Happy Birthday, Allen Ginsberg

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tounge and cock and hand
and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel!
--From Footnote to Howl



Allen Ginsberg was the greatest poet of his generation and a guiding voice of the anti-war movement, the gay rights movement, and the anti-nuclear movement.


He was generally a pretty great guy and he and I happen to share a birthday.

Aside from his poetry he had a great love of music; all things lyrical I guess... anyway, in honor of his birthday (He would've turned 80 today), here are three songs of his that I'm particularly fond of:


Allen Ginsberg - End Vietnam War Song
Allen Ginsberg - Infant Joy
Allen Ginsberg - CIA Dope Calypso

The first song is taken from a 1976 reading at the Jack Kerouac school for Disembodied Poetics in Colorado. The second song is a William Blake poem that Ginsberg arranged for recording and features the late and amazing Arthur Russell on cello. The last track, CIA Dope Calypso also features Arthur Russell on cello, and for a political song is remarkably catchy.

What the heck, because birthdys are all about the presents, here's a little gift:

Arthur Russell - A Little Lost

...an I know I've posted this song before, but it is just so amazing, I had to do it again.