the
Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms, yearning to breathe free.
Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms, yearning to breathe free.
the
Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms, yearning to breathe free.
Is there such a thing as an Easter playlist? Aside from the ode to Peter Cottontail hippity-hopping down the bunny trail, or tributes to lovely ladies in bonnets strolling along in Irving Berlin's Easter Parade, can you think of one popular, serious song that celebrates the day of Christ’s resurrection? There are numerous tunes about the rejuvenative powers of spring,…
Woody Guthrie, born 103 years ago today, is best known as the dust bowl balladeer who wrote many of America's most beloved songs, including "This Land Is Your Land." He was a free spirit and a sprite, a vagabond minstrel who spent his 55 years on earth using music to empower the common man. He wrote of the roads he traveled and the characters he met, of "dusty old dust" and the places he lived on "the wild, windy plains." He also wrote about a land and a culture far removed from his Tom Joad roots, a place "where the halvah meets the pickle, where the sour meets the sweet." Yes, folks, it turns out that Woody Guthrie had a Jewish mother-in-law! And folk culture is all richer for it.
"But it's all right now, I've learned my lesson well. You see, you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself." Those are lyrics from "Garden Party, a 1972 Top Ten single released by the late singer/actor Rick Nelson. The one-time teen idol who came to fame as the son in the popular 1950s TV show "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" (featuring his real-life parents) would have turned 75 today. He wrote "Garden Party" in response to being booed by audience members at a 1971 oldies show in Madison Square Garden (a "Garden Party").
Oh, take me on a journey to a place where I can "lay my burden down, legalize my lows, and let the music wash my soul." In other words, "Take Me to the Mardi Gras." That's the name of a song written and recorded by Paul Simon for his 1973 "There Goes Rhymin' Simon" LP. Paul may not possess one drop of Cajun/Creole blood, but his love song to The Big Easy is as soulful as that of any N'awlins native. It's one of those songs that makes my heart ache with dreams of escaping to a place of primordial pleasure, a place where a swampy voodoo vibe percolates just beneath the surface of even the most festive of ceremonies. Bawdy ol' New Orleans is such a land -- perhaps the most culturally-unique city in America.
Sometimes I think it's a sin, when I feel like I'm winning, when I'm losing again. Those words from Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot have run up and down the staircase of my mind many times. Just when I think I've got it, it turns out I don't. His win/lose lyric has several cousins: Springsteen's one step up and two steps…