From minserv93@aol.com Fri Aug 27 11:24:35 PDT 1999
Article: 101999 of rec.music.progressive
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From: minserv93@aol.com (MinServ93)
Newsgroups: rec.music.progressive
Subject: Looking for a Prog definintion? Listen up ...
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Date: 27 Aug 1999 03:03:28 GMT
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Xref: cyclone.swbell.net rec.music.progressive:101999

He walked out of the evening fog
And sat down with me on a log.
His question would my mem'ry flog :
He simply asked me, "What is prog?"

I shrugged my shoulders, then leaned back
And took a CD from my sack.
"I got it from some clearance rack."
He took it, then gave it right back.

   "That looks weird to me," he said.
I put it back and shook my head.
"No weirder than your Grateful Dead
Or your Zeppelin made of Led."

He opened up my sack like foil,
Went through it carefully - don't soil!
Symphonic, avante, neo-, zeuhl.
(To Canterbury I'm most loy'l.)

I said, "I like to sit and vedge
With headphones and 'Close To The Edge'."
He showed me his new Sister Sledge.
"Could this be prog?" (I tried to hedge...)

"I doubt they're prog, but who's to say?
   You could feel a different way.
   Prog or not it's still OK
If that's the stuff you like to play."

He stood up, looking for a fight.
I said, "Sit down. Don't get uptight.
   If it helps you sleep at night
Then Sister Sledge is prog all right."

It didn't work - he wanted more;
He wanted some Prog Quotient score
To help him when he scoured the store
To find the "RIGHT" music. What for?

"I need the truth - is this work prog?"
I said, "Look, son - you see this log?
I'd rather eat it and the fog
Than choose FOR YOU what work is prog."

PS - for thise folks who get really bent about METER, note that it can be read
in 8 beats, with the indented lines indicating that a pause be substituted for
the first in that line. Or, you can read it more as a 7-beat form, and read the
first word in the non-idented line without beat emphasis (kind of like reading
that word under your breath).