Customer Reviews

A Special Place In Hell - Four Years Under the Boot Heel of George W. Bush

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If anything this CD is EVEN BETTER than Steve Earle's "REVOLUTION STARTS NOW". Because as brilliant and brave as as Earle's CD is, he does some times come up for air with a non-political song like "I Thought You Should Know" or just the really funny "Condi, Condi" a seduction song to Bush's ice princess. None of that here. This is someone writing and singing from the point of someone WHOSE BEEN THERE. This CD is un-relenting. There isn't a moment where you don't feel and hear the suffering and pleading of our soldiers or of the "OUTSOURCED" unemployed or the Iraqi children we've MURDERED for Bush and Cheney's LIES. I don't think I've ever heard ANYONE sing as passionately about anything as this man does.
My first cousin DIED IN THIS WAR. NOT to protect our country. But for Bush and Cheney's LIES so that "they could make a killing, While our soldiers are wounded and killed in Iraq". Steve Earle is RIGHT in calling this "the most important election of our lifetimes". But I think Jabanoski puts it even better on his Roadkill Weekly website where he says "Vote for John Kerry as if the fate of your children, the fate of our nation, and the fate of the world depend on it. THEY DO".

Like the last song on this magnificent and frightening CD asks "For Pity's Sake Don't You Even Care About Your Own Children, And The Kind of a World Their Going To Have To Live In?" Well I Do care about my children and their futures. And I thank you Mr. Jabanoski for caring about them Too. So much so that you and your fellow artist Steve Earle are willing to stick your necks on the line to try to protect them from the hell George Bush is turning this country and the world into. Like I think someone before me already said, if you can listen to "The Girls They Left Back Home" or "These Dead Soldiers are My Only Friends" and not want to cry, then you either don't have kids or don't give a damn about anyone but yourself or are just one of these horribly mean and only interested in yourself people like George Bush and Dick Cheney.

This CD is even better than Steve Earle's GREAT "Revolution Starts Now" (although if you go into a voting booth this November without listening to BOTH of them, you're a damn fool) because as great as Earle's CD is, he never mentions Bush or Cheney or the rest (not counting the comical "Condi, Condi") by name.

Jabanoski NAMES them and calls them EXACTLY what they are and tells you EXACTLY what they've done. I guess that's why the only "radio friendly" song they play, even on ALTERNATIVE radio is "The Girls They Left Back Home" because it's simply a beautiful song describing the misery of the soldiers in Iraq but doesn't name Bush by name. Don't expect that from the rest of this CD. This is ABSOLUTE, balls to the wall FIERCE protest music. Forget the perfect yet simple production that made "Florence Martus" such an all encompassing work of genius. This is just a GREAT singer - songwriter who, not surprisingly because he's a journalist who went to Iraq, has seen it all first hand and is trying to SCREAM to you to change it. There isn't any end to the great lyrics, but the one's that keep haunting me are

"Why Didn't You Just Stay in Your Daddys' Rich Boy's Palaces
Instead of (screwing)Up Our World, You and Osama, Mr. President?
And I Don't Believe In Heaven or Hell, But You SAY That You Do
And There's A Special Place in Hell Waiting For People Like You"

And if you think THAT'S HARSH, try sitting through "Children In The Baghdad Morgue" or "These Dead Soldiers Are My Only Friends" without feeling like you just got punched in the stomach. This CD is a WAKE UP CALL, America!!!!

As for the music and singing, try to imagine Woody Gutherie, Dylan at his greatest, and Kurt Cobain UNPLUGGED fused together with Johnny Cash and you'll get an idea of how this CD will overpower you with its fury, its intelligence, and its crying out for HUMANITY.

This CD is almost mind-boggling in it's scope, it's intensity, and the sheer passion of a true genius songwriter and musician turning all his talent to a single purpose. To stop the hell that George "Adolph" Bush has gotten us into. Although the singing is, as you would expect from Jabanoski, excellent throughout, when his voice finally breaks on the last chorus of "Children In the Baghdad Morgue", when he's talking about Iraqi's he's seen actually rummaging through piles of bodies searching for their children in the morgue, and it sounds as if it's all he can do not to simply cry while repeating the memory, it's just something you can't imagine that anyone is this compassionate, this committed, and this talented to express. If you've still got 25 bucks left in your pocket after these "4 Years Under the Boot Heel of George W. Bush", use them to buy this CD and Steve Earle's "Revolution Starts Now". Like Jabanoski makes clear on this CD, and Earle does on his, it's time for all us DECENT PEOPLE to join together and vote this maniac Bush out before even more of our soldiers and even more Iraqi children die.

