!
