Reclaiming US Patriotism through Ballads

Subject: Reclaiming US Patriotism through Ballads
From: InOBU
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 07:18 AM

Dear Mudcat Friends...
I am passing this on to you all, but remember I live in New York, so I can travel between Maine and Florida and out to Chicago, (with help) but Tasmania, though it may be fun, would be difficult...
Reclaiming American Patriotism through Ballads:
If you may have a venue for Lorcan Otway's one man, audience interactive ballad evening, on the origin and present state of American rights, request a demo ... email [e-mail], here is a sample of the ballads...
(Lorcan Otway is a political scientist working with Native Americans, Minorities in Bangladesh, Roma Travellers and Rominichals in the US and overseas, and other marginalized cultural isolates. I have a JD from NYU and grew up in the Irish ballad tradition)
Cheers
Larry

The Times that Try the Soul
Words Lorcan Otway (with the help of Thomas Paine)
Tune... Farewell My Love and Remember Me, from the singing of Sarah Makem.

Come listen my children, and you shall hear
of a land which once held rights so dear
that her people tempted death's cold, grim hand
for a dream of rights for their infant land

Chorus: These are the times, that try the soul
As you shrink from duty, the death knell tolls
And our rights are stripped for expediency
we prepare a cold grave for our liberty

What contempt for all, we once called fair
which was dragged from madness and despair
servile slavish fear, that Tories enthroned
by the acts of the free were once overthrown

Avon's Bard once warned, in days long ago
remove the lawyers, the tyrants foe
and the warlord's might, unchecked will be
Blind justice becomes, a poor refugee

Strangers to virtue claim the Patriot's cause
while their coward servants pen unjust laws
and precious truths are entombed 'neath lies
and the dream of our liberty swiftly flies.

Ghosts of our nation
word, Lorcan Otway all rights reserved
Tune The Shamrock Shore.

Farewell to the land, of Jefferson and Franklin
Farewell to the dreams of the good Thomas Paine
We have sacrificed our freedom, on the altar of security
and I fear we may not soon see the likes of both again,
For this land was more than a flag or a slogan
this land was more than its rocks or its clay
This land was a gift given us by great thinkers
a dream which lesser men have now cast away


The rule of law is hobbled and no rights are now held sacred
except the right to steal and plunder in the name of corporate greed
While bible thumping patriots, in the guise of elder statesmen
rob for the wealth of few from the people in most need
Now our prisons are full of the men of no property
and back alleys are filled with the hopeless and insane
but still we are told, that this is the land of liberty
and told to ignore those whom our country causes pain

Who can hold up their head, and proud proclaim their homeland
while leaders whet the assassins knife by stealth upon the road
this is not the act of a land of law and of justice
no mater who the target, we must live by legal code
What light of hope now shines in the halls of Philadelphia
what words of bravery speak out from the senate floor
what black thoughts now taint with blood, the hopes of a nation
when politician pimps make sweet liberty their whore

But I cast my gaze, to the hills of our history,
while I stake my few hopes on the words of our past
For while a spark shines on, in the ashes of these ruins
the light of freedom's fires may dispel the shadows cast
And each one of you, who remembers where we came from
proclaim your love liberty and reject the cynics sneer
cast fear upon the pyre of the promises of tyrants
turn away from craven cowards, and true hearts now draw near.

Words Lorcan Otway - Tune Mandella by Danny Hannon

Walking with King

I walked with King in Selma, so I'm getting on in years
But I still recall the hopes we had in spite of all our fears
I still can hear the barking dogs and often in the night
I recall how we gently walked when justified to fight

We walked for voting rights and so that others would be free
While some were kept from basic rights, who could live peaceably
We faced the southern sheriffs and the banal Ku Klux Klan
to carry the light of human right to each corner of the land

Then the Viet Nam war began and we were walking as before
While tens of thousand lives were lost we'd walk to end a war
And many vets walked with us and were welcomed home again
while the government who sent them off ignored their cries of pain

And now the government is marching us off again to war
and people they are gathering to walk just as before
but Bloomberg and Judge Barbara Jones conspired in this night
To stop Americans walking and deny this sacred right

General Nathan Bedford Forrest gave the world the Ku Klux Klan
Sheriff Clark and Governor Maddox would keep slave chains in this land
And now to this list of shame two more names must appear
Mayor Bloomberg and Judge Jones who've sold their nation out to fear

No judge can use fear to stop a people who'd be free
The people have the right to walk in the face of tyranny
In Selma Alabama or in Tiananmen Square
The steps of many people will drown out a judge's fear