Music, mostly
Sep. 24th, 2019 09:01 pmI should watch that Ken Burns documentary on Country Music. Two people I read on LJ/DW (hi, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
microbie and shadowkat) are reviewing it as it goes. I went and listened to Dolly Parton singing "I Will Always Love You", and then from there, to "The Last Thing on My Mind"... I love Dolly. The second song, though... it's Tom Paxton's. He's one of the folksingers I grew up on. Pretty much any singer whose songs my mom sang brings me to instant choked throat and tears. I talked to my friend Mischa, and she says that year two after your mother's death (maybe the death of anyone you loved, but I know she was speaking of the second year after her own mother's death) is worse, in terms of grief. I am definitely blindsided by crying and sadness this second year. Music crystallizes this, especially two things: songs she sang, and songs, or singers, she would have loved and will never know.
She would have loved Tyler Childers. And a couple of weeks ago -- I think I got this from my Facebook feed -- I encountered another group she would have loved, a lot. She and my father and my stepmother and Bill, my mom's boyfriend and our quasi (quondam?) stepfather* all really loved Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash ... and the supergroup that they created, The Highwaymen. Well, there is a new supergroup (that term is sort of gross, but whatever) of women country singers, called The Highwomen, which has reinvented that song, about rebellious women through the centuries. Members: Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby. For one verse of the main song, they also have "U. K. songwriter Yola" singing, as well as guest appearances at various points by other women. The eponymous song is wonderful. It's exactly the same tune. The lyrics -- especially the verse about the Freedom Riders (the one sung by Yola)-- give me chills. My mother would have LOVED it. She loved a song whose lyrical focus is very similar -- I don't remember who wrote it**, but Christy Moore recorded it -- "Unfinished Revolution".
These are the contrasted lyrics (I particularly appreciated that Christy Moore's song includes acknowledgment of women in Afghanistan against the Taliban LONG BEFORE 2001, when the Soviets were almost the good guys (never forget the Spartacists' Workers Vanguard Best Headline Ever: ALL HAIL RED ARMY IN AFGHANISTAN***.))
Unfinished Revolution
From the health centre porch she looks to the North
Where Nicaragua's enemies hide
Polio crippled and maimed before things were changed
Slowly they're turning the tide
In the twilight she stands, with a rifle in hand
And a memory of what used to be
Now she's part of the unfinished revolution
Feudal landlords they've known seen overthrown
Afghanistan comes into view
Learning to read and to write is part of the fight
But for her it's something that's new
Down all of the years ashamed of her tears
Imprisoned behind a black veil
Now she's part of the unfinished revolution
Soldiers kicked down the door, called her a whore
While he lingered in Castlereagh
Internment tore them apart, brought her to the heart
Of resistance in Belfast today
Her struggle is long, it's hard to be strong
She's determined deep down inside
To be part of the unfinished revolution.
She holds the key to the unfinished revolution.
The Highwomen
I was a Highwoman
And a mother from my youth
For my children I did what I had to do
My family left Honduras when they killed the Sandinistas
We followed a coyote through the dust of Mexico
Every one of them except for me survived
And I am still alive
I was a healer
I was gifted as a girl
I laid hands upon the world
Someone saw me sleeping naked in the noon sun
I heard "witchcraft" in the whispers and I knew my time had come
The bastards hung me at the Salem gallows hill
But I am living still
I was a freedom rider
When we thought the South had won
Virginia in the spring of '61
I sat down on the Greyhound that was bound for Mississippi
My mother asked me if that ride was worth my life
And when the shots rang out I never heard the sound
But I am still around
And I'll take that ride again
And again
And again
And again
And again
I was a preacher
My heart broke for all the world
But teaching was unrighteous for a girl
In the summer I was baptized in the mighty Colorado
In the winter I heard the hounds and I knew I had been found
And in my Savior's name, I laid my weapons down
But I am still around
We are The Highwomen
Singing stories still untold
We carry the sons you can only hold
We are the daughters of the silent generations
You sent our hearts to die alone in foreign nations
It may return to us as tiny drops of rain
But we will still remain
And we'll come back again and again and again
And again and again
We'll come back again and again and again
And again and again
The second song on the album with the same title as the group and as the song above is "Redesigning Women"... which... is kind of hilarious. It sort of sounds like a mash-up, culturally of: that sitcom I couldn't bear, called Designing Women; the movie Nine to Five, and that Enjoli ad from the early 80s: "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan... and never, never, never let you forget you're a man! ENJOLI!"
