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  • Streaming + Download

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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Back in stock again! Full color CD gatefold package features photographs by Stephen Ferry and drawings and titles by Andrew Levi-Hiller. Comes with 20-page booklet featuring lyric sheets that refer to books and sites where you can learn more about the historical events referenced in the tracks.

    Import from French label Arbouse Records. If you're in Europe, shipping will be much cheaper if you order from the label here:
    arbouserecordings.bandcamp.com/album/john-davis-the-cicadas-el-pulpo-arbou048-extrait

    Includes unlimited streaming of El Pulpo via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • El Pulpo / Cassette from Shrimper Records
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Handmade by Dennis Callaci for Shrimper Records, black and white cover features Andrew Levi-Hiller's drawing as the frontpiece. Limited edition of 150 to start. I only have

    Includes unlimited streaming of El Pulpo via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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about

For more on El Pulpo see:
Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the
United States and the Rise of the New Imperialism
Walter Lafeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United
States in Central America
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Autumn of the Patriarch

lyrics

Can you feel my tentacles?
Can you feel my tentacles?
My suction cups say they know you well
My three hearts should ring a bell
You know me I used to be
You know me I used to be
The United Fruit Company
Minor Keith first made me tick
I’m the real Banana Republic

El Pulpo…

Can you feel my testicles?
Can you feel my testicles?
The State Department made them swell
John Foster Dulles made them well
Guatemala loved Arbenz Guzman
Thanks to John and Ike, soon he was gone
Honduras was also my home
No man should have to fight alone

El pulpo…

My suction cups can also taste
I can lay a shark to waste
Forty years of endless war
200 thousand dead, or more
No one connects all that with me
Since I changed my name, you see
United Fruit? Non, Senorita!
Call me by my name, Chiquita!

El pulpo…

My neurons live inside my arms
I bear them and I do mean harm
I used to own the railroad tracks
I broke all the strikers’ backs
I fought back by spraying ink
Who owned the papers? Who you think?
The radio, the telegraph,
The postal service, paid with cash

El pulpo…

Back in 1928
Santa Marta met its fate
Our best defense was just to hide
In camouflage beneath the tides
We change colors with our skin
We shoot ink filled with melanin
You understand my sex appeal
A woman loves a man who steals

El pulpo…

credits

from El Pulpo, released October 20, 2017
Drums: Andrew Levi-Hiller and Rob
Chamberlain
Double Bass: Jonathan Henderson
Keyboards, Saz: John Davis
Trombone: Jeb Bishop
Backing Vocals: Wendy Allen

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about

John Davis & The Cicadas image

John Davis & The Cicadas Durham, North Carolina

John Davis is a musician who works solo, with Folk Implosion, with a backing band called the Cicadas, and with Dennis Callaci. He also works on defending and transforming public education as a teacher - organizer with the Durham Association of Educators. ... more

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