Folk Music

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“And the victims learn to giggle, for at least they are not bored.”
~ Phil Ochs

Peter, Paul and Mary – The Marvelous Toy

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I used to listen to song a lot with my parents house on audio cassette tape as a kid, and somehow it felt really good on this wet winter night. It's 50 years old now, although when I listened to the song, it was only about 15 years old.

Weeds – Malvina Reynolds

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Weeds – Malvina Reynolds

Nancy Reynolds, daughter of Malvina Reynolds, the writer of ‘Little Boxes’, tells us about the day her mother wrote the song that started it all ....

“My mother and father were driving South from San Francisco through Daly City when my mom got the idea for the song. She asked my dad to take the wheel, and she wrote it on the way to the gathering in La Honda where she was going to sing for the riends Committee on Legislation. When Time Magazine (I think, maybe Newsweek) wanted a photo of her pointing to the very place, she couldn’t find those houses because so many more had been built around them that the hillsides were totally covered.ȁ

“As for ‘protest’ I think it was more social commentary."

“rom what I’ve read, I think Levittown was built more for working class families than for doctors and lawyers and was more community oriented than the aly City sprawl, with community centers and stuff.ȁ

“When I went with her to Japan in 1970 we saw suburbs where the little boxes had flat tile roofs, very Japanese, but they still all looked just the same."

“I’m delighted that you will have the McGarrigles and hope you can get Bebel Gilberto next year! My mom thought the song sounded better in rench than in English."

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Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land
Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain
Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all (on us all)
From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too
Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new
Texas and Ohio and the California shore
Tell me, who could ask for more?
Yet she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand
But our land is still troubled by men who have to hate
They twist away our freedom & they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry
We can stop them if we try
~ Phil Ochs, the Power and the Glory

Pleasures of the Harbor

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I was listening to Phil Ochs Pleasures of the Harbor βš“ and the studio version of the Crucifixion is simply an amazing listening experience. 🎢

So he stands on the sea and shouts to the shore,
But the louder that he screams the longer he’s ignored
For the wine of oblivion is drunk to the dregs
And the merchants of the masses almost have to be begged
‘Till the giant is aware, someone’s pulling at his leg,
And someone is tapping at the door.

Then his message gathers meaning and it spreads accross the land
The rewarding of his pain is the following of the man
But ignorance is everywhere and people have their way
Success is an enemy to the losers of the day
In the shadows of the churches, who knows what they pray
For blood is the language of the band.