I've always been one of those "songs behind the song" kind of people. Dunno why... but research has always involved allowing me to be aware of why things are the way they are, or why they even exist at all.
Hence my stance on existence period... But that's another day, another cup of joe.
A few weeks ago, I posted a pair of songs on the link side of my happy little Facebook profile. One was an (albeit rare) bright and hopeful blues song that became one of the quintessential Woodstock anthems that I never knew the name of until I decided to look it up.
The second was a blues song of heartbreak that few people know the first song came from, notably the flute melody that almost anyone familiar with what happened in America in the 60s has heard one time or another. (I for one remember the Woodstock 25th Anniversary Pepsi commercial back in '94 that featured it.)
[There was a lot of self-loathing emo trash/bullshit I'm not accustomed to posting in the original post.]
The first song was Canned Heat's "Goin' Up the Country."
The second was performed by Henry Thomas, right before the Great Depression in 1928...
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7 comments:
"Drunk all the time here, damn Goat"?
I'm jealous. Of the being-in-Crete thing. Not the whole as-an-active-duty-Marine thing.
Henry Thomas & his pipes are the absolute highlight of Harry Smith's Anthology. They are the sound of distilled hundred-year-old joy.
(That's one of the highest people I've ever seen.)
I like Canned Heat, because they are a stand-in for everything that anyone could possibly hate about hippies and boomers and their fucking self-righteousness. Is there a single faceless corporation or soulless Hollywood movie that they haven't sold this song to? They're living shorthand - "These are hippies. Study them. Learn from them. If you don't pay attention in class you will end up like them, and then you should just kill yourself."
Let's not bash hippies entirely, they did gift us with a new, more mindlessly intense method of protest that lingers even today. Witness the town halls this summer.
Thank you, Boomers. You are so much cooler than that lame WW2 generation.
(Goddamit, I just watched the Canned Heat thing again, and now I'm even more pissed. Thanks a lot, Lou. If I wasn't afraid you could erase me from the planet with your black ops training I'd be even harsher than this.)
Tyles - the tags that didn't apply to the songs should read "Crete - drunk all the damn time out here. Goat." And since we worked with the command element, we did most of the supervising of (HAHA!) Reservists.
Dan - Introduce me to a way to this Anthology you speak of, and (You never knew me in college. And this is a good thing.)
Craig - Preach, as usual.
Aaron - Hugs. In the non-violent, hippie-traditional way. Because you love them that much, I know. And I thought we covered this...
(I'm not that kind of Marine. I'm still a Tan Belt. Look it up.)
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