Fleetwood Mac Forum

So like Shut Us Down was a re-write of an obscure song (by Cory Sipper if you remember) so it seems What The World's Coming To? was too. The original it turns out was by a pop/metal band called Dear Mr. President (whose one self-titled 1988 album was quickly withdrawn due to the White House owning a copyright on the name!). Singer Julian Raymond is listed as a co-writer on the song but the new lyrics by Lindsey are radically different as is the entire feel of the song.

Very interesting, thanks. How did you find out about this? I wonder how Lindsey found out about and why he felt the need to use the music instead of just writing his own for it. It's not like he doesn't know how to throw nice chords together.

Someone posted about it on The Ledge and I tracked down the MP3.

http://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showthread.php?t=41365

Christy transcribed the lyrics for it (thanks again Christy):

WTWCT lyrics by Dear. Mr. President

What's the world coming to
Love a man, love a woman
It could be dangerous
Downright dangerous.

Take a walk down your street
See the hungry and weak
Getting beatin' on (?)
While violence rages on, for no reason.

What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?

Take the light from my dreams
Shine it all around the world
Pray for wonderfulness
No more prejudice
When the devil plays his hand
It hurts, but understand
A new days got to dawn
So keep on, keepin' on.

Come on people
What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?

When I walk out late at night out over the ocean
I can feel the presence of love around me, I swear
Oh, I wonder why so few of us share this emotion.

Come on now
What's the world coming to?
How much longer can we take it?
What's the world coming to?

Come on people
What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?

When I walk out late at night out over the ocean
I can feel the presence of love around me, I swear
But I don't understand why so few of us share this emotion.

Come on now
What's the world coming to?
Can't we cover the eyes of hatred?
What's the world coming to?
How much longer can we take it?
What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?
Come on, come on.
What's the world coming to?
Let's cover the eyes of hatred.
What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?

Violence rages on...yeah, violence rages on.
Keep on, keepin' on.

One more crack at Lindsey's reputation then. J/k of course. Thanks to Sharon for finding and posting it.

It's pretty obscure stuff that he digs out and rearranges, isn't it? It does seem like he has difficulty in writing basic song structures sometimes. Not that I mind because new arrangements can make songs come alive, and his arrangements are superior to the originals in these two cases anyway...

absolutely. but the original singer of this song is quite a great singer. I like his style. Not the style of the band or the song by the way.....

Somehow , I feel Lindsey was attracted to the melodylines and singingstyle.... because he kept alot of that recognizable.

These two songs (Shut Us Down and WTWCT) just emphasize his talent as an arranger and producer I think, and also show how much he's improved as a lyricist. I think both are far superior to the originals. He took two okay songs and made them great imo. Just on the evidence on these songs alone, I wouldn't mind seeing (and hearing!) him doing more of this stuff. Maybe there's less pressure when the basic song structure is already there for him (as with Stevie's stuff) so he can pour his attention into the details instead.

The singer really reminded me of the singer from Yeasayer. There's something about the style and singing inflections that connects them in my mind.

Odd. Lindsey transforms the chord progression (which is the same chord progression of the tag-out of Over & Over) by replacing the dominant 7ths with mediants & submediants.

Why does he do that? Good question. Thanks for asking. I think it's because he's been aping the Kingston Trio folksong styles for many years now, & they -- like a lot of British & Appalachian folk songs -- hinge on mediants & submediants rather than on dominant 7ths.

Interesting, thanks David. You should post more often here.
What did you think of the original track compared to the Lindsey version?

Well, the original track doesn't have that Byrdsy quality, those chiming acoustic guitars that take a track 8 Miles High, & it doesn't have that quality of rural Appalachia, of long-forgotten strains of ancient mountain music so redolent of the Depression-era country crooners like the Carter Cash Family, or that early 1960s folk revival quality you heard from bands in dives like the Hungry I in San Francisco, where the flower power movement was just blossoming.

What we hear in Lindsey's rendition is the Agee-Walker "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men."

By the way, I have always felt that LB's lyrics in this track were comparable in narrative, situational, & dramatic irony to the work of Warren Zevon -- i.e., witty, sophisticated, & indeed subversive.