Strange times

We live in strange times

You don't need me to tell you, there's been a lot going on these past weeks. The UK has voted for greater autonomy/isolation. Which is weird really, cos our rejection of isolationism and trading is what helped us through the Great Depression of the 30s better than the USA.

Speaking of that era, I've been rereading the autobiography of Woody Guthrie, the US folk singer who gave us such classics as 'This Land is Your Land' and 'The Car Song'- interestingly enough, some of the original verses of 'This Land is Your Land' reflected Guthries socialist beliefs- 'Was a high wall there that tried to stop me/A sign was painted 'Private Property'/ But on the back side didn't say nothing./This land was made for you and me.

And

One bright morning in the shadow of the steeple/By the relief office I saw my people/As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering/If this land was made for you and me.

It's irritating sometimes that this song is used by Republicans in the US when Guthrie would have been appalled by Trumps anti immigrant views. But then right wing politicians have rarely been good at interpreting songs, from Reagan using 'Born in the USA' by Springsteen, or Cameron famously pissing off Paul Weller by talking about loving listening to 'Eton Rifles' by The Jam when in the cadets.

With the book getting me misty eyed with wanderlust, I decided to make a playlist for traveling and some Guthrie related songs. While browsing I ended up finding an album on spotify called 'FTA! Songs of G.I Resistance', which features Barbara Dane leading G.I.s in various protest songs, including a blistering version of 'We shall not be moved' that almost had me welling up.

And that in turn got me thinking about music and protest songs and the options we have at the moment. On one side you've got Ed Sheeran making huge sums of money with vacuous empty pop shite and dedicating songs to David Cameron, on the other you have the recently reformed King Blues getting donations for homeless charities at gigs and advocating grass roots action. So I can't rant and complain that 'they don't make em like they used to' as there are still people using music as a form of protest, and long may it continue. Because, with Theresa May now in power having said at a Tory conference 'We don't need any more immigrants' and not ruling out deporting EU migrants, we have an obligation to think beyond national borders and consider inequality. My friend currently applying for a visa in the UK has been asked on the form- 'Have you at any point committed any genocide/ethnic cleansing?'- as though someone who had committed one would be above lying on a form. 

I was, like many folk my age, shocked by the Brexit result. As many of us planned various getaways and escape plans, rose tinted ideas of heading the US came to mind. But they could well elect Trump! So at the moment I find myself working, day by day, unwilling to settle, or make any long term plans.

It's strange times we live in, so I appreciate you reading my ramblings.

I'll leave you with a lengthy quote from Woody, a hero I couldn't kill even if I tried:

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."

I did want to put a link to the great 'We Shall not be Moved' version I heard, but, it costs about 10 quid on itunes, so I got the next best thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBD6aQ0AMhs