Sunday, March 1, 2009

Kompis! Kompis! crate findings in Santiago de Chile, part 7

This is a record I've seen often without finding any interest in until the other day, when I flipped to the back cover and read the tracklisting in detail. There I noticed that the title track is a cover of Paul & Linda McCartney's tune "Let 'em in" - a track I discovered (and liked!) some time ago when I was looking around for some balearic stuff. But what Billy Paul did in his Philly-soul version is indeed of current interest in these Obamaistical times... Paul (we're talking about Billy now) changed the lyrics and gave them a strong political connotation when he all along the tune mixes in portions of famous speeches by leaders of the civil rights movements in USA. Among others I recognize Malcolm X's voice, and of course the whole thing ends with the classic "I have a dream..."-speech of Dr Martin Luther King. By the way, it's the same speech that you can find in a beautiful remix of Fingers Inc. classic "Can you feel it" that Dr Manne used in this K!K!-mixtape. And going on, I can't avoid also mentioning a recent remix of the same track with Obama's victory speech in Chicago. Finally, since I can't let it go - I really love that Fingers Inc. house anthem! - let's end this post faraway but so close to Billy Paul's "Let 'em in" recommending a jazzy treatment of "Can you feel it" performed live by the German band Christian Prommers Drumlesson.

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