Got the final word from Ira at the top of the week. The new slice will have five songs, none of them suggested via this blog:
- Vi Lang
- Lomir Undzer Shul Bagrisn
- The Loco-motion
- It's My Party
- You Won't See Me
Having said that, it's hard not to look at these tunes and wonder if this particular playlist isn't already on file somewhere in the back of Maddy's House. Loco-motion is the fifth Goffin/King song in the slices; You Won't See Me is the twelfth Beatles song (eleven Lennon/McCartney's, one Harrison, in case you're keeping track). And while I'm hardly qualified to challenge the inclusion of the two Yiddish songs (and Vi Lang is a particular favorite), without a solid cultural context propping them up, I'm a little skeptical as to how much play they'll actually get.
There's a much larger debate in play here, one that's been going on (albeit quietly and civilly) for some time now. Given the limited resources camp has to work with, what's the best way to keep the cultural program from drifting towards irrelevance? It's a very difficult issue to grapple with; even more so where music is concerned. There are so many questions for which there are simply no good answers. Case in point: over the last 20 years, many of the artists whose lyrics advocate the kind of radicalism championed at Kinderland (i.e.: Public Enemy, Ani DiFranco, Rage Against the Machine) perform in ways that are not at all conducive to a group sing-along model. If at some point contemporary music is added to the slices, then how to address the absence of so many relevant voices? And if those artists are being excluded for the sake of practicality (no small consideration in a setting like camp), then what does make the cut? Would anybody really be satisfied if the last 30 years of protest music were represented with songs like Billy Joel's Allentown or U2's Pride (In the Name of Love)?
Anyway, this is a much heavier discussion than I'm willing to have right now. We here at Kinderslice Music do not see our mission as standing athwart the Tolland canon, yelling STOP. Especially not when there're awesome tunes to be spun. I don't particularly care what Ira thinks; you guys came up with some truly awesome selections, and I want to use this final pre-camp post to showcase some of the ones I thought were especially aces. A week from now, in some undiscovered parallel universe, the Inters will have their first music period of the summer, and no song will be impossible... that's the KassaNostra's dream, anyway: a slice with everything, as it were.
So first of all, let's talk about the Indigo Girls. I've never really been a fan. In fact, my formative camp years coincided with their biggest releases, and the memories of overzealous rendition after overzealous rendition of Closer to Fine still haunt me. (Rule of thumb, people: the more you like a band, the more the person sitting next to you probably doesn't.) But I will gladly prostrate myself to the higher mind for the right of any folk artist to ditch the psychobabble and write a kick-ass rocker, and with that in mind, I really, really like Dane's suggestion of Shame on You, the lead single off of 1997's Shaming of the Sun. Of all the proposed new tunes, I think this one would be the most fun to actually sing (or even better, walk past a group of eleven-year-olds tearing through it). The social relevance factor is off the charts, even as this country's attitudes towards undocumented aliens get stupider by the minute. And for those of you unfamiliar with Chicano Park, check it out – it gives the Paul Robeson Playhouse a run for its money. Really, sixty-something years after the fact, this song would be the perfect bookend for Woody Guthrie's Deportee. Nice choice, Dane. And I say that as someone who would just as soon avoid a Nomads Indians Saints revival. Be worth it, 'tho, if it got this number into the canon.Indigo Girls: Shame on You
Next up, a private request by little Nicky Jahr for Billy Bragg's personal anthem, Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards (from 1988's Workers Playtime). Much like the Indigo Girls, comrade Bragg is one of those artists who'd be a natural for Kinderland icon status, if only his timing were a little better. A quick perusal at an actual copy of the slices reveals that the earliest entries (pgs. 1-26) are mostly pulled from Rise Up Singing, which also came out in 1988. Consequently, anyone who started hitting their stride in the late 80s gets the shaft. (Far as I can tell, the most recently released song in the slices is Gerry Tenney's New Underground Railroad: self-released in 1985, with a wider release on Holly Near & Ronnie Gilbert's 1987 LP Singing with You.) I only point this out because Bragg is the rare artist who effortlessly mixes sarcasm, incurable romanticism, unabashedly progressive politics, and an amiable outlook on everything. "You can be active with the activists/Or sleep in with the sleepers." It's more than just a lyric; it's an ethos. Sometimes I still can't believe we let this dude slip through the cracks.Billy Bragg: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
And for those of you stymied by the cold war-heavy lyrics, here's Bragg in 2007, with an updated version. Note that we're still waiting for that great leap. Note also that the waiting is still the best part.
And for those of you stymied by the cold war-heavy lyrics, here's Bragg in 2007, with an updated version. Note that we're still waiting for that great leap. Note also that the waiting is still the best part.
