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| mollie |
I listen to you'll see that I am no rock-chick, but that in me head I still have daisies in my hair and a long calico frock on.
I must have been feeling particularly sentimental tonight. After a couple of goes at singing along with Arlo Guthrie and changing my name to Chrysler , and then the Garden song. I sang along with his dad
The great Woody Guthrie. I hate to say this but I am not the worlds greatest fan of his singing but as a poet he is a nonpareil
This Land is Your Land
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land is made for you and me.
As I go walking this ribbon of highway I see above me the endless skyway And all around me the wind keeps saying: This land is made for you and me.
I roam and I ramble and I follow my footsteps Till I come to the sands of her mineral desert The mist is lifting and the voice is saying: This land is made for you and me.
Where the wind is blowing I go a strolling The wheat field waving and the dust a rolling The fog is lifting and the wind is saying: This land is made for you and me.
Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking my freedom highway Nobody living can make me turn back This land is made for you and me.
In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple; By the relief office, I'd seen my people. As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?
As I went walking, I saw a sign there; And on the sign there, It said, 'NO TRESPASSING.' But on the other side, It didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me.
So simple, so obvious.
IT made me want to cry tonight. It also made me wonder why we don't have national anthems like that. A song of inclusion, a song of belonging.
I love this country, not in a jingoistic nationalistic way, but in a this is land is your land this land is my land way.
It reminded me of weekend hikes and the singing of
Manchester Rambler
* (Ewan MacColl)
I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way I may be a wage slave on Monday But I am a free man on Sunday
I've been o'er the Snowdon, I've slept upon Crowden I've camped by the Wain Stones as well I've sunbaked on Kinder, been burnt to a cinder And many more things I can tell
My rucksack has oft been my pillow The heather has oft been my bed And sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
The day was just ending as I was descending By Grindsbrook, just by Upper Tor When a voice cried, Eh you, in the way keepers do He'd the worst face that ever I saw The things that he said were unpleasant In the teeth of his fury I said Sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
He called me a louse and said, Think of the grouse Well I thought but I still couldn't see Why old Kinder Scout and the moors round about Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me He said, All this land is my master's At that I stood shaking my head No man has the right to all mountains Any more than the deep ocean bed
I once loved a maid, a spot-welder by trade She was fair as the rowan in bloom And the blue of her eye matched the June moorland sky And I wooed her from April to June On the day that we should have been married I went for a ramble instead For sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
So I walk where I will over mountain and hill And I lie where the bracken is deep I belong to the mountains, the clear-running fountains Where the grey rocks rise rugged and steep
I've seen the white hare in the gulley And the curlew fly high over head And sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
Tune: based on Haydn's 94th symphony
I don't know what I'm trying to say really, except that I wish we could all say that, whoever we are , look at the person next to us and say
This land was made for you and me
( The above song was written by Ewan McColl in 1933 and as such predates Guthrie's song by almost 10 years The first of MacColl's great angry protest songs was a campaign song for one of the great mass actions of the thirties. Hiking was a popular sport . The only problem was that many favourite areas were privately owned grouse moors, where the keepers didn't take kindly to the working-class invasion. There were several cases of hikers being attacked. The solution was a confrontation, a mass trespass over the area around Kinder Scout. MacColl says he expected just a few hundred to join the Trespass, 'but eight or nine thousand turned up'. Police and keepers were waiting, there were pitched battles, and many hikers were jailed.
Edited Tue 17 Apr 07, 7:31 PM by mollie
| 17 Apr 07, 7:32 PM mollie UK(CR), 8 yrs |
sorry can't make this look like I want it to. the rivers of incompetence run deep Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."" |
| 17 Apr 07, 8:04 PM MissToria UK, 7 yrs |
thanks for that, I love woody guthrie but wasnt aware of ewan maccoll and IC formatting is useless for poetry/lyrics |
| 17 Apr 07, 8:59 PM redandy UK(NP), 6 yrs  |
Dropkick Murphys do a fantastic track called 'ShippingUp To Boston' which is their punky take on a scrap of a lyric written by Woody which shows Woody's sometime quirky sense of humour(and was featured on the movie The Departed.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-64CaD8GXw Remember: This machine kills facists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie the only living boy in Newport... |
| 17 Apr 07, 9:11 PM mollie UK(CR), 8 yrs |
ooh thanks for that Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."" |
| 17 Apr 07, 9:22 PM RosieLady UK(AB), 6 yrs |
What's the spring-breathing jasmine and rose ?
Both Sides of the Tweed..Dick Gaughin What's the summer with all its gay train Or the splendour of autumn to those Who've bartered their freedom for gain? Let the love of our land's sacred rights To the love of our people succeed Let friendship and honour unite And flourish on both sides the Tweed. No sweetness the senses can cheer Which corruption and bribery bind No brightness that gloom can e'er clear For honour's the sum of the mind Let virtue distinguish the brave Place riches in lowest degree Think them poorest who can be a slave Them richest who dare to be free
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| 17 Apr 07, 11:31 PM mollie UK(CR), 8 yrs |
that's beautiful, thanks Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."" |
| 18 Apr 07, 7:04 PM Platinum UK(W), 9 yrs |
I know this song from the duet version on his daughter, Kirsty Maccolls albums. I found this while searching. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4772328.stm P |
