I've spent the last week listening to Dave Alvin's new CD, "Public Domain". All the songs on it are in the public domain, but he does credit the songwriters where known.

The purists probably won't like the music as he employs electric guitar,bass, and drums on a lot of it.Being a Dave Alvin fan myself, I really like it.

I find the liner notes really tell the story.

"Old folk songs are spirits.

They live in the silence of the mountains and deserts,in the thick mud along our rivers,in the dirt beneath endless miles of tract homes and shopping malls,in the darkness beyond the bright lights of interstate highways,truck stops and office towers,in abandoned buildings,closed factories,deserted farms,lost battlefields,forgotten graveyards,empty prairies,in blues bars,honky tonks,railyards,barnyards,backyards,church choirs and bedrooms.
Like ancient redwoods and giant sequoias, our folk songs endure beyond ( and despite of) the whims of current popular taste and the quick gratifications of our disposable culture.

Our folk songs live in the wild land of our heart.They aren't relics from an idealized,sentimental past.Our folk songs are about love,jealousy,anger,longing,revenge,despair,survival and hope for the future.They're hard,sad,rowdy,tender and joyous images of who we were,where we come from,who we've become and who we still are.A lot of what is good,and bad,about us is in these songs.

They are in the public domain.They belong to nobody.They belong to all of us."

Dave Alvin

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