Listening to Alabama Shakes, Drinking a GnT, a poem inspired by Brittany Howard

By Stephen, April 30, 2020

After a couple of weeks mulling it over, this week’s article on the fierce and brave Brittany Howard in the New Yorker put me over the top. When I re-read my poem inspired by her original band, Alabama Shake’s “Give Me All Your Love” I recognized that while it may be a little off “brand” for me, it says something I think needs saying to many these days. Here goes nothing, tapping into my inner Sailor a bit…

Listening to Alabama Shakes, Drinking a GnT

Hey, Gin, did you hear Brittany Howard
Sing, well, suck the energy out of all our souls,
Shouting, Gimme All Your Love! Give me all
You got, Babe. Gimme all your LOOOOOVE!

She borrowed a little bit of your soul for you,
She borrowed a little bit of your soul to feed
Back to you like a mother bird loves her chicks
Fucking… A… if you didn’t feel your soul swell.

The delicious nutrition she spat down your gullet
Every ounce of you now mashed up with every
Ounce of everyone else in the room who dared
Open their mouths to be fed this loving stew.

Hey, Gin, did you feel Brittany Howard’s licks
As she tore the fret up out of the last remaining
Ounce of isolated innocence way in the back
Thinking they could sneak out before the encore.

Something borrowed, something stolen, something
Blues, something fucking delivered like a promise
That had to break before it rose up from ashes
To spit fire all over the doers who never stopped

Gimme ALL your Love, Gimme all you GOT!
Now. Right… fucking… now… before, Gin,
We collapse in an impotent heap of lost tonic
Fallen through the floor into hell, laughing.

Live on Saturday Night…