Hooray For Songwriters!

Subject: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 08:51 AM

At last count, there were 83 threads that give the opportunity to knock songwriters. Here's one to express appreciation for them. I'm not starting this thread to be:

1. Another "list" thread.
2. An "Answer" to the songwriters suck threads.

It's not even meant to be about favorite songwriters. I'd like people to reflect for a moment about songs written in the last fifty years or so that you really enjoy. In the long run, it's the songs, stupid! (to paraphrase Bill Clinton's, "It's the economy, stupid!"
Even the most hard-shell traditionalist has a warm spot in their heart for more recently written songs. My question is not "What is your favorite song by a recent songwriters?" Or "Who is your favorite songwriter?

My interest is knowing which recently (last 50 years) songs of a folkish complexion are ones that you enjoy hearing over and over, or singing?

1. What is there about the song that you enjoy about it? It might be
    the lyrics, the melody, or just what it "says" to you.
2. Are there particular lines, couplets, verses, or the chorus that
    make the song work, for you?

As an example: One of my favorite songs written in recent years comes from Jerry Rau: a singer most of you have never heard. Jerry is a street singer... has scratched out an existence most of his life, singing on street corners. Jerry manages to capture how people feel, in very ordinary, every-day experiences. He is not a "touchy-feely" type, and his songs are usually about people he has met, not his own feelings. But, I find his songs very personal, and I relate to the people he writes about. My favorite song of his is 80 Acres.. a real gem of a song. I'll have to check to see if the lyrics have been posted in here. If they haven't, I'll post them in this thread.

80 acres is a song about a family who is forced to sell their farm in Kansas because "You just can't make a go on 80 acres." When I listen to Jerry sing that song, I feel that Kansas dust covering the window sills, and I can see the grandparents sitting on the porch swing, two "West Kansas flowers." I can see the dress that Grandma is wearing, with the colors faded from that hot Kansas sun. I can see Grandad's hands... the large knuckles and the skin as tough as leather.

I hear the sadness in the son's voice when he remembers hearing his Father tell him never to sell the farm, because he's poured his life into it. Man... I have to see if the lyrics have been posted here...
The song makes me think about my grandparents, and understand them a little better. It reminds me of how much of a treasure old memories are... even of hard times. That's a lot to capture in a song. A novelist can use 600 pages to capture what Jerry says in five or six verses.

And that's what this thread is all about... the song. Forget the songwriter for a moment, and forget all the bad songs you've heard. There are plenty of threads to knock songwriters. And, any good songwriter knows that a good song is a gift. Yes, there is craftsmanship in a good song, but in the long run, good songs are a gift, and the songwriter should be thankful. And share the gift of a song with others.

If you just have a line, or a couplet or a verse from a recently written song that you love, share that, too.

"I went down to the Brandy tree. I took my nose and my tail with me." Thank you Gordon Bok, for that song.

Some phrases have a wonderful internal rhythm that make them roll off your tongue.. "Atchison, Topeka and the Sante Fe."

Please tell me why you like the song...

Take a minute.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 10:13 AM

Could put this on the anti war song thread, the refrain from Keith Marsden's song 'Normandy Orchards '
Normandy orchards were waiting to welcome,
New partners in death,
In the mad dance of war.
Genius.
eric

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 10:31 AM

Robb Johnson, who I rate as one of the best singer/writers in UK wrote
a 'failed relationship'song called 'Dont Turn Around'. the line that grabbed me was 'When they're sweeping up bits of the night that got broken and washing the moon away'. And when I expressed an interest in the song he mailed me a cassette of it, the lyrics and chords he used and talked through how he plays it. A true gentleman, our Robb.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: pdq
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 10:59 AM

I just got a copy of Rick Fielding's CD "Lifeline" this Wednesday. Listened to it from start to finish, and one of the standouts is "Handful of Songs" by one Jerry Rasmussen.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 11:04 AM

I get thrills when I hear new songwriters that are writing amazing songs.   I often think that if it were 40 years ago, we would be hearing artists of the stature of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, etc.   Unfortunately the music that most of us love is now heard by a niche audience - although I think that audience is much larger than the media gives credit to.

What worries me is that I know a number of songwriters who struggle to make ends meet. It has to affect their creativity.

