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Folk This! is an ensemble which through music links the struggles of the present with our rich history of
resistance. We dedicate this project to those on the frontlines, the backlines and the homefront, the troubadors,
the puppetistas, the strikers, the troublemakers, the homemakers and the homeless, the revolutionaries, the
political, the pissed off and the merely peeved, the feisty and the furious, and all the plain old regular
folks struggling to live with dignity and make the world a better place for all. So there. |
| Coal Tattoo Banks of Marble We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years One More Parade
In Contempt Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire Birmingham Sunday Pretty Boy Floyd
Prison Song Trilogy Drinking Gourd Rote Zora Deportee El Arado
Notes by Marcus Duskin |
Coal Tattoo (Billy Ed Wheeler)
We often begin our live performances with this song. It's a tribute to the American working class, which has fought for so long for its rights and dignity and to this day has very little to show for it.
Traveling down that coal town road
Listening to my rubber tires whine
Goodbye to buckeye and white sycamore
I'm leaving you behind
I've been a coal man all my life
Laying down track in the hole
Got a back like a hardwood bent by the wind
Blood veins blue's a strange tattoo
You's a strange tattoo
You've got on the side of your head
I said that's the blueprint left by the coal
Just a little more and I'd be dead
But I love the rumble and I love the dark
I love the cool of the slate
But it's traveling down that hard road looking for a job
This traveling and looking I hateg I hate
I've been in the union, I've walked in the line
Fought against the company
I've stood for the UMW of A
Now who's going to stand for me?
For I've got no house and I've got no pay
I've just got a worried soul
And this blue tattoo on the side of my head
Left by the number nine coal
Someday when I'm dead and gone
To heaven, the land of my dreams
I won't have to worry about losing my job
To bad times and big machines
I won't have to throw my money away
Or lose my hospital plan
I'm going to cut coal till the blue heavens roll
And sing with the angel band
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Banks of Marble (Les Rice, new lyrics by Progressive Labor Party)
This is the official PLP version of this song, originally written (some time in the 1940's I believe) by an "apple farmer
from New York State" according to Irwin Silber's excellent (and out of print) anthology "Lift Every Voice and Sing". I was a Party member and/or
fellow traveler from 1972 to 1985, and I learned a lot of radical cultural heritage, derived both from PL's parent organization, the Communist Party USA (PL split off in the 1960's to
follow the more revolutionary politics of the Chinese Communist Party), and from the Industrial Workers of the World, who are popular in socialist/communist
circles even though they are "anarchosyndicalists". I think this version of "Banks" is better than the original, which had a strong reformist bent.
For example, the last chorus went "Then we will own the banks of marble". Well, I'd rather be smashing them to be honest.
We've traveled round this country
From shore to shining shore
And it really made us angry
The things we heard and saw
We saw the garment workers
Pushing rags for all the stores
Getting paid a few bucks an hour
Their bosses rich while they are poor
(Chorus)
And the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
that the workers sweated for
And we've seen the workers standing
At the employment office door
And we heard the bosses saying
Got no work for you no more
(Chorus)
And we've seen the folks on welfare
With no clothes or food to eat
While the rich man cuts the budget
As he lives on easy street
(Chorus)
And we've seen the workers fighting
Throughout this bosses land
And we're going to get together
And together make our stand
(Chorus)
Then we will smash the banks of marble
And kick the bosses out the door
And we will share the vaults of silver
That the workers sweated for
So let's smash the banks of marble
And kick the bosses out the door
And we will share the vaults of silver
That we all have sweated for
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We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years (unknown - music by Von Liebich)
"Fed" is a song garnered from the 36th edition of the Little Red Songbook (published by the Industrial Workers of the World,
you can order a copy for $10 from www.iww.org/store, well worth it, too). The LRS attributes the words to
"an unknown proletarian"; it is based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling. We chose to open the song by reciting the Preamble of the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Utah Phillips has popularized this song recently, and heard us sing it at the May Day celebration in San Francisco in 2001. He opened his set by
giving us one of our greatest compliments, telling the crowd "I thought I knew all the revolutionary songs there were, but these people just taught me five new ones".
