Through the Roof and Underground with Gogol Bordello

I had the extreme pleasure of seeing the gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello, last week. The band is based in New York and is made up of refugees and immigrants primarily from Eastern Europe. Their name comes from the Ukrainian novelist, Nikolai Gogol, who "smuggled" Ukrainian culture into Russia. Much in the same way Euguene Hütz (also from the Ukraine), singer and spiritual leader of the band, takes part in a similar project with his attempt to "smuggle" Eastern European gypsy culture into the rest of the world with his traveling band. The show was exuberant, rollicking and beautiful.

The band's song, "Through the Roof and Underground" (prominently featured in the film "Wrist Cutters: A Love Story") was an anthem for my trip to Mexico City last summer and continues to serve as an anthem for my/our project of finding local cultures, the losers and underdogs and helping them revolt against the empire of domination and greed. I include the lyrics here:

When there's a trap set up for you
In every corner of this town
And so you learn the only way to go is underground
When there's a trap set up for you
In every corner of your room
And so you learn the only way to go is through the roof

Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground
Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground

And as we're crossing border after border
We realize that difference is none
It's underdogs who, and if you want it
You always have to make your own fun

And as the upperdog leisurely sighing
The local cultures are dying and dying
The programmed robots are buying and buying
And a psycho load of freaks they are still trying trying

Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground
Ooohoohoooh through the roof, and underground

And as the boy scouts learn to read between the lines
The silver rabbits hop between their fathers' lies
And boy scouts ask "Where? Where do they go?"
They go to the country that they only know

Just like their meanings they lay between the lines
Between the borders their real countries hide
The strategigo's saw their advertise
Their strategy of being is one of in-your-face disguise

Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground
Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground!

And when their own walls they will a-crumble,
And all the systems will be discumbumbled,
Around the stump of bigotry, our own
Serebryanye zayazhy vodyat horovod!

Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground
Ooohoohoooh through the roof, and underground
Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground
Ooohoohoooh through the roof! Underground!

Serebryanye zayazy vodyat horovod!

Through the roof! And underground!
Through the roof! Underground!