Jabanoski has been one of my favorites since I first heard Florence Martus, where he tried to Warn Us Not to listen to the lies. This CD makes him a legend.

I love his fun music too, but the same way Florence Martus did, this CD has the guts to go against the Bush/Cheney Nazism that has taken over our country. While they tell lies about John Kerry's war record, who Only Volunteered Twice, was Decorated For Bravery Under Fire and was Wounded In Combat, Jabanoski's got the guts to sing the Real Story. That unlike Kerry, Bush was not only a draft dodger, AWOL even from the Texas National Guard, but hid like a coward in some secret Air Force base until September 12, 2001 instead of flying back to Washington and leading like a Real President.

I'm a Vietnam Veteran, and like Every Vet out there feels I'm sure, I despise this little coward Bush who's Daddy made sure never saw action, but who don't seem to mind that our boys are getting killed everyday over in Iraq as long as he and Cheney can line their pockets off it. And I'm glad someone with a big audience is finally telling the truth. Yeah, The Truth! What A Concept! And its even more impressive to know that Jabanoski's not trying to make a buck off this horror because like you read in the liner notes, he's giving every penny he makes off this CD up until election day to John Kerry's campaign.

This is my first try at writing one of these Amazon reviews. But after I bought this CD today when it was released and listened to it, I knew I had to write SOMETHING to tell people how powerful and TRUE it is. Like Steve Earles "The Revolution Starts Here", it tells things LIKE THEY ARE, instead of the lies we've been hearing from Washington during what Jabanoski is SO RIGHT in describing as "Four Years Under The Boot Heal of George W. Bush.
This is a VERY, VERY dark CD. But these are VERY, VERY dark days for our country, and I admire performers like Jabanoski, Steve Earle, The Dixie Chicks and Bruce Spingsteen for making a stand and not giving a damn whether or not they lose part of their audience because they want to speak the truth.
All of the songs are excellent, but in particular if you can listen to "The Girls They Left Back Home" or "Children In The Baghdad Morgue" and NOT be moved by them to want this insanity of Bush and the Republicans to STOP, than I'm not sure you have any heart in you at all. I hope you win this fight, Mr. Jabanoski. Both you and your fellow performers who've taken a stand. All I can do is vote for John Kerry once but all of you can hopefully sway a lot more people to do just that. "For Pity's Sake" for my CHILDRENS sake, I pray you win this fight.

How this CD never achieved the notoreity it deserved I don't know. It's breathtaking. It is so uncompromising and so passionate that you feel stupid and cowardly for not having the courage this man has. But if you want something even better, read Jabanoski's book "Scarecrow"(he was in Iraq as a reporter from the time when we invaded until a few monthes after we "took control" of Baghdad.) This CD is breathtaking. "Scarecrow" is something so powerful that you can't describe it to anyone who's never read it. One of the true geniuses of our lifetimes and THE MOST versatile.

To the one reactionary Bush puppet that gave this CD one star. Yeah right. Like someone like you ever BOUGHT a CD with this title to comment on its musical and artistic quality. You can't even spell the word "disgrace" properly. Makes me think that George W himself wrote that review.

This album takes me back to my younger days, memories of early Bobby Dylan, Phil Ochs, Donovan, Country Joe McDonald and other anti-war singers of the 1960s.

The songs on the album are passionately sung, and well written, but Jabanowski's voice is about on a level with Dylan's. The sound mixing/production is not by any means up to 21st century standards. Hence only 4 rather than 5 stars.

All in all, this is an album which will be loved by anti-war lefties, and hated by the neo-con right.

Just some exteme left winger political kool-aid drinker crying sour grapes over something he (and apparently others on this site) doesn't get - a President that actually works for his money and Country. Avoid this CD - it's sooo bad, save your cash cuz there are better choices to be found on Amazon.com!

This is a terrible CD. Aweful music and completely misguided lyrics. This CD makes me question the fate of our great country if people actually review this music as good. If you even consider buying this CD, stop and rent the movie Farenhype 9/11. The creators of this god-aweful CD and those who embrace it should stop now because your going to be pretty embarrased in the years to come.