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The Texas Swing Boys’ Dadaist Manifesto
by Ian McMillan
The Texas Swing Boys’ Dadaist Manifesto - Ian McMillan
I've always been a fan of the Dadaist Manifesto, and country music, and I thought I'd put a couple of them together.
The Texas Swing Boys’ Dadaist Manifesto
(“I just want to hear some Dadaist country songs”
Tex Schwitters, Abilene, March 1924)
black horse bat six
gun two fifty stranger
ON THUNDERING STAGECOACH WHEELS OF DADA!
take the brothers. grant meadows
chester meadows
two fifty stranger
still hands
HOT DURN! CRASHING SIX SHOT PISTOL SHOTS OF DADA!
it’s high two fifty on the broken clock
the menu don’t change
TEA, HONEY! GREAT CREAKING TABLE TOPS OF DADA!
nothing changes and the clock don’t
TAKE A HANGING ROPE TO YOUR DOBRO POETICS
DOBRODADA!
hands up, clock
HONEY, THE DADA SUNSET WILL WALK INTO US!
(“Rupert Brooke was/the greatest Dadaist of us all”
from Collected Letters of Zane Gray, Knopf, 1982)
Recorded by The Texas Swing Boys, July 1924, at The Gospel Studios, Austin
from How the Hornpipe Failed (Rivelin Grapheme, 1984), copyright Ian McMillan 1984, used by permission of the author