Old Folksinger's Pick
2023

A Note from Bob

December 2023

Photo by Fatima Shbair, The Guardian

“I sit in one of the dives/ On Fifty-second Street/ uncertain and afraid.” So wrote W.H. Auden on the eve of World War II. The poem, September 1, 1939, continues:
“… Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives.”

Eighty-four years later, 3000 miles from 52nd Street, I sit comfortably at home on more-or-less idyllic Gabriola Island, and yet I am - Auden again - “Beleaguered by the same/ Negation and despair.” I have never been one to keep my complaints about the world’s ills to myself, but, in all my 78 years, I believe this is the worst I have ever known things to be. I see little chance of it getting better.

This week, world leaders are gathered in Dubai to once again discuss the long-predicted climate disasters, now fully upon us. “Discuss” is the operative word. Their carefully crafted speeches mostly mask their refusal to do the things that might actually help. Canada is one of the worst.

Meanwhile, across the globe, wars kill hundreds of thousands, or drive them from their homes, turning pastures to deserts. In the two months since the vile attack by Hamas on October 7th, Israel has rained death on nearly 17,000 Palestinians, 7000 of them children (7000 children!) and the toll continues to rise by hundreds every day. If this isn’t ethnic cleansing, I don’t know what is. Canada, however, calls it “Israel’s right to defend itself.” The U.S. urges Netanyahu to be more judicious, while providing him with an open-ended supply of missiles and bombs to continue the massacres. Like me, the majority of the world who know a war crime when we see one, stand helplessly by.

At home, housing and doctors are out of the reach of many, but fentanyl is ubiquitous. Governments tinker at the edges of the problems. It is clearly time to turf the bums out – what a disappointment Trudeau turned out to be – and people the world over are doing it. Alas the replacements are often worse: bigoted charlatans with no solutions to offer, just flattery. Fact and reason can barely be heard through the cacophony of crazy beliefs and outright lies.

And the forests continue to fall.

How can this be? How is it that we, who can teach ourselves to fly, who build amazing things, who have created so much beauty – how can we be so fucking, disastrously, stupid?

Back in 1939, Auden wrote:

“Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages.”

Here then, are 26 such messages.

Tikkun olam, my friends, repair the world.

Free Palestine.

bb

PS. I’d love to hear from you.

Acknowledgements

Once again, I am grateful to, and inspired by, Mike Norris who every week puts out two hours of eclectic and often very cool folk music from Cecil Sharp House in London. https://www.efdss.org/about-us/folk-player/listen-classic-folk.

For the fifth year running, Skel Jopko has translated Old Folksinger’s Pick into code and safely deposited it onto the interweb.

And lastly, thank you Elizabeth Shefrin, just because.

Notes on the songs

For the most part, lyrics to these songs and information about the performers are easily found on the web. Here are a few extra notes.

11 Wanton Brown   Young Hungarian/English folksinger Rakoczy says, “No horses were harmed in this recording. Please don't try this at home; we recommend finding safer ways of overthrowing the ruling classes.” The lyrics are here: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Wanton+Brown+lyrics

16 Star o’ the Bar was written by Davie Robertson in a mix of Scots and English. Lyrics here: https://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Star_o_the_Bar.htm

17 Waterman’s Hornpipe was collected from Shetland fiddler John Sickle in 1947. Sickle, who was born in 1875, learned it from his grandfather, a German sailor who was shipwrecked on Shetland and decided to stay. John didn’t like the tune much. I beg to differ.

20 Steamboat Whistle Blues   I took up the banjo in 1960, inspired by Dave Guard of the Kingston Trio. (I had taken up the guitar in 1955, inspired by Elvis.) A decade later, my banjo was in the closet with old sports equipment. Then one night in 1971, I heard John Hartford. John was a great, innovative banjo player and, later, a fiddler as well. But what hooked me that night was his song-writing: if a banjo could sing, those were the songs. I dug out my banjo, and with Hartford in my ear, I wrote Daddy Was a Ballplayer.

Unbeknownst to me, a young Toronto fiddler named Ben Mink was in Hartford’s audience at the same gig. Ben was there to hear Hartford’s accompanist, Vasser Clemens, one of the great American fiddle players. Ben and Vasser struck up a conversation and got together the next day. By evening, Ben was a different fiddler.

Later, in the Stringband days, Hartford and I became friends. John died in 2001, after a twenty-year battle with cancer. Vasser died in 2005. They were great musicians and generous people. Steamboat Whistle Blues is one of my favourite Hartford songs. I have re-worked the lyric as a tribute to John. The music is Ben’s and my tribute to them both.

22 Heading for Home is written by Peggy Seeger. Rufus Wainwright and “Pretty Little” Martha Wainwright are the children of Louden Wainright and my old friend Kate McGarrigle. Of blessed memory.

26 Joy of Living   Ewan MacColl was an inveterate rambler – someone who loved to hike, mountain and dale. Late in his life Ewan, his wife Peggy Seeger and their daughter Kitty set out to climb Stac Pollaidh in the north of Scotland. Peggy recalls, “After a little while, Ewan had to stop. He walked around the bottom of that magnificent spiky mountain while Kitty and I climbed to the top. We had been listening to Sicilian folk songs in the car on the way up and he took the tune of one of them and, by the time we came down, he had written Joy of Living.”