* * * * * * * * * *
Otherwise... I am catching up on S4, 5 and 6 of Downton Abbey because I'd like to see the movie. School is out of the honeymoon period; wrangling sixth graders through Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is kind of difficult; it's an evaluation year (PTSD ahoy!); I'm exhausted after work all the time; I read a funny YA romance called My So-Called Bollywood Life which name checked a million Bollywood movies I have loved, including my all time favorite, Rang de Basanti; I am also trying to catch up on The Expanse, and starting (belatedly) Pose.
*Bill... like my mom, he played guitar and sang, and he looked KIND OF like Willie Nelson. He certainly liked weed as well as Willie did and does. At some points, Bill really emphasized the likeness. I'd be glad to have some tapes to digitize of Bill singing, but I don't. Like my father and mother and stepmother, Bill, too, was a socialist -- a member of the opposition in the Socialist Workers Party which eventually morphed into Solidarity. He worked on the railroad as a switchman, was injured on the job and lost his foot -- going between cars as you're "told" not to do, but are tacitly expected to do in order to get across the yard in time... Pretty much, Bill had the worst extended run of bad luck of anyone I've ever known personally. A brain aneurism, alcoholism, firing for same, a year of working at day labor jobs and doing AA before getting his job back, and then losing his foot in a work accident. A crappy pay-out and post railroad career as a pizza deliveryman. And ten years later, cancer.
**It was apparently Peter Cadle
*** Hmm. That might be SLIGHTLY apocryphal, though I remember being at a Central American solidarity demonstration in Chicago in 1980 and seeing the paper being sold... apparently, though it was ABOUT Afghanistan, the headline just said "ALL HAIL RED ARMY". Still memorable, though.
microbie and shadowkat) are reviewing it as it goes. I went and listened to Dolly Parton singing "I Will Always Love You", and then from there, to "The Last Thing on My Mind"... I love Dolly. The second song, though... it's Tom Paxton's. He's one of the folksingers I grew up on. Pretty much any singer whose songs my mom sang brings me to instant choked throat and tears. I talked to my friend Mischa, and she says that year two after your mother's death (maybe the death of anyone you loved, but I know she was speaking of the second year after her own mother's death) is worse, in terms of grief. I am definitely blindsided by crying and sadness this second year. Music crystallizes this, especially two things: songs she sang, and songs, or singers, she would have loved and will never know.She would have loved Tyler Childers. And a couple of weeks ago -- I think I got this from my Facebook feed -- I encountered another group she would have loved, a lot. She and my father and my stepmother and Bill, my mom's boyfriend and our quasi (quondam?) stepfather* all really loved Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash ... and the supergroup that they created, The Highwaymen. Well, there is a new supergroup (that term is sort of gross, but whatever) of women country singers, called The Highwomen, which has reinvented that song, about rebellious women through the centuries. Members: Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby. For one verse of the main song, they also have "U. K. songwriter Yola" singing, as well as guest appearances at various points by other women. The eponymous song is wonderful. It's exactly the same tune. The lyrics -- especially the verse about the Freedom Riders (the one sung by Yola)-- give me chills. My mother would have LOVED it. She loved a song whose lyrical focus is very similar -- I don't remember who wrote it**, but Christy Moore recorded it -- "Unfinished Revolution".
These are the contrasted lyrics (I particularly appreciated that Christy Moore's song includes acknowledgment of women in Afghanistan against the Taliban LONG BEFORE 2001, when the Soviets were almost the good guys (never forget the Spartacists' Workers Vanguard Best Headline Ever: ALL HAIL RED ARMY IN AFGHANISTAN***.))