One of my favorite songwriters of the "new breed" is John Flynn (www.johnflynn.net).   Last month I had the opportunity to hear him in a small session at NERFA. A handful of us were treated to a song called "Big Boat Coming" that had me in tears.   The song was about the horrible floods that occured in Europe last year, and specifically about the flood in Prague that over ran a zoo. An elephant had to be put to sleep or face a horrible death by drowning. John wrote one of the most touching songs I've ever heard. A singable chorus to boot!    Moments like this are reasons why I cherish folk music.

Most people look at a lightbulb and see that it gives us light. A good songwriter looks at a lightbulb and sees everything that it touches and then puts it into words.   It is truly a gift.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 11:37 AM

"Last watch on the Midland" by Stan Rogers
"Lock-Keeper" by Stan Rogers
(...that anchor chain's a fetter - and with it you are tethered to the foam, - and I wouldn't trade your life for one hour of home.)
"Thirty-year man" by Clive James/Pete Atkin
etc etc etc etc
All time favourite line is from "I see the Joker" (C.James/P.Atkin): In it, a Mafia boss is paranoid about being stalked by an assasin and takes all conceivable precautions; but he is still worried - "..is this headache the weight of the cross-hairs on my brow?". For me, it packs a lot in a few words.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 11:44 AM

Almost anything by Utah Philips is likely to make my list, but specifically I'm covered with admiration for his song titled something like "No one remembers their names".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 03:36 PM

Jeeze, Jerry, ya got an hour or so?

Let's start with a Handful of Songs, just to be smarmy -- I love that phrase because it says so much in just three words. It is an explosive phrase full of grace.

The Times They Are A-Changing, for similarly capturing the zrietgeist of the postwar generation in a single phrase and for blending stridency and urgency with a melody that can be poignant.

Utah Phillps' whole book --- well, how about "I Remember Loving You" -- sheeshe what a time-snapper that song is!

The Girl from the North Country, for reasons I have never been able to express, and likewise a good score of Dylan's things. Just genius walking about naked, IMHO.

A

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 11:55 PM

"Lies" by Stan Rogers...

To me, it is one of the few songs that talks about real, lasting love, rather than the first heady infatuations which are the subject of most songs about "love". For those not already familiar with it, it starts with the thoughts of a woman who has been married many years and is noticing all her wrinkles, wishing her mirror would "tell her lies". Then in the last verse, she looks forward to dancing "at the Legion" with her husband on Friday, and we have possibly my favorite lines of all time:

    And thinks ahead to Friday, 'cause Friday will be fine!
    She'll look up in that weathered face that loves hers, line for line
    To see that maiden shining in his eyes
    And laugh at how her mirror tells her lies

It is such a moving song, it took me months before I could sing it without getting all choked up at the end. And the way he manages to so skilfully twist the meaning of "lies" in that last line - simply fills me with admiration (not to mention envy).

That would be enough in & of itself, but the simple, effective words and phrases used in the whole song are a model of what a good song should be - no wasted words. The tune's not bad either. ;-)

This is not Rogers' only masterpiece, of course - I think many of his songs will still be sung a few hundred years from now - but it's my favorite. I have sung it at friends'/family weddings, and asked a friend to sing it at my wedding. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

If you want to see all the lyrics, click here.

Cheers,

YY

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Songsmith
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 01:27 AM

Bruce Guthro's "Ivy's Wall". Some great lines and below is one of my favorites.


"Ivy was a little man, who left a giant trail.
With a pocket full of change, for the kids the world had failed"

I like it because it paints a vivid image of Ivy and his detirmination to make make a difference.

As with others in this thread I feel Stan Rogers was a master of capturing a life long story in a four or five minute song. "Lies"
is a perfect example.