To the anonymous wag who asked me in back January about the Maddy Simon/Tomoyuki Tanaka connection: sir... madam... I sincerely beg your forgiveness. The KassaNostra has few rules, but one of the biggies is, "don't take the readers for granted." And yet that's exactly what I did in your case, writing off your legitimate query as a facetious attempt for a quick laugh. It shames me that I took this long to attempt to make things right, but here goes: I'm Bruce utilizes the melody of what Kinderlanders recognize as the qua-qua-qua-qua-quarter song that Maddy has been teaching for decades. I can't locate a source for that specific version of that song. Gershwin includes the melody as a brief part of An American in Paris in 1928. Different versions of it – all substituting bubblegum for the class warfare angle – have turned up. Ella Fitzgerald cut a version with Chick Webb in 1939 (on the Decca label). Dean Martin (Capitol), Teresa Brewer (London) and the Andrews Sisters (Decca) all released it in 1950. That there are different versions (with different writers) suggests it really was a traditional song in the public domain long before any of these artists ever got to it. But that melody has been ubiquitous throughout, so there are a number of sources for it that FPM could've tapped. Again, profuse apologies, and a request for your patience: I'm gonna need a little time to dig into this Ugly Casanova mishegas.
Meanwhile, the Brother of KassaNostra (who also shall remain anonymous) (and who, this one time only, shall be dubbed the KassaBROstra), sent me a whole list of suggestions, many of which were of the old-timey variety. You read through the slices long enough, you sometimes forget that people just singing about getting through their troubles with a smile can be a stronger act of insurgency than singing about revolution in the streets (hell, that could practically be Woody Guthrie's epitaph). But those old-timey-ers knew it. They laughed at the Titanic going down, reveled in train derailments, and sang wistfully of their weariness. You do that with enough feeling, and you don't even have to tack on a join-the-union chorus. There's a reason that songs like Midnight Special, Do-Re-Mi and Dark as a Dungeon are camp standards. Hank Williams might very well turn in his grave
if we ever put him in the slices, but I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is, plain and simple, one of the best songs ever written. And Gillian Welch has a catalog full of tunes about the ravaging effects of poverty –Tear My Stillhouse Down, One More Dollar, Red Clay Halo, etc. etc. However, I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll, off of 2001's Time (The Revelator), is more fun to sing, and hits on a Kinderland maxim if ever there was one: sometimes you gotta want to shout to be heard. Thanks, Butch. Keep lookin' out for them pumas.Hank Williams: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive
Gillian Welch: I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll [live]
San Jose Sam gets to be president of my West Coast fan club for life for sending me this suggestion: Tom Robinson's Glad to Be Gay (a lost classic off his Rising Free... EP from 1978). In post-Sex Pistols England, the Tom Robinson Band bridged the gap between punk and new wave, challenging the ennui of the former and the apathy of the latter with songs about politics and social justice as their rallying cry. Robinson – who was open about his orientation for the entirety of his career (although he now classifies himself as bisexual) – wrote the song for a London pride parade. The EP reached #18 in the UK, despite the song being banned by the BBC. This is a great song, and a great choice for the slices, as it attacks both anti-gay bigotry and the complacency of those who allow it to happen. It's amazing (and a little depressing) how many of the lyrics are still relevant today.Tom Robinson Band: Glad to Be Gay [live]
I'm going to end with a suggestion of my own, although a couple of different people have also mentioned it to me since I started this blog. In a growing field of old-timey Americana bands, Old Crow Medicine Show is just plain weird. Every time I read an interview with lead singer Ketch Secor I feel like I'm listening to the kid of the banjo guy from Deliverance. But they've covered Union Maid and Deportee, and played the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And they wrote I Hear Them All, which might be the best protest anthem of the last decade. Much like Bragg's Great Leap Forwards, this isn't about a specific issue or event, but rather encapsulates the worth of progressive values, and does it beautifully. And I cannot possibly say enough about that last verse, which connects the song to imagery – biblical prophets and the welcome table – that was a staple of spirituals, and eventually spread into c&w by way of groups like the Carter Family. It's a ringing reminder that social justice as a concept and a practice has been a regular part of American culture for decades.Old Crow Medicine Show: I Hear Them All
Enjoy your summer, people. You guys are the best... all both of you. And remember: the KassaNostra loves you, even when you are singing It's My Party.
Enjoy your summer, people. You guys are the best... all both of you. And remember: the KassaNostra loves you, even when you are singing It's My Party.
Peace & Vinyl,
The KassaNostra
CODA: Kinderland opens on July 4th this summer, which I always remember as having been a little awkward when I was a camper. Not a lot of overly-patriotic music in the canon, at least not the way the rest of America might cotton. I do remember a lot of Wasn't That a Time being sung, but on a couple of occasions, Maddy threw us a curveball and hit us with Riflemen of Bennington, a Revolutionary War era number about killin' redcoats. I'm guessing she picked it up from Pete Seeger, but I prefer this 1975 version by a trio calling themselves The Committee of Correspondence, who specialized in period songs (this appeared on a Folkways LP, The American Revolution in Song and Ballad). Never mind for a second that it's a great tune. At a time when the Tea Party movement acts like it has a monopoly on patriotism, this serves as a gut-check to the contrary. The three members of the Committee grace the album's back cover in revolutionary-era costume, and go on to thank Irwin Silber in the liner notes. Glen Beck would have an aneurysm!The Committee of Correspondence:
Riflemen of Bennington
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