When in my teens I bought the Clancy Brothers LP THE RISING OF THE MOON on Tradition Records in the U.S. I was soaking up everything remotely "folk" that told good stories about real topics about which people felt passionately. These topical songs were so very real to me. They took far away struggles and places and made them vicariously accessable. But this was a larger world then---when far away lands were truly more remote--unlike today in so many ways. I can talk here at Mudcat to Bob Bolton in Australia, swap music with him and feel we're really friends. I never realized how separated I was from those places and those peoople UNTIL...

...until I went to a Clancy Brothers concert on St. Patrick's Day in Chicago's HUGE Opera House.

Folks, all those people wanted to hear were the REBEL SONGS. It was like we were seated in the middle of the Roman Coliseum. GREAT SINGING--but oh, so much hateful vehimence. I was truly relieved to have the concert end---but I still loved the music.

The only other time I felt that way was one night at the old Chicago Stadium when the Chicago Blackhawks were playing the U.S.S.R. national team. The Russian team just being there represented the very first thawings of relations between the two nations. I was so excited that things might be getting better between my own country and the ideals of the Soviets which I truly admired--while hating totalitarianism. I was a 1960s guy in his early 20s who thought that, just maybe, more of the aspects of Socialism I admired would make more headway against the rampant excesses (as I saw it) of Capitalism and corporate greed in the U.S.
Well, imagine the sadness and embarrassment and anger I felt after that game was over and the ice was covered with eggs and tomatoes that the good people of my home town had thrown at the Russian players. ----- From where I stand now, I see that both of these events probably opened my eyes to some basic realities of this best of all possible worlds. Eventually, most of the youngsters of the 60s generation came to realize that this old world and it's "precious" institutions were not as maleable as we had hoped. Nothing surprises me any more. And I think that really is sad.

You kids out there, cherish your illusions---and then, a few years from now, read an amazing book by Vladimer Pozner (former spokesman for the Soviet Union on ABC--American television). His good book is called Parting With Illusions --The Atlantic Monthly Press--1990.

Thereafter I rarely, if ever, did the songs with the strident lyrics---but I did put together a mostly instrumental medley that I introduced as a protest.

Valley Of Jarama--sung (from the Spanish Civil War)
I Hate War And So Does Eleanor-sung (from Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers)
Meadowlands--guitar instrumental (from Russia-learned from Pete Seeger and Frank Hamilton's LP called NONESUCH on Folkways Records)
Stars And Stripes Forever-guitar (instrumental-a march by John Phillip Sousa)

and I'd end with"
God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman-guitar instrumental

And I wish the same for the combatants in Afghanistan in this season of Thanksgiving and Ramadan.

Art Thieme