Posts Tagged ‘Folk music’
How to be noticed…
The world now has access to a list of words and phrases that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses to monitor social networks and news article comments for terrorism and general threats against the country.
The list was part of a 39-page “2011 Analyst’s Desktop Binder” document that was released due to a Freedom of Information Act request by privacy watchdog organization Electronic Privacy Information Center. The list contains references to all the related governmental agencies, obvious references to threats (attack, nuclear threat, etc.) and then some pretty generic words like pork, cloud, electric, port, dock, and many others…
Read the full story– and the DHS document– on VentureBeat.
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As we reckon that we’ve already been fingered, we might send tuneful birthday wishes to Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie; he was born on this date in 1912. Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his own songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression– and earned him the nickname, “Dust Bowl Troubadour.”
‘This Land is Your Land (in D)’By Woody Guthrie
CHORUS: 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 was made for you and meCANADIAN CHORUS:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Bonavista to Vancouver Island
From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lake Waters
This land was made for you and meSANIBEL CHORUS:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to Sanibel Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and meAs I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and meI roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
O’er the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me, a voice was saying
This land was made for you and meWhen the sun came shining and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
As the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting
This land was made for you and meAs I went walking, I saw a sign there
On the sign it said NO TRESPASSING
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me!In the squares of the city, in the shadow of the steeple
In the relief office, I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking that freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land was made for you and me
The Anti-Skinheads…
American Juggalo
click here for video
Once a year, the fans of Insane Clown Posse— a group self-anointed the “Juggalos“– gather at Cave-in-Rock, Illinois for a week of music, carnival rides, and partying.
In contrast to the Skinhead movement, Juggalos pride themselves on inclusiveness, embracing all races, genders, creeds, and economic backgrounds (though they tend to be drawn, like Skinheads, largely from the economically-challenged), and consider themselves a family.
The inimitable Bob Lefsetz on American Juggalo:
This ain’t Coachella. It’s not even Bonnaroo.
We’re used to corporate sponsors, patrons staying in hotel rooms. Everybody in America is a winner, on their way up.
But here you have an endless supply of what society calls losers. And they all seem to know it.
This film is as powerful as the great documentaries of Frederick Wiseman and D.A. Pennebaker. It captures a vibe, a feeling, which you don’t find too often in today’s mainstream media.
I can’t imagine many of these people are Democrats. They want every dollar they earn, because it’s not many. And where’s the better life, the jobs Obama promised?
It’s an endless carnival of the disenfranchised. An underbelly pushed under the rug, joining together to have a good time.
What happens when your parents aren’t rich, when your life has taken a wrong turn? You get tattoos and become a Juggalo.
This certainly ain’t the beautiful people.
And it’s not all stoners. There are Straight Edge Juggalos, and if one of the talking heads is to be believed, even brain surgeon Juggalos. But I’m guessing those are in the minority.
This is not plastic-surgeried, dieted down to nothing television America. This is the people servicing you, doing those low paying jobs you’ve got contempt for.
But they’re also us.
They’re bonded as family, and that’s admirable…
As we dream the American Dream, we might spare a warm thought for Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie, the musical voice of voiceless Americans for half a century; he died on this date in 1967. Guthrie began writing and singing as he travelled with other refugees west from the Dust Bowl in the 30s. He became a professional, and moved to New York in 1939. Almost as soon as he landed in the East, he met Alan Lomax, who was collecting folk recordings for the Library of Congress. For two years, Guthrie added to Lomax’s store– which led to the album Dust Bowl Ballads, the nation’s introduction to “Protest Folk,” a form that Guthrie pioneered with such songs as “This Land is Your Land.”
In the 1950s, Guthrie was diagnosed with Huntington’s chorea, a genetic disorder that was treated in those days with confinement to a psychiatric hospital– in Guthrie’s case, Brooklyn State Hospital, then Creedmore– where he spent his last 12 years.
In 1963, Bob Dylan was asked to contribute a 25-word “thought” to the preface of a forthcoming book on Guthrie; Dylan responded with a 144-line poem… in which, having asked where a man could go to “look for this hope that yer seekin’,” Dylan suggests
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You’ll find God in the church of your choice
You’ll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
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