Unfinished Revolution
From the health centre porch she looks to the North
Where Nicaragua's enemies hide
Polio crippled and maimed before things were changed
Slowly they're turning the tide
In the twilight she stands, with a rifle in hand
And a memory of what used to be
Now she's part of the unfinished revolution
Feudal landlords they've known seen overthrown
Afghanistan comes into view
Learning to read and to write is part of the fight
But for her it's something that's new
Down all of the years ashamed of her tears
Imprisoned behind a black veil
Now she's part of the unfinished revolution
Soldiers kicked down the door, called her a whore
While he lingered in Castlereagh
Internment tore them apart, brought her to the heart
Of resistance in Belfast today
Her struggle is long, it's hard to be strong
She's determined deep down inside
To be part of the unfinished revolution.
She holds the key to the unfinished revolution.
The Highwomen
I was a Highwoman
And a mother from my youth
For my children I did what I had to do
My family left Honduras when they killed the Sandinistas
We followed a coyote through the dust of Mexico
Every one of them except for me survived
And I am still alive
I was a healer
I was gifted as a girl
I laid hands upon the world
Someone saw me sleeping naked in the noon sun
I heard "witchcraft" in the whispers and I knew my time had come
The bastards hung me at the Salem gallows hill
But I am living still
I was a freedom rider
When we thought the South had won
Virginia in the spring of '61
I sat down on the Greyhound that was bound for Mississippi
My mother asked me if that ride was worth my life
And when the shots rang out I never heard the sound
But I am still around
And I'll take that ride again
And again
And again
And again
And again
I was a preacher
My heart broke for all the world
But teaching was unrighteous for a girl
In the summer I was baptized in the mighty Colorado
In the winter I heard the hounds and I knew I had been found
And in my Savior's name, I laid my weapons down
But I am still around
We are The Highwomen
Singing stories still untold
We carry the sons you can only hold
We are the daughters of the silent generations
You sent our hearts to die alone in foreign nations
It may return to us as tiny drops of rain
But we will still remain
And we'll come back again and again and again
And again and again
We'll come back again and again and again
And again and again
The second song on the album with the same title as the group and as the song above is "Redesigning Women"... which... is kind of hilarious. It sort of sounds like a mash-up, culturally of: that sitcom I couldn't bear, called Designing Women; the movie Nine to Five, and that Enjoli ad from the early 80s: "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan... and never, never, never let you forget you're a man! ENJOLI!"
* * * * * * * * * *
Otherwise... I am catching up on S4, 5 and 6 of Downton Abbey because I'd like to see the movie. School is out of the honeymoon period; wrangling sixth graders through Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is kind of difficult; it's an evaluation year (PTSD ahoy!); I'm exhausted after work all the time; I read a funny YA romance called My So-Called Bollywood Life which name checked a million Bollywood movies I have loved, including my all time favorite, Rang de Basanti; I am also trying to catch up on The Expanse, and starting (belatedly) Pose.
*Bill... like my mom, he played guitar and sang, and he looked KIND OF like Willie Nelson. He certainly liked weed as well as Willie did and does. At some points, Bill really emphasized the likeness. I'd be glad to have some tapes to digitize of Bill singing, but I don't. Like my father and mother and stepmother, Bill, too, was a socialist -- a member of the opposition in the Socialist Workers Party which eventually morphed into Solidarity. He worked on the railroad as a switchman, was injured on the job and lost his foot -- going between cars as you're "told" not to do, but are tacitly expected to do in order to get across the yard in time... Pretty much, Bill had the worst extended run of bad luck of anyone I've ever known personally. A brain aneurism, alcoholism, firing for same, a year of working at day labor jobs and doing AA before getting his job back, and then losing his foot in a work accident. A crappy pay-out and post railroad career as a pizza deliveryman. And ten years later, cancer.
**It was apparently Peter Cadle
*** Hmm. That might be SLIGHTLY apocryphal, though I remember being at a Central American solidarity demonstration in Chicago in 1980 and seeing the paper being sold... apparently, though it was ABOUT Afghanistan, the headline just said "ALL HAIL RED ARMY". Still memorable, though.