Jim

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 11:20 AM

That's a tough call, Jerry.
There have been so many good songs in that last fifty or so years that a choice of one or two is almost impossible. Also, you're asking a group of singers to make the choice. That creates sub-catagories which most people don't have to deal with. I'm certain, for example, that many of us have favorite song which we love to hear but wouldn't, for one reason or another, dare to sing. In my case Stan Rogers' "Mary Ellen Carter" comes to mind. There are songs that we might forget about because we may have been singing them for umpity-ump years and have become so much a part of us that we forget that they are there until it comes time to sing them. At the top of my list is Utah Phillips' "Hymn Song". I've been closing my shows with it for twenty-some-odd years (except my Christmas shows which I close with "Have Yourself A Merry, Little Christmas" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane). I've no doubt that each of us has one or more songs which are dearly loved but we are embarrassed to admit loving. With me it's a toss-up between "When You Wish Upon A Star" and "Moon River".

I agree with you about songs being a gift. I must add, however, that it is mastery of the craft which enables one to recieve and properly pass along the gift.

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 12:48 PM

Hey, Stephen: Not everyone that receives a beautiful gift uses it wisely. The most gifted musician I've ever heard, bar none squandered the gift, using it for his own selfish desires, and it has been taken from him. Craftsmanship is an important part of using a gift for songwriting. Even gifts take work to fully realize them.

Equally important is the recognition that gifts are to be shared. The greatest song ever written would be meaningless if no one heard it. In the best songs, the singer and the listener are, at least for the moment, connected to each other.

And yes, there are some songs that never cease to touch me when I sing them. Some move me, some tickle me, some completely engulf me.

Powerful stuff..

Hey, When You Wish Upon A Star fits comfortably with Atchison, Topeka and the Sante Fe, or Route 66... Or Swinging On A Star.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 02:19 PM

I can't understand why "Moon River" moves me so much. But it does.
My favourite verse of a song which I last heard over twenty-five years ago by the brilliant Bill Boazman goes:
      Bless this artist whose lines are so fine
      Whose delicate touch can open our eyes
      To a moment that might have been lost for all time
      Bless these children"
I keep hoping that I'll write something that good one day. I never will though!

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 03:39 PM

There are a million million songs that I like, and someone had to write 'em...

If there were no more songwriters, music would get pretty fecking dull pretty fecking quick!

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 03:59 PM

No, it wouldn't get dull. Things don't get dull just because they've been around some time, that's what folk music people know better than anyone else.

What new songs do is to help us make sense of new things that are happening in our lives, and we need that. Singing goes back earlier than talking, I believe, both in our own personal existence and in the life of the human race.

New songs help take us forward, and they keep us in touch with where we've come from, if they're the kind of songs I'm thinking about.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 04:39 PM

Yer All right!

I've come full circle on this one... a few times now... (^:/:^)

Great songs have been consistantly written, and for thousands of years, debate has been sure to follow... The old and the new are doing their fine waltz, and we are here amoung the dancers...

As we try to eek out a small measure of evolution, in being and becoming, and in learning from hard won days... there are are always those who... fondling their own boredom... become ardent and cowardly put-down artists... poor dears...

Inspiration is where you find it, and it's all about the positive... Happy Holidays! ...and Love one another, even if you can't fathom the reasons or control the outcome! ttr

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 04:40 PM

As with others in this thread I feel Stan Rogers was a master of capturing a life long story in a four or five minute song. "Lies"
is a perfect example.

Well put, Jim - wish I'd said it! (tried to, but I like the way you said it better...)

Cheers,

YY

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 04:55 PM

If there were no songwriters there would be no songs: good, bad or indifferent.

I could narrow a list to about 10,000 songs.

I love "Maggie", "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", "TTAAC" (Dylan singin' it), "Carrie Ann", "Bird on a Wire", "Twenty Years Ago", "Maggie May", "Baby Blue" (by Badfinger), "Love Minus Zero, No Limit" and lots of others. I think what I like most is that each of the songs I care for bring back vivid memories of people, situations, times. I can't listen to "Twenty Years Ago" without getting tears in my eyes; nor can I listen to "WOTEF" and not think of the courage that people show on a daily basis. The Neville Brothers' rendition of "BOAW" is awesome. God knows, it makes a guy humble.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:03 PM

" No, it wouldn't get dull. Things don't get dull just because they've been around some time, that's what folk music people know better than anyone else."

Sorry... it's just the old stodgy, stick-up-the-backside folks... the kind who have the audacity to ever say to anyone "You're playing/singing that wrong" are who I think of first and foremost as being anti-singer/songwriter... anti NEW...   And DULL is exactly the word I think of when I imagine what the would would be like if THEY controlled the music...