Later he confided to us that he is the actual composer of the melody, as apparently he had wanted to sing this song at a event some years ago but couldn't find the sheet music for it. We promised him we wouldn't tell anyone.
We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers' dead
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool
And if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God, We have paid in full
There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God, We have paid it in
We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives, our husbands and wives
And we're told it's your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God, We have bought it fair
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One More Parade (Phil Ochs)
We originally performed this Phil Ochs classic at the anti-Star Wars protest at Vandenberg Air Force Base two years ago. We had lots of cool sound effects which we unfortunately couldn't add to the recording, such as the sound of gun ships flying overhead, MP's with bullhorns, a rabid police dog, etc.
It's interesting to me that in the anarchist youth circles of today Phil Ochs is remembered more than any other protest folk singer of the 1960's. Some of Phil's songs, as well as those of many contemporary songwriters, appear in an excellent new songbook "Hootenanny, a Songbook of Radical Campfire Songs", available from www.earthfirstjournal.org.
Hup, two, three, four, marching down the street
Rolling of the drums and the trampling of the feet
The generals salute while the mothers wave and weep
Here comes the big parade, don't be afraid, the price is paid
One more parade
(Chorus)
So young, so strong, so ready for the war
So willing to go and die upon a foreign shore
All march together, everybody looks the same
So there is no one you can blame,
Don't be ashamed, light the flame
One more parade
Listen for the sound and listen for the noise
Listen for the thunder of the marching boys
A few years ago their guns were only toys
Here comes the big parade, etc.
Medals on their coats and guns in their hands
Trained to kill as they're trained to stand
Ten thousand ears need only one command
Here comes the big parade, etc.
Cold hard stares on faces so proud
Kisses from the girls and cheers from the crowd
The widows from the last war cry into their shrouds
Here comes the big parade, don't be afraid, the price is paid
Don't be ashamed, war's a game, the world in flames
So start the parade
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In Contempt (Aaron Kramer, Betty Sanders)
I have never heard anyone else besides Folk This! sing "In Contempt".
I found this gem in a songbook called "Lift Every Voice and Sing", compiled in the 1950's and out of print for many years.
I don't even remember when I picked it up, but for a collector of old protest tunes it's something special.
Originally written as a protest against the McCarthy anti-communist witch hunts, "In Contempt" seems to be applicable to a variety of situations and causes today.
A memorable performance of ours was singing this song in front of San Quentin Prison before the execution of Stephen Anderson, who was known as San Quentin's "poet laureate".
Build high, build wide your prison wall
That there be room enough for all
Who hold you in contempt, build wide
That all the land be locked inside
Though you have seized the valiant few
Whose glories cast a shade on you
How can you all go home with ease
Jangling your heavy dungeon keys?
The birds who still insist on song
The sunlit stream strong
The flowers still blazing red and blue
All, all are in contempt of you
The parents dreaming still of peace
The playful children, the wild geese
Who still must fly, the mountains too
Like fists are in contempt of you
When you have seized both moon and sun
And jailed the poems one by one
And trapped each troublemaking breeze
Then you can throw away your keys
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Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire (traditional)
I learned this song from the Amalgamated Everlasting Union Chorus of Portland, Oregon. I ran into these folks, who meet
and perform mostly informally, at an anti-WTO march in Seattle in 1998. This song has been popularized recently by the English band Chumbawumba.
It's one of those World War I songs from the trenches, which are either bawdy or class conscious or both. Some of the greatest anti-war songs have been written by people who have been forced to fight in them.
If you want to find the general, I know where he is
I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the generast I know where he is
He's pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him, pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest
If you want to find the colonel, I know where he is, etc.
He's sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gob
I saw him, etc.
If you want to find the sergeant, I know where he is, etc.
He's drinking all the company rum, etc.
If you want to find the private, I know where he is, etc.
He's hanging on the old barbed wire, etc.
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Birmingham Sunday (traditional, lyrics Richard Fariña)
A number of people in and around Folk This! have written parodies. It started with Susan and her a capella group Samsara
back in 2000 (check out www.gorebush.org), who recorded some memorable ones like "I Want to Log Your Land" and "My Country Isn't Free". I've
written a couple, my partner Christy Rodgers has written a half a dozen, and Lisa, in collaboration with Dubya, chimed in last year with "Ring of
Liars".
I've been trying to define "parody" ever since. We mostly think of parody as being comical or satirical. But there is also a tradition in folk
music of using well known tunes to tell a story or express a viewpoint. Many of Woody Guthrie's songs were adaptations of popular songs, such as "Union Maid",
which is sung to the tune of "Redwing", a rather sappy (and racially stereotypical) love song of Woody's time.
Many of the old IWW songs were derived from well known hymns (so people could learn the songs quickly before the rally or meeting was broken up by goons or cops).
It therefore didn't surprise me when I discovered that Richard Fariña's beautiful tribute to the four little girls who died for the Civil Rights cause, "Birmingham Sunday",
has a tune from an old English ballad titled "I Loved a Lass". Fariña's haunting ballad documents the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama during a
Sunday School session on September 15th, 1963 by local Klansmen. It took 37 years before any of the known perpetrators were brought to justice.
Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song
I'll sing it so softly it'll do no one wrong
On Birmingham Sunday the blood flowed like wine
And the choir kept singing of freedom
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run
And the choir kept singing of freedom
The clouds they were gray and the autumn winds blew
Denise McNair brought the number to two
The falcon of death was a creature they knew
And the choir kept singing of freedom
The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three
Her thoughts and her feelings would shame you and me
And the choir kept singing of freedom
Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more
And the choir kept singing of freedom
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground
And people all over the earth turned around
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound
And the choir kept singing of freedom
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song
I'll sing it so softly it'll do no one wrong
And the choir keeps singing of freedom
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Pretty Boy Floyd (Woody Guthrie)
Pretty Boy Floyd was added to our repertoire during a Folk This! "field trip" to the Smithsonian's Woody Guthrie exhibit at the John Steinbeck Museum in Salinas, CA. We decided to organize a sing-a-long of Woody's songs on the steps of the museum, not at all sure what the response of the locals might be. The weather refused to cooperate, being cold, wet and windy. However, a few hardy tourists stopped by if not to sing at least to check out what was going on. The museum's representative politely declined our invitation to sing inside the exhibit hall.
There is not much evidence that Pretty Boy Floyd (1904 - 1934) actually stole from the rich and gave to the poor, as the song goes. In real life he was a fearless bank robber who excited the imagination of the public by stealing from those who were stealing from them.
"Some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen" is still one of the most famous lines in all of protest music.
If you'll gather round me children
A story I will tell
Of Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw
Oklahoma knew him well
It was in the town of Shawnee
It was Saturday afternoon
His wife beside him in the wagon
As in to town they rode
Now a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude
Using vulgar words in anger
And his wife she overheard
Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain
And the deputy grabbed a gun
And in that fight that followed
He laid that deputy down
Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name
Yes he took to the trees and timber
From that Canadian River's shore
And Pretty Boy found a welcome
At many a farmer's door
There's many a starving farmer
That same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little home
Others tell you of a stranger
Who came to beg a meal
And underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill
It was in Oklahoma City
It was on a Christmas day
There come a whole carload of groceries
With a letter that did say:
"Well, you say that I'm an outlaw
You say that I'm a thief
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief"
Now as through this world I ramble
I see lots of funny men
Some will rob you with a six gun
And some with a fountain pen
But as through this life you travel
And as through your life you roam
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home |
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Prison Song Trilogy (Joan Baez, new lyrics by Susan Appe and Lisa Horan)
An original song by Joan, rewritten by Susan and Lisa. The first verse talks about Charisse Schumate, an African-American woman who was a prisoner, a prolific writer, a mother, and the lead plaintiff in Schumate vs. Wilson, a historic case where women prisoners of the women's correctional facility in Chowchilla sued the state of California and Pete Wilson for the medical neglect and human rights abuses inside the correctional system. They 'won' the case but any changes and monetary awards still have yet to be made.
The second verse is about Marilyn Buck, a brilliant poet, visual artist, political prisoner and Black Panther, currently serving an eighty-year sentence for her part in aiding Assata Shakur in escaping from prison to exile in Cuba. Please check out more about Marilyn and Charisse at www.womenprisoners.org and read Marilyn's poetry in her new book "Rescue the Word" available from AK Press www.akpress.org.
The last verse is about Dylcia Pagan, one of fifteen Puerto Rican political prisoners that were 'released' after public pressure, but were only released under terms that they would not have any voice in political action again.
Charisse was a woman warrior, a mother and a prisoner
Her smile kept those cold gray walls from making us surrender
A battered woman, she did resist, a lovers' cruel abusive fist
Picked up the gun feeling no other way out
Her story echoed the others' inside, she found them fighting to survive
Through neglect the prison's doctors let so many sisters die
With her body weak she took them on,
In the courts, victory road was long
Still we wait for justice to be done.
As she lay shackled to her cell bed
Two prison guards heard her last sigh
Those warm august winds they took her,
Her fearless spirit free to fly
Come and lay, help us lay, her body down.
She grew of age in a Texas town, raised her voice when she looked around
Saw the vast injustice and knew what she had to do
She choose to take the harder road, though a rebel bears such a heavy load
A rare woman, she had courage to follow through
Now Marilyn Buck she sits inside a prison cell for the years she's tried
To fight this racist system for the cause her heart was pure
But they say she went to the extreme, a bold move by any means
To liberate a comrade, Assata Shakur
We can't forget her sacrifice,
Behind those prison walls
Oh, Marilyn has paid the price,
We must stand by her, come heed the call
With your rage, open the cage, make a mighty sound
And we will raze, raze that prison to the ground.
Dylcia was a freedom fighter, Dylcia fought her whole for
Independence of her native land of Puerto Rico
Accused of bombings vicious plots, revolution in her heart,
Prison robbed her life of eighteen years
Fifteen comrades held in vein, autumn falls elections came
Puerto Rico and her plight were made the top agenda
The president said they've paid their dues
The people cheered when they heard the news
And then the media critics all descended
Now she can walk into the sunlight
And hold her children tight
But the long fingers of the law man
Cut off the voice with which she fights
Come and break, help us break her chains again
And were gonna raze, raze the prisons, in the end
And were gonna raze, raze the prisons, to the ground |
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Drinking Gourd (traditional)
I feel fortunate that I attended an elementary school were this was the favorite song of the 5th Grade class (it's Presidio Hill School, which was a cooperative school run by some really radical parents). The word 'traditional' means that we don't know who wrote it, but it's possible it may have come from abolitionist times. The reference is to the Big Dipper and the North Star, which pointed the way for escaped slaves toward freedom in the north.
(First chorus)
Follow, follow, follow
Follow the drinking gourd
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is a waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd
When the sun comes up and the first quail calls
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is a waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd
(Remaining chorus)
Follow the drinking gourd
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is a waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd
The river ends between two hills
Follow the drinking gourd
There's another river on the other side
Follow the drinking gourd
(Chorus)
The river bank makes a mighty fine road
The dead trees show you the way
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on
Follow the drinking gourd
(Chorus) |
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Rote Zora (unknown, music theme from "Pippi Longstocking")
Thanks again to the Amalgamated Everlasting Union Chorus of Portland, Oregon for teaching us this one.
It is a parody of the theme from "Pippi Longstocking", a popular children's show in Germany about a rather independent minded young woman. Rote Zora was an all
women revolutionary/feminist collective that was active in West Germany in the 1980's. They practiced armed struggle, blew a lot of stuff up, including biotechnology labs
(well ahead of the times, now that everyone is against gene technology, frankenfoods etc),
all without hurting any human. There is a chapter on/by/about them in Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-feminist Anthology, also available from AK Press.
Stadt und macht und geld
Vidi vidi vi und Bulleschweine
Alle gross und klein
Tra la la la kreigen eine rein
Wir machen dieser Welt
Vidi vidi vi wie uns gefällt
Kämpf dem Kapital
Illegal, legal, es scheissegal
Wir haben ein Haus
Im Strand besetzt das Haus
Mit Peter und der Pitt
Die schauen nur zum Fenster raus!
Wir haben ein Haus
Mit Peter und der Pitt
Die jede Bullesau
Mal kräftig in die Fresse tritt!
He Rote Zora. molli hier, molli da, molli hup-sa-sa!
He Rote Zora, du machst was uns gefällt
He Rote Zora, molli hier, molli da, molli hup-sa-sa!
He Rote Zora, auf dass das Grosche fällt!
State and power and money
Vee dee vee dee vee dee and the pig cops
All of them big and small
Tra la la la, gets one in the nose
We'll do with the world
Vee dee vee dee vee dee, what we like
Fi-ight capitalism
Legal or illegal we don't give a shit!
We've got a house
We're squatting this house
With Peter and with Pitt
Who are watching out the windows
We've got a house
With Peter and Pitt
Whom every cop they see,
They punch them full in the snout
Hey Rote Zora, Molotov cocktails hup sa sa
Hey Rote Zora, you do what we like
Hey Rote Zora, Molotov cocktails everywhere
Hey Rote Zora, with such actions fails the patriarchy |
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Deportee (Woody Guthrie)
The genius of Woody was his ability to write extraordinary songs from topical themes that were familiar to his working class audiences.
He wrote a number of songs based on newspaper clippings (The Sinking of the Reuben James and Philadelphia Lawyer are well know examples), but Deportee is his best. This song
is based on a news report about a plane crash where the victims were undocumented immigrants being deported to Mexico. The last line of
the chorus is an indictment of the racism of the media, which failed to mention the victims' names. Curiously, when we first started rehearsing this song there
appeared a report that 15 farm workers from the Central Valley had been killed in a crash involving an unsafe company van. True to form, their names were not mentioned in the article.
Brian Buckley-Smith, an original member of Folk This!, wrote a new verse for the song:
"Fifteen good people died out on the highway
In a company van that was not fit to drive
They were fathers and mothers and sisters and uncles
But I guess that their names were too hard to pronounce"
The crops are all in and the peaches are rottenin'
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps
They're flying them back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again
(Chorus)
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus y Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big aeroplane
And all they will call you will be deportee
My father's own father, he waded that river
They took all the money he made in his life
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees
And they rode the truck till they took down and died
(Chorus)
Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted
Our work contract's out and we have to move on
600 miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves
(Chorus)
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon
A fireball of lightning that shook all our hills
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves
The radio says they are just deportees
(Chorus) |
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El Arado (Victor Jara)
Victor Jara was one of the leading composers and singers of
Nueva Cancion ("new song"), a popular musical form which emerged from South America in the 60's and 70's. Jara and others combined traditional folk tunes with stunning new lyrics, all with a strong focus on social justice. He was murdered by the Chilean military junta which took power in a CIA backed coup in 1973. It was reputed that he had his hands cut off before they executed him. And all with our tax dollars.
Aprieto firme mi mano
Y hundo el arado en la tierra
Hace años que llevo en ella
Como no estar agotado
Vuelan mariposas cantan grillos
La piel se me pone negra
Y el sol brilla, brilla, brilla
El sudor me hace surcos
Yo hago surcos a la tierra sin parar
Afirmo bién la esperanza
Cuando pienso en la otra estrella
Nunca es tarde me dice ella
La paloma volará
Vuelan mariposas cantan grillos
La piel se me pone negra
Y el sol brilla, brilla, brilla
Y en la tarde cuando vuelvo
En el cielo apareciendo una estrella
Nunca es tarde me dice ella
La paloma volará, volará, volará
Como el yugo de apretado
Tengo el puño esperanzado
Porque todo cambiar
I clench my fist, and bury the plow in the earth
For years and years I have worked
No wonder I am worn out
Butterflies are flying, crickets are singing
My skin gets darker and darker
And the sun glares and glares and glares
Sweat furrows me
I make furrows in the earth on and on
I hold fast to hope, when I think of my other star
It is never too late, she tells me
The dove will fly one day
Butterflies are flying, crickets are singing
My skin gets darker and darker
And the sun glares and glares and glares
And in the evening going home
In the sky I see a star
It is never too late, she tells me
The dove will fly one day
As tight as a yoke, my fist is full of hope
Because everything will change |
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