Folk Music

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.

Eric Andersen – Thirsty Boots

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"Thirsty Boots" is a Civil Rights era folksong by American singer-songwriter Eric Andersen that first appeared on his 1966 album 'Bout Changes 'n' Things. According to the album's liner notes, the song "was written to a civil rights worker-friend. Having never gone down to Mississippi myself, I wrote the song about coming back."

The song, one of Andersen's best known, has been covered by artists such as Judy Collins, John Denver, Anne Murray, and The Kingston Trio. In various stage appearances, Collins has claimed that Andersen wrote the song's last verse on a matchbook cover while in her bathroom.[citation needed]. Eric Andersen tells this story himself in the documentary Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation[1] Bob Dylan also recorded this song for his album Self Portrait, but it did not make the final cut. However, it was released as a 7" vinyl single in April 2013 from Bob Dylan The Bootleg Series Vol. 10.

Andersen has stated in interviews that Phil Ochs encouraged him to finish the song, and later recordings of "Boots" were dedicated to the late folksinger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirsty_Boots

Malvina Reynolds – God Bless the Grass

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Seems like an appropriate song for 4/20.

God bless the grass that grows thru the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass.