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Folk Heroes Program number 4 Pete Seeger part2
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In cooperation with Sound Century Academy, the University of Colorado and The Harry Tuft Collection.
In literature, folk heroes are legendary or historical figures such as Robin Hood, Falbunion, or John Henry. They are cultural symbols that bring out the spirit of lumberjacks, laborers, and industrial pioneers. None of them are the folks that you will hear on my new show, Folk Cura. My name is Richard Arnold Vegas. And these are the concerts and interviews of folk and blue curiosity on guitars and on songs that were heard somewhere around here. Found in storage units, added updatement from Denver, on wheels from Harry Top. And the Denver Folkworth from 1962 from 1977 and Stop Time to be four. Somewhere around here.
SPEAKER_05Let us all sing together. Let us all sing together on our knee. Let us hop out down the Lord and face the rising sun.
SPEAKER_06I'll help to make amends. Well, what's going to happen is that some of these work song techniques eventually, if they last at all, the work song may not last, but the way of singing might kind of carry over. For example, that idea of repeating lines is in Long John. You can find that same kind of singing in a spiritual like this. I'll get you a chair. And you know how many a country church is, they can't afford hymn books. And the preacher would line out the hymn, he'd sing it out, and the congregation would sing back the line to him, he'd sing the next line, they'd sing it back to him, and that way they'd learn it. So you be the congregation, and I sing, I'm on my way, I'm on my way, to Canaan land, to Canaan land, I'm on my way, to Canaan Land. I'm on my way to Canaan L. And all together we sing, I'm on my way. That's the idea. You don't have to sing the melody, you know. You can sing harmony. I'm on my way to freedom land. The only time I can sing bass is when I got a good microphone. You know what Winston Churchill used to say? He says, Mr. He asked Mrs. Churchill, do you mind hecklers? He says, Not as long as I have the microphone. So long as I have this microphone here, I can stand you all off with a good bass. Now, this song was a real song. It wasn't made up by someone just to get something pretty. It was made up by people in slavery. And every line meant perhaps three or four different things, depending on where you were and how you were getting along.
SPEAKER_05I'm on my way.
SPEAKER_06I'm on my way. I'm on my way. All together, I'm on my brother. Let me go. I asked my boss. Let me go.
SPEAKER_05Let me go.
SPEAKER_06If he says no, I'll go alone. If he says no, I'll go anyhow. If he says no, I'll go anyhow.
SPEAKER_02I'm on my way.
SPEAKER_06Someone wrote on a chip of wood. One of the first banjo tunes I ever knew. Crazy kind of a tuning to it. I have to apologize. I can only play the piano in two keys, and every time I change a different key, I have to retune it. It's kind of like a bagpipe. What makes you sleep so sound? Then revenue officers are coming. We're hanging around my bed. Pretty women ruin my body. Oh yes, oh yes, my darling. I'll do the best I can, but I'll never give my pleasure to another gambling man. Well, the last time I seen the fallen fall, she was sitting by the banks of the sea. She had a forty-five strapped around her bosom, and a banjo on her knee. Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow. Dig a hole in the cold, cold ground. Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow. Gonna lay it all in hurry down. You had about ten requests for this song. It's a talking blues. So I guess here she comes. Talking blues, I'd like to recommend to any poet here as being really, I think it's better than the sonnet as an art form. No! Uh the sonnet is not a disparage sonnet, it's a wonderful thing. I don't know who invented it. It came probably out of slavery days a long time ago because it has a bunch of old verses to it. And uh I I really mean it is anything who would like to uh try writing some poetry. I urge them to try writing the talking blue, but they'll find no longer they're even an I read our million of the guitar pickers too. I give you some of the old verses first. Now you want to go to heaven, let me tell you what to do. You've got to grease your feet in little muttons, too. You just slide out of the devil's hand and ooh's over in the promised land. Take it easy, boys. Ain't no use me working so hard. I got a gal in the rich folks' yard. They kill a chicken, she sends me the head. She thinks I'm working, I'm laying up in bed. I'm dreaming about her. I'm also dreaming about two other girls. Down in the hen house on my knees, I thought I heard a chicken sneeze. It was only the rooster, though, saying his prayers, giving out thanks to the hens upstairs. The rooster was preaching, hens are singing, cost little young bullets doing the best they could. Oh, there's been a thousand and one verses to this song. I've heard the talking drunk, the talking farmer, talking guitars, Woody wrote the talking dust bowl, and perhaps you've heard some other ones. The one I got ten requests for was a version I helped write myself back in the year 41.
SPEAKER_02We were singing for We're singing for a lot of trade unions now.
SPEAKER_06In Detroit, Michigan, we sang for the automobile workers. It was the year that Henry Ford was organized into the CIO. Somewhat against his will, but it was done. And uh we've figured a way of changing around these verses. I don't always sing it in polite company. There's some rough language in it, and the only thing I can excuse it is by saying that sometimes you just feel there are people so mean in the world that you haven't got a word in the dictionary for them. And you have to rustle up a few others. I want to warn all young people, though, not to use these words too often because then you spoil them. And you don't have them around. You don't have them around when you need them. Well, you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do. Got to talk to the workers in the shop with you. You've got to build you a union, gotta make it strong, but if you all stick together, boys, won't be long, it gets shorter hours. Better working conditions. Vacations with pay, take your kids to the seashore. Or up skiing. Of course, it ain't quite this simple. I better explain just why you got to ride on the union train, because if you wait for the boss to raise your pay, you'll all be away till judgment day. All be buried. Go on to heaven. St. Peter will be the straw boss then, boys. Now you know you're underpaid, but the boss says ain't. He speeds up the work till you're about to faint. You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten. Pass out a leaflet, call a meeting, talk it over. Speak your mind. Decide to do something about it. Of course, the boss may persuade some poor darn fool to go to your meeting and act like a stool. But you can always tell a stool, though, if that's a fact. He's got a yellow streak running down his back. He doesn't have to stool, you know. He'll always make a good living. On what he takes out of blind men's cups. Well, you got a union now. You're sitting pretty. Put some of the boys on the steering committee. The boss won't listen if one guy squawks, but he's got to listen if the union talks. He'd better. You'll be mighty lonely one of these days. Suppose he's working you so hard it's just outrageous. Paying you all starvation wages. You go to the boss, the boss would yell, Before I raise your pay, I'd see you all in hell while he's puffing a big cigar. Feeling mighty slick, thinks he's got your union licked. He looks out the window, and what does he see but a thousand pickets, and they all agree he's a bastard. Umpare! Slave driver. Betty beats his wife. Now, boys, you come to the hardest time. They'll try to break your picket line. They'll call out the police, the National Guard, tell you it's a crime to have a union card. They'll read you meeting, hit you on the head, call every one of you a doggone, red, you unpatriotic.
SPEAKER_02Moscow agents.
SPEAKER_06Bomb throwers, even the kids. Well, out in Detroit, here's what they found. Out in Frisco, here's what they found. Down in Bethlehem, here's what they found. Down in Pittsburgh, here's what they found. That if you don't let red baiting break you up, if you don't let stool pigeons break you up, if you don't let vigilantes break you up, and if you don't let race hatred break you up, you'll win. But I mean, take it easy, but take it. Request of a hound dog. Same man also requested an old popular song I used to know when I played in the school jazz band back in 1932. And it's still a good thing. Maybe 200 years from now, some professor will be poking through the white mouth and the old chat, he will be performance. But there is a few little banjo pieces I might try. I put them all together in an phonograph record we call the goofing off suite. Kind of chamber music, you know. Well, after all, no reason for older musicians shouldn't have some chamber music. This has uh three movements, and in between each movement there should be absolute silence because good music is holy.
unknownWhat's all the time?
SPEAKER_06Bring the helmet with me. I should explain that the composers of that suite were Seeger, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and the Yodel from the Sons of the Pioneers. I don't know where they swiped it. Well, you know, after all, Symphony Compose has been swiping from folk musicians for years. There's no reason we shouldn't return the favor. I had a request for a song which was speaking of symphony, maybe someday some symphony work composer will come along and use this. There was a simple work song with hardly more than one phrase, which was taught me again by Hudie Ludbetter. Hughie used to claim he knew the man who made up a song. He was out in the fields one day when he got the idea of hollering in to his wife to bring him out of a glass of water.
SPEAKER_05Bring me a little water, Sylvie. Bring me a little water now.
SPEAKER_04Bring me a little out of Sylvie. Every little once in a while.
SPEAKER_06And she would sing out, Don't you hear me come in?
SPEAKER_04Don't you hear me now? Don't you hear me come in? Every little once in a while.
SPEAKER_06She'd get out there with a glass of water and he'd drink it right down. One more. She said, Do you think I got all nothing to do all day but to bring you glasses of water? Sweet Sag.
SPEAKER_05Ring it in the bucket now. Bring it in the bucket, Sylvie.
SPEAKER_06Every little one, sing a pie. That's right, you can sing it with me. Ring me a little more to Sylvie. Ring me a little more.
SPEAKER_05Ring me a little honey. Every little one s and a pie.
SPEAKER_06Now, if that's high for the girls, you take the low part.
SPEAKER_05Ring me a little more to sylvie. Try. Ring me a little hot and ring me a little.
SPEAKER_06Think you can sing it like that? When all the boys are singing the other melody? Put the two parts together. You see the girls? And the men, ring me little syllabi. Put the two parts together. Decker recording company wanted the weavers to record this song for him, but they said there wasn't enough to it. And I didn't particularly like the idea, but I did get an idea of making a verse to it. I was out in our ten-foot square patch of a garden one day, and I thought of a verse.
SPEAKER_05Silly, silly. I'm so hot and dry. Sylvie, silly, can't you hear? Can't you hear me crying? Bring me little artists.
SPEAKER_06Oh, sing it. Bring me little art and now. Where's the harmony?
SPEAKER_05Bring me little art to silly. Every little one singer.
SPEAKER_06In New York City, I went to listen to my friend Harry Bellafonte sing, and sure enough, he gets up and says, Here's a song written by a man in prison. And he started off with that. I felt like standing up in the balcony and he's saying, Harry, I'm not there yet. He's written some extra verses. I'm sorry, I don't know how they go. You see, everybody adds to it. I like to say, folk songs get made up. And maybe someday a symphony composer will come along. He put in his symphony or an opera or something like that. And they'll all say, Oh, what a wonderful composer he is. And he will be because he had the sense to use the tune. Well, anyhow, we can sing it. Let's really sing it right, though. Don't just sit back and let the other fellow do all the work. Get in it.
SPEAKER_05Ring me little. Ring me little. Ring me low. Oh, sing it again. Every little one send a lot. Once more. Every little one.
SPEAKER_06Oh, by gosh, I'm glad to do this. It says, Will you please sing any Newfoundland folk song? I don't know very many, but a couple I know are humdingers. Uh a friend of mine from Canada taught me to do this, Ed McCurdy. When he first sang it, he hardly opened his mouth. You know, he talked kind of like this all the time. He said, Do all the people in Newfoundland sing that way? He says, the nights get pretty cold over there. Oh, this is the place where the fishermen gather, with oil skins and boots and cap-ans all around, all sizes and figures, with squidlines and jiggers, they congregate here on the squidjiggin ground. The man at the wheel is old Jacob Steele. He's getting well up, but he's still pretty sound. Well Uncle Bob Hawkins wears three pairs of stalkins whenever he's out on the squidjiggin ground. This poor Uncle Billy, his whiskers are spattered with spots of the squid juice that's flying around. One poor little boy got it right in the eye. Oh, he's swearing like mad on the squid jiggin' ground. Says Billy, the squid are on top of the water. I just got my jigger bought one fathom down. When the squid in the boat squirted right down his throat. Oh, he don't give a hang on the squid jiggin' ground. So if ever you feel inclined to go squidding, leave your white shirts and collars behind in the town. And if you get cranky without a silk hanky, you'd better steer clear of the squid jiggin ground. I have to apologize. I left out three verses, and I can't remember them. Some amount of red rotten Tory out there on the dory. Oh my god, here's a beautiful song. Apologize. Oh, the rhythm lord. I don't know it. Way back in the days when this song was also somebody somewhere new other words to do it. And the only reason that I know it is to do it. Dragon of the horror is an argument. The old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom. When the sun comes back and the first quail calls, follow the drinking gourd. Then the old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom. Follow the drinking gourd. The old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom. The dead trees will show you the way. Oh, come to think of it, here's a song which might have been sung by some of the Quakers back in those days. Matter of fact, it's an old, old Quaker song. I just learned it about two weeks ago from a friend of mine who said her grandmother in North Carolina used to sing it to her. And said it came from the days 250 or almost 300 years ago when George Fox and the other founders of the Quaker Church were being thrown in jail. Above Earth's lamentation, I hear the real, though far off hymn, that hails a new creation.
SPEAKER_04No storm can shake my inmost calm. While to that rock I'm clinging, since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?
SPEAKER_06When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death knells ringing, when friends rejoice both far and near.
SPEAKER_04How can I keep from singing? In prison cell and dungeon vial, our thoughts to them are winging. When friends by shame are undefiled. How can I keep from singing?
SPEAKER_06Mountain Dew and skip a little. Oh. I'd sing one song that I think nearly everybody here must have heard it sometime. Uh a few years ago, and it was on the jukeboxes. It was the first record the weavers ever made. And uh try it. A lot of Americans who heard it didn't know that the song originally came from across the ocean. Originally, it was all in the Hebrew language, and it was an accompaniment to a wonderful dance they call the Horace. Thirty people in a big circle can stamp a floor to pieces. Now, even if you never heard it before, there's one place you can help me out with it. Big hand clap. Watch it now. You all could sing on that last part. Only has one word in it. Over and over. Try it again. Once more. The words mean come out, come out, come out, girls from the village, and welcome home the soldiers. Just like we wish we could welcome home soldiers from everywhere, never say goodbye again. Second verse says, girls don't be modest, give them a good welcome. Let's try it all the way through. Here we go. Oh my gosh, you know I was lying, and that wasn't the first record the weavers made. But it was a good song that I'll sing it to you, especially since I was out. Our fathers bled at Valley Forge. The snow was red with blood, their faith was won. At Valley Forge, their faith was brotherhood, wasn't that a time? Wasn't that a time, a time to try the soul of man? Wasn't that a terrible time? Brave men who died at Gettysburg now lie in soldiers' graves, but there they stemmed, the slavery tied, and there the faith was saved. Wasn't that a time? Wasn't that a time, a time to try the soul of man? Wasn't that a terrible time? The fascists came with chains and war to prison us in hate. Many a good man fought and died to save the stricken faith. Wasn't that a time? Wasn't that a time, a time to try the soul of man? Wasn't that a terrible time? And then again the madmen came, and should our victory fail, there was no victory in a land when free men went to jail. Wasn't that a time? Wasn't that a time, a time to try? The soul of man, wasn't that a terrible time? Our faith cries out, we have no fear. We dare to reach our hand to other nations, far and near to friends in every land. Isn't this a time? Isn't this a time, a time to free? The soul of man, isn't this a wonderful time? Isn't this a time? Isn't this a time, a time to free? The soul of man, isn't this a wonderful time? Well, the song didn't get on the head trade, as I say. And yet there are thousands of songs like that all over our country. I suppose, by people who have something particular they wanted to say and feel so strongly about it, they sit down and write a poem. Every occupation has songs, not just cowboys and sailors, but steel workers' songs and textile workers. He was students. There was a professor in Amherst did dwell. His name it was Lewis, we know him quite well. He wrote a big treatise on angles and lines with chapters on tangents, cosecants, and signs. Singing tangent, co-tangent, cosecant, co-sign, singing origin, focused diuretics and lines. Oh, anybody who studies chemistry by chance? In Minnesota at uh university two months ago, I met a man who had been in Oxford. And there are an assistant to the chemistry professor known as a demi. Checks all the experiments of the students. The first time I made it up, the demi said to me, There's one metal more in group three. The second time I made it up, the demi said to me, Chloride isn't there, and there's one metal more in group three. The third time I made it up, the demished to me. Iron's there in traces, chloride isn't there, and there's one metal more in group three. The fourth time I made it up, the demished to me. Who said manganese? Iron's there in traces, chloride isn't there, and there's one metal more in group three. The fifth time I made it up, the demished to me, no florite. Who said manganese? Iron's there in traces, chloride isn't there, and there's one metal more in group three. Oh, the sixth time I made it up, the demished to me, Have you tried a flame test? No fluoride, who said manganese? Iron's there in traces, chloride isn't there, and there's one metal more in group three. The seventh time I made it up, the demished to me, What was that explosion? Have you tried a flame test?
SPEAKER_02No, Chloride.
SPEAKER_06Who said manganese? Iron's there in Traces Chloride isn't there. And there's one metal more in group three. The eighth time I made it up, the demished to me, Go and take up physics. Samuel Hall is a good song, but I wish I did know all the verses to King's ding-ding-ding. Somebody knows him, you come up and tell them to. I haven't sung very many ballads tonight. You know, the difference between a ballad as I uh I think of it uh compared to another song is it's the story's the most important thing in the world. The the tune can be a nothing. The singer can be a scratchy old excuse for a voice. They no accompaniments needed, but if it's a good story, you'll listen right to the bitter end. Woody Guthrie, when he was a teenager in Oklahoma, was hitchhiking on a freight train with his uncle. His uncle was a big tall man, and his uncle's a fiddler. He had to fiddle with him. They didn't know it, but Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw was known to be also a tall man, and a rumor had gone out that he was riding on freight trains and had a machine gun and a fiddle case. And I can see the plot shaping up. They were sitting peacefully in a boxcar, Woody told me, when the light came down the track, Brakeman looking a routine inspection, and Brakeman just saw his fiddle sitting on the floor of the boxcar. The light went up in the air, and they looked out the door, and there was a guy running as fast as he could, hollering. They didn't know what was up, they figured something was, and they got out, and lucky they did too. Woody always said that he didn't know perhaps the exact truth of the situation, but he didn't know the truth of what people thought. And uh, though they might not have approved Pretty Boy Floyd's methods, they lots of times approved his main object uh that is robbing banks. Uh and uh I suppose the song is the direct descendant of Robin Hood. If you gather round me, children, a story I will tell about pretty boy Floyd the outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well. Twas in the town of Shawnee on a Saturday afternoon, his wife beside him in the wagon, and in the town they rode. Well, the deputy sheriff approached him in a manner rather rude, with vulgar words of anger, which Miss Floyd overheard. Pretty boy grabbed a log chain, a deputy grabbed his gun, and in the fight that followed, he laid that deputy down. Well, the outlaw took to the timber to live a life of shame. Every crime in Oklahoma was added to his name. He took to the trees and timber along the river shore. Pretty boy found welcome at many a farmer's door. Others told of a stranger who came to bake a meal, and underneath the napkin left a thousand dollar bill. How the outlaws paid the mortgage and saved their little home. Now in Oklahoma city, upon a Christmas day, a whole car load of groceries came with a note to say You say that I am an outlaw, you say that I am a thief. Well, here's a Christmas day.
SPEAKER_00It is the oldest table at that we digitized at Sound Century. And from what I can hear, we must have had about five to seven minutes of somewhere on somebody's cutting room floor, uh hopefully to be found uh in the collection of the lab at uh CUR. Everybody Richard VD here for back in the early 1970s, uh there was a resurgence of Memphis Blues all over the country, and many artists in houses. And that's what Johnny John 17th of April in Denver. I know. I wish I could have been there too. And over the next few shows, you can be there with some interviews from Harry Tuff, and also don't miss any of these shows that feature folk heroes from the Down Century Academy of Recording Arts at the University of Colorado and the Harry Tuff Collection. And we will see you under the Egyptian Theater of Marketing. Take care, man.