All things that don't change with time, die...

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:26 PM

Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore is still a good song. But, as much as I like hotdogs, I can't take a steady diet of 'em. Have a good listen to "The Boys of Summer" and tell me it ain't great (I just want to see who will be the first to tell me!). Will it ever be a 'traditional' song? No! Do I care? No. It reminds me of a summer I had in the late sixties, and so does Carrie Ann. Maggie May reminds me of a gal I met in Montreal. Songwriters tend to get categorized and we tend to categorize ourselves as listeners. I like lots of different 'kinds' of music, and I don't really care what 'genre' it's from. In my view, if I like it, that's that. Crank it to ten and enjoy.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:26 PM

Hey, Clinton... admittedly there is a strong fogie factor in the folk community. The good side of that is that it keeps the best of the old songs alive. I'm thankful for that. I have a lot of fogie in me.
I've had friends who have said that "All change is for the worst." Kevin isn't one of those, though. He are a songwrieter hisself.

This is the Jerry Rau song I love. He wrote it based on a conversation he had with a farmer in West Kansas who had just sold his farm.

80 ACRES

We're packing up the car today, my wife and kids and all
Heading on to Kansas City, with it's buildings tall
Been farming in West Kansas like my Dad and Grandad, too
But farming now, it's a hard old life, I tell you boys I'm through.

Yesterday they sold it all, the tractor and the plow
They auctioned everything we owned, they're someone else's now
That pickup truck that Grandad drove, it brought a handsome bid
I remember riding next to him when I was just a kid

CHORUS:

And I can hear my Grandad's voice, a ghost upon the wind
Don't leave this farm I've worked to build, don't leave it darling Jim
But Grandad we just have to leave,though it really seems a sin
But we just can't make a go on 80 acres
No, we just can't make a go on 80 acres

So it's one last look around the place before we have to go
How we'll make it in the city, the good Lord only knows
I hate to leave my birthplace with its dusty windowsills
But twenty years of toil and sweat have only brought me bills

And there stands the porch swing where they spent so many hours
My Grandma and my Grandpa, two western Kansas flowers
They had the good and bad of it, as much as anyone
We'll be leaving now for Kansas City with the setting sun

Copyright, Jerry Rau

If anyone knows where Jerry is, let me know. He's probably singing on a street corner right now, blowing on his hands to keep them warm.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:29 PM

That is a good piece of writing. Who is this guy, and why hasn't he been recorded (or has he?)?

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:47 PM

Jerry Rau is from Minnesota. He's done three or four albums. I met him at The North Country Folk Festival in the upper Penninsula of Michigan many years ago, and we realized we were brothers separated at birth. I booked him at a concert series I ran, several times over the coming years, but he rarely had a stable address. He traveled back and forth across the country and while he did regular concert gigs, his real love seemed to be singing on the street. He figured that if you could catch somebody on their way somewhere and get them to stop and listen to a couple of songs, you were doing things right.
Ihave three albums of his and a couple of treasured tapes he shared with me.

Jerry has a great sense of humor. He wrote a song with the opening line: "I wish I was a tree in Nebraska.. at least I wouldn't get lost in a crowd." He sounds enough like Bill Staines that when people hear him singing in another room and can't see him they think it's Bill.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 07:02 PM

If it's not too much trouble JR, what are the album titles? I'd really like to hear this guy.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 07:28 PM

Didn't I say we need new songs, Clinton? That's because there are new things to say, and new people to say them, and that means new ways of saying them.

But I don't think the need to fight boredom because of the old songs is a major factor.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: JR
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 08:11 PM

One of my favorite song writers is Mary Litchfield from the San Juan's, and my favorite of her's is Twelve Little Girls. Singing it is the only time I've ever experienced a room going totally quiet during a song... none of mine ever do that.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 08:16 PM

Jerry, I think this is a good thread. Many of the songs I like
have been written for the Broadway stage. Much of this has been
influenced by WS Gilbert, one of the greatest lyricists of all
time.

The reason that the best of these songs work is that they are
tied to characterization (exposition) and deal with imagery
that is unique and brief. Sondheim is the master of this
genre today.

Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn et. al.
have elevated the popular song in America. It would be hard
to find a writer like Mercer or Berlin who can in a few short
phrases capture a memorable image and singeable lyric and melody.
I would place Chris Christopherson, Don McClean, Roger Miller and Rupert Holmes in this higher level of pop song writing too.

John Dowland and Thomas Campion are two of a high water mark
in song writing from Elizabethan England who fused flowing
evocative words with memorable melodies.

A lot of attention is given to the singer/songwriter style of
writing and Stan Rogers, Eric Bogle, Don McClean, Woody, Simon, Dylan etc.and this is OK as far as the style goes. But I believe it would
be helpful for the contemporary singer/songwriter not to
limit his/her horizon to the recent successes but to examine
what makes for a good song regardless of the style.

Much of what is heard in the singer/songwriter genre relies
heavilly on performance style which might not cross over
to other's interpretations.

My favorite songs are those with a soaring melody, a lyric that
expresses 1. specificity 2. a good story 3. a consistency of
form whereby the stanzas are crafted so that there are usually
an equal number of syllables in each line 4. less reliance on telling
(philosophical pronouncements) and more on showing through
unusual and original imagery 5. a tendency to say more using less
words (my folk background here) 6. a rhyme scheme that shows
more effort than laziness 7. an appropriate blending of words
and music and 8. a song that has a life of it's own without being
tied to a specific artist.

Some of my favorites in the singer/songwriter style are:

Band Played Waltzing Mathilda (Eric Bogle)
Vincent (Don McClean)
1913 Massacre (Woody Guthrie)
Pastures of Plenty (Woody)
Mary Ellen Carter (Stan Rogers)
First Christmas Away from Home (Rogers)
Barrett's Privateers (Rogers)
Strange Fruit (Lewis Allen)
Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Dylan)
Four Green Fields (Tommy Makem)
There Were Roses (Tommy Sands)
Black Brown and White Blues (Big Bill Broonzy)
Dark As A Dungeon (Merle Travis)
16 Tons (Merle Travis)
Spanish Is A Loving Tongue (Badger Clark)
Hound Dog Bay At The Moon (Oklahoma college prof.forgot his name)
Trouble in Mind (Richard M. Jones)
How Long Blues (LeRoy Carr)
Dangling Conversation (Paul Simon)
Turn Turn (Pete Seeger)
Old Dan Tucker (Daniel Emmett)
I Wonder As I Wander (John Jacob Niles)
The L and N Don't Stop Here Anymore (Jean Ritchie)
Black Waters (Jean Ritchie)
City of New Orleans (Steve Goodman)
Country Roads (John Denver)
The Pilgrim (Chris Christopherson)
In My Little Cabin (John Jacob Niles)
Ramblin' Boy (Tom Paxton)
Almost all of Tom Lehrer
I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler (Paxton)
The South Coast (Lillian Ross and Sam Eskin)

There are many more I guess but I consider the above to
be masterworks in the singer/songwriter genre.

I believe that most of these songs contain enough of
the 8 elements of good writing that they will survive.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 08:32 PM

I'm with you, Frank... I'm a great fan of Johnny Mercer and many others you mentioned. One of the things that I respond to in a song is if it is visual. The song I posted here moves me because of that... when I hear the song, or sing it, it is as if there is a movie playing along with the song in my head. I can feel the heat, the dust, the resignation, the tiredness, the porch swing... as if I was there.

1913 Massacre is a favorite visual song of mine... a very disturbing image to have emblazoned into my mind, but it's a song I did for many years. It is a song that is basically descriptive, yet has a very powerful message which is mostly delivered through the horrible imagery of the song.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 08:37 PM

Here's a great song noone's mentioned yet - Man of the Earth by Bernie Parry. (Recorded by Vin Garbutt, and a few more I imagine.)

But there's so many - the songs you hear sung around, and often enough they've never been recorded on any kind of label that gets any attention, and they circulate more throgh word of mouth in clubs and sessions than anything.

I think we've been living through a Golden Age, and it's probably still going on. And most of the world is totally unaware. And that isn't a bad thing either, in its way.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: pdq
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:15 PM

A good word for the Grateful Dead's "poet laureate" Robert Hunter.
Some of us would put the Hunter/ Garcia team in the same league
Lennon/ McCartney, but then I put the Dead's "American Beauty"
on a list of the greatest Folk albums of all time.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 09:45 PM

Jerry, you are, of course, quite right about how we use or abuse the gifts we are given. If we think of each song as being like a tiny miracle then the level of use or abuse by a given individual becomes easier to comprehend. The level works in direct proportion to one's understanding of or willingness and ability to accept the miracle. It is the understanding and acceptance which helps to create a Stan Rogers, a Cole Proter, or a Phil Ochs.


Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:22 AM

hey, the good'ns don't stop 25 years ago! Here's some FABULOUS songs written in the past ten:

If Love Is Not Enough -- Peter Mulvey
You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive -- Darrell Scott
Akasha Wind -- LJ Booth
Much At All -- Susan Werner
Summerfly -- Cheryl Wheeler
Swing That Thing -- Joel Mabus
When There's No One Around,
Music Tree,
One Girl Cried -- Tim O'Brien
Ghost In This House,
The Song Remembers When,
Bristlecone Pine -- Hugh Prestwood
Hometown Boy,
Waterbug,
Heartland -- Jack Williams
Moontown -- Pierce Pettis

Today, even the independent artist has to demonstrate not just a good turn of phrase, but amazing musicianship. These guys are standing on the shoulders of the genius folk musicians of the 50's-70's but have technically surpassed them greatly. No strummers and hummers (and no kazoos!) in this crowd.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:00 AM

Hey, John: Nice to see a couple of friends in this list. I haven't heard LJ Booth's name anywhere in a lonnnnng time. I booked him out here in the East on his first time out in these parts... a wonderful songwriter, guitar player and personality. Pierce Pettis is someone else I've lost touch with... he was at an Adirondack Folk Gospel Festival I was involved in, probably fifteen years ago, now. Another fine songwriter, guitarist and singer. And person.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 12:08 PM

There are scores of excellent songs weritten in the current era by songwriters like Kristin Lavin and John Prine and a dozen others. Every now and then I come across a knockout of a song and discover it was written recently, and my jaw drops -- songs like "Nightrider's Lament", "King of Mercy Canyon", "The Kind of Love...". I say three cheers for those who keep writing songs.

There was an old saying allegedly attributed to the Mohicans, but maybe not, that says "Let me write the songs of a people and I care not who writers its laws". More or less. I concur.

A

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 12:26 PM

Yeah, Jerry,

I had lost touch with LJ's career -- a looooong time between recordings. I almost didn't notice that he released a CD "The Ox That Pulls The Cart" in 2002. It's a good CD.

LJ is ust an amazing performer as well -- one of those new breed of really good guitar players to go along with his great way with words.

He's also got a great memory. I had talked with him on the phone probably two years before we met at a small venue in my area -- he remembered that I was a potter and even remembered some of the stuff we talked about.

I love his "song for the day" wherein he writes a song for that concert on that day -- I'm amazed at his ability to pull it off, usually with VERY funny results.

Pettis is also a great perfomer, and I can't think of a conemporary witha more emotive voice than his. He can turn a phrase with such natural grace -- "hello and goodbye, divided by a line down the middle of the road" -- comes to mind.

It's writers like those in my list that make me consider writing with trepidation -- they've raised the bar so high.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 12:28 PM

That quotation -- "Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws" -- was I believe originally from Seneca, but in the mad morass of irresponsible documentation called the Internet it is currently attributed to Daniel O'Connell, Andrew Fletcher, Cicero, Paul SOuthern, and "a Greek philosopher". If anyone has an authoritative citation establishing its orignal provenance I'd be grateful to know it.

A

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 12:34 PM

Amos,

I think the saying is: "Let me snog the women of a nation, except my mother-in-law."

Like you, I'm fuzzy on the documentation.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 09:58 PM

...from Bartlett's Quotations (Andrew Fletcher) here:

I knew a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.

Subject: RE: Hooray For Songwriters!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 09:31 PM

It doesn't really read like the kind of highminded thing I understand Seneca used to go in for. Whoever said it sounds like a bit of a rogue. An over-early Mudcatter. Maybe someone like Ben Jonson?