About The Book...

"IT'S ALL GOOD is a collection of the writing, reviews and interviews of John Sinclair, spanning forty years and personally selected by the author. The music, people and topics include: Detroit in the 1960s, and the author as manager of the MC5; John Lennon; Sun Ra; Jack Kerouac; Dr John; Iggy Pop; North Mississippi Hill Country Blues and the secret history of the Blues; Bandleader Walter "Wolfman" Washington; Irma Thomas, the Soul Queen of New Orleans; The Art Ensemble of Chicago; The White Buffalo Prophesy; The Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans; Bob Rudnick, the Righteous One; Johnnie Bassett, Cadillac Bluesman from the Motor City.

JOHN SINCLAIR is a legendary figure on the landscape of the 1960s. A cultural activist, manager of the MC5, and chairman of the White Panther Party, he was an early victim of the War on Drugs who faced twenty years to life in prison for giving two joints to an undercover narcotics officer. Sinclair served 29 months before his legal victory on appeal changed the law for good. The long campaign received international attention when John Lennon wrote a song for him and performed at a benefit concert on his behalf in 1971, along with Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Phil Ochs, Allen Ginsberg and Bobby Seale.

As a music journalist, John Sinclair is widely recognized as one of America's leading authorities on blues and modern jazz. He designed and taught courses in Blues History and History of Rock & Roll for the Music Department at Wayne State University.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IT'S ALL GOOD
for Michael Veling & Café deKuil

When you go to the Cannabis Cup
in Amsterdam
They got people coming there
from all over the world
to check out the finest marijuana
grown by the seed companies of Holland

for us to smoke
& get high
& enjoy the wonderful atmosphere
of a society
where people just don't care
if you wanna get high —

Hey,
that's just fine,
c'mon over here to the coffeeshop
& order up whatever kind of weed
or hash you might wanna smoke
because it's all good —

It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good

And by the end of the week
they gonna pick the finest marijuana
that's been submitted
for the testing
of the exalted panel of judges
here at the Cannabis Cup

& guess what? While we're smoking
all those different kinds of weed
& trying to figure out
which one is gonna win the Cup,
every different brand we try
is gonna be the BOMB

because it's all good —

It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good

But when we get back to the United States
it ain't gonna be nothing like this.
In the United States
it ain't nothing nice
because they got a war on people like us —

They call it the War on Drugs
but they don't give a fuck about drugs,
'cuz if you got a prescription
you can get just as loaded
as any human being
has ever been
on the planet Earth —

They just don't like us getting high
on marijuana
or cocaine
or whatever we might want to use
to effect a certain change
in our consciousness
because that’s all good —

It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good

Now, I like to get high.
I'm not gonna make any bones about it.
I like to get high, & you know
whatever I like to get high on,
I believe I have a right to do this —
& you too,
& everybody in our society.

Because people want drugs.
They want to get high.
People have been getting high
ever since there's been people.
They've been fucking,
they've been getting high

& like in Amsterdam,
they've been buying some pussy,
you know. These things have been going on
& they will continue to go on
because that’s all good —

It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good

So to keep us from getting high
like we are today
here in Amsterdam
at the Cannabis Cup
They got police —

They got so many police
you couldn't even believe it.
They got electronical equipment,
They got helicopters,
They got exotic chemicals
Killing the shit off in the fields,

They got people going out all over South America
& Asia
& all over the world
trying to keep this shit from getting
to the United States,

& when it finally does get here,
you got to pay so much money for it
that it's about to drive you crazy —

& that's another thing,
they ain't got nothing
for people like us
in terms of money —

if you're an artist
or a poet
or an authentical musician
they ain't got a motherfucking thing for you
except the War on Drugs
& a whole bunch of police,

undercover agents,
rat bastards & snitches,
narco terrorists,
they got motherfuckers coming through your front window
with guns in their hands
& they wrong for that —

Because the war on drugs
is about building a police state.
The war on drugs
is about building prisons
& filling them up
with more & more people like us

& employing more guards,
employing more cops,
more special agents,
more narcotics police,
more wire-tappers,
more prosecutors,
more judges,
more wardens,
more jailers —
the worst elements of our society
& they wrong for that.

Now they got 2,000,000 people
locked up in penitentiaries
in the United States
& 8 out of every 10 of them
are prisoners of the War on Drugs —

Not to mention
the massive seizures of property
& the millions in confiscated dollars
that are turned over to the police departments
who snatched them by force
& use them to expand their brutal operations

& the millions of Americans on probation
for getting high
& the millions in mandatory drug treatment programs
for getting high
& the vicious drug testing
at every turn
to keep your ass out of prison
or keep your children
or keep driving your car

or even to get a regular job
in the American workforce
with a real paycheck
& the benefits of regular employment

like medical insurance
& paid vacations
& plenty of good credit
& bank loans to buy a car
or a house you can own
for yourself & your family —

Because they got no place at all
in the robotic world of American business
for people who like to get high
& apply their expanded consciousness
to the world around them
& pursue the path of the heart
& human compassion
& seek to surround themselves
with like-minded companions
who like to get high together
& enjoy the wonders of life
because that’s all good —

It’s All Good
It’s All Good
It’s All Good
It’s All Good

But then there’s the way
They've inflated the cost of things:
what you could buy
for 10 dollars in 1973,

now you got to pay $100. You got to hustle
10 times as hard today
than you did 30 years ago
& you’re a lot older now,

& they won’t let you have a job
& you're living by your wits
& you’re still trying to figure out
how to get some money
without having a job, but everything costs
10 times as much. That's severe.

& that's one more reason why
we wanna have some drugs —
we're out here living by our wits,
& our heads are sore. We want to get home at night

& put something in our heads, or get up in the morning
& put something in our heads. We don't know
what we're going to have to face
out in these streets that day,
& we need a little something
to help us gain a little elevation —

Like everybody here
At the Cannabis Cup
in Amsterdam
smoking that reefer
& having a good time
because that's all good —

It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good
It's All Good

So we gonna forget about America
& enjoy ourselves here
at the Cannabis Cup
all week long

& on Thanksgiving Day
when they announce
who grew the best pot
for us to smoke
& get high on

Let's give thanks
for every strain of weed
that's made its way here to us

With special appreciation
for all the growers of marijuana
all over the world

& our intrepid comrades
who risk life & limb to supply us
with the substances we require

& all the warriors doing time
in the vast penitentiaries of America
as prisoners of the War on Drugs —

We salute you all
& thank you once again
for all the good you have done
because it’s all good —

It’s All Good
It’s All Good
It’s All Good
It’s All Good
It’s All Good
It’s All Good

—New Orleans
November 8-15, 1998/

Detroit
May 29, 2003