We’re Important
Well, it started back in Eden, oh so many years ago,
When Creation wasn’t working out, and then,
God said, in some distress,
“Who’ll be in charge of all this mess?”
And that’s when He invented rich White men.
‘Cause we’re important, so important.
We’re meant to rule and you are meant to serve.
The Sun exists to tan us,
Our wives exist to fan us,
Being rich and White is just what we deserve.
Well we’re really, really, really, really, really, really, really rich.
We have more wealth than all of you combined.
And if we want some more,
We’ll just go out and start a war.
If people die, well, we don’t mind.
‘Cause we’re important, so important.
We’re meant to rule and you are meant to serve.
We’ve always been on top,
And that’s not gonna stop.
Being rich and White is just what we deserve.
We’re in charge of the economy, the government, technology.
And democracy? It’s part of the show.
We’re tickled, we confess,
You blame each other for our mess.
And all the while we’re raking in the dough.
‘Cause we’re important, so important.
We’re meant to rule and you are meant to serve.
I’m rich and White and free,
And you wish that you were me.
But being rich and White is just what we deserve.
Being rich and White is just what we deserve.
My parents had an album of the second concert that Harry Belafonte gave at Carnegie Hall in New York City on May 2, 1960 (“Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall”). We admire Belafonte, not only as a singer and actor, but as an unflinching, outspoken activist for Black liberation and world peace. He turned 95 on March 1.
I loved that record. It introduced me to Miriam Makeba (1932-2008), the South African anti-apartheid activist and singer, who sang Qongqothwane, a Xhosa wedding song. It is known as “the Click Song” in the West, she explained, because the English colonists couldn’t pronounce the Xhosa click consonants.
That was also the first time I heard Odetta (1930-2008), an African American folk singer whom Belafonte introduced as “the First Lady of Folk Song.” Odetta was an anchor in the folk, civil rights, and peace movements beginning in the 1940s. I don’t think there were many peace and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s where you didn’t hear her towering voice. Here she sings “Water Boy” (make sure your sitting down when she starts singing) and a funny duet with Belafonte on “A Hole in the Bucket.” My sisters and I would argue about who would sing Henry’s part and who would sing Liza’s because each of us wanted to be Henry and sing the last verse.
Ned Wright and the Belafonte Singers sing a jump-for-joy rendition of “Didn’t It Rain,” an African American spiritual based on the biblical story of Noah.
Belafonte sings, among other songs, “Jump Down Spin Around,” an African American work song; a Mexican ballad “La Bamba,” which Richie Valens made famous in 1958 in a Chicano rock version; and two Hebrew songs, one of which, Hine Ma Tov, is a traditional Jewish hymn — Hine mah tov umah na’im/Shevet achim gam yachad (Behold how good and how pleasing/For people to sit together in unity). Belafonte begins the hymn as a soaring plaint, but by the end it becomes a joyous celebration of life. You will want to get up and dance.
Why am I telling you this? Well, my song — “We’re Important” — is set to the tune of “The Ballad of Sigmund Freud.” I didn’t remember where or when I first heard that song, and I wanted to give due credit, so of course I asked Safari to tell me. Turns out that the Chad Mitchell Trio, a folk group, sang it at Belafonte’s concert.
When Safari showed me the album cover, I just about plotzed. I hadn’t seen that record in more than 55 years, and it brought back memories of standing next to the record player in the living room in our apartment on St. James Place in Brooklyn when I was around 10 years old, playing the same tracks over and over again, lifting the needle up at the end of the track and placing it gently at the beginning.
So I couldn’t not mention Miriam Makeba, Odetta, and Harry Belafonte and their impact on me.
I hesitated even to include “We’re Important” here. Maybe I should just mention the album and what it meant to me. I don’t want you to think that I think my song is in the same galaxy with what these artists achieved.
What the hell, I dragged you all this way, you might as well watch me jump off the cliff.
Click on the link at the top to hear me try to sing it. Then wash your ears out with soap and go back to Makeba, Odetta, and Belafonte.
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