Origins: Songs of Vern Partlow - Newspapermen, etc

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newspapermen Meet Such Interesting People
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 Apr 22 - 07:34 PM

Vern Partlow was an actual newspaper man from Los Angeles, and a great satirist.
He bubbled with energy and enthusiasm and was a delightful guy.

He predated Tom Lehrer, Tom Paxton and others like them

One of his songs was about a famous Hollywood madam.

“In Hollywood, sweet Hollywood, there lived a fair maid dwellin’
She ran a hillside house of joy
Her name was Brenda Allen”

His amazing treatise was a song called Ol’ Man Atom:

Old Man Atom





Well, I'm gonna preach you a sermon 'bout Old Man Atom,
I don't mean the Adam in the Bible datum.
I don't mean the Adam that Mother Eve mated,
I mean that thing that science liberated.
Einstein says he's scared,
And when Einstein's scared, I'm scared.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini...

Here's my moral, plain as day,
Old Man Atom is here to stay.
He's gonna hang around, it's plain to see,
But, ah, my dearly beloved, are we?
We hold these truths to be self-evident
All men may be cremated equal.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- here's my text
Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- Lordy, who'll be next.



The science guys, from every clime,
They all pitched in with overtime.
Before they knew it, the job was done;
They'd hitched up the power of the gosh-darn sun,
They put a harness on Old Sol,
Splittin' atoms, while the diplomats was splittin' hairs . . .

Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- what'll we do?
Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- they both went up the blue.

Then the cartel crowd put on a show
To turn back the clock on the UNO, (United Nations Organization)
To get a corner on atoms and maybe extinguish
Every darned atom that can't speak English.
Down with foreign-born atoms!
Yes, Sir!

Hiroshima, Nagasaki...

But the atom's international, in spite of hysteria,
Flourishes in Utah, also Siberia.
And whether you're white, black, red or brown,
The question is this, when you boil it down:
To be or not to be!
That is the question. . .
Atoms to atoms, and dust to dust,
If the world makes A-bombs, something's bound to bust.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini...

No, the answer to it all isn't military datum,
Like "Who gets there fustest with the mostest atoms,"
But the people of the world must decide their fate,
We got to stick together or disintegrate.
World peace and the atomic golden age or a push-button war,
Mass cooperation or mass annihilation,
Civilian international control of the atom -- one world or none.
If you're gonna split atoms, well, you can't split ranks.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki...

It's up to the people, cause the atom don't care,
You can't fence him in, he's just like air.
He doesn't give a darn about politics
Or who got who into whatever fix --
All he wants to do is sit around and have his nucleus bombarded by neutrons.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki...

So if you're scared of the A-bomb, I'll tell you what to do:
You got to get with all the people in the world with you.
You got to get together and let out a yell,
Or the first thing you know we'll blow this world to...
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Moscow, too,
New York, London, Timbuktu,
Shanghai, Paris, up the flue,
Hiroshima, Nagasaki...
We must choose between
The brotherhood of man or smithereens.
The people of the world must pick out a thesis:
"Peace in the world, or the world in pieces!"

How prescient is that!!??

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newspapermen Meet Such Interesting People
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Apr 22 - 04:58 PM

Recording by Earl Robinson and Vern Partlow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URjif7Z9BEw

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/may/17/pete-seeger-newspapers

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newspapermen Meet Such Interesting People
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 18 Apr 22 - 04:48 PM

There's a radio show on an NPR station out of Albany, New York,
which uses Pete Seeger's recording of this song
as its theme music.
I heard it in the car on the turnpike today.
First acquaintance with this song,
sounds great with what sounds like a tenor banjo.
Won't forget it!

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: NEWSPAPERMAN
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 02 - 01:59 PM

Well, cancel my earlier request -- this is the one I was looking for!

The Mudcat rules!

A

Subject: Lyr Add: NEWSPAPERMEN MEET SUCH INTERESTING PEOPLE
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 05 May 99 - 12:37 AM

NEWSPAPERMEN
Vern Partlow

Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people,
He knows the lowdown (now it can be told);
I'll tell you quite reliably off the record,
About some charming people I have known.
For I meet politicians and grafters by the score,
Killers plain and fancy, it's really quite a bore.
Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people,
He wallows in corruption, crime and gore.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, city desk!
Hold the press, hold the press;
Ex-tra, Ex-tra! Read all about it!
It's a mess, meets the test.
Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people,
It's wonderful to represent the press.

Now, you remember Mrs. Sadie Smuggery,
She needed money for a new fur coat;
To get insurance, she employed skull-duggery;
She up and cut her husband's only throat.
She chopped him into fragments, and stuck them in a trunk;
She shipped them to her uncle back yonder in Podunk.
Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people;
It must have startled poor old Sadie's unc.
Refrain

Yes, a newspaperman meets such interesting people;
I've met the girl with million dollar knees;
The guy who sat five years upon a steeple
(Just where the point was, I could never see).
I've met Capone and Hoover, and lots of other fakes;
I've even met a genius who swallows rattlesnakes.
Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people;
The richest girl who could not bake a cake.
Refrain

Oh, publishers are such interesting people;
Their policy's an acrobatic thing.
They shout they represent the common people,
It's funny Wall Street never has complained.
But publishers have worries, for publishers must go
To working folks for readers, and big shots for their dough;
Oh, publishers are such interesting people;
It could be press-titution, I don't know.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, advertising.
Ting-a-ling-a-ling, circulation,
Get that payoff, keep those readers;
What a headache, what a mess.
Yes, publishers are such interesting people;
Let's give three cheers for freedom of the press.

Oh, newspapermen are such interesting people;
They used to work like hell just for romance,
But, finally, the movies not-with-standing,
They all got tired of patches in their pants.
They organized a union, and got a living wage;
They joined progressive actors upon a living stage.
Now newspapermen meet such interesting people,
Who know they've got a people's fight to wage.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, Newspaper Guild,
We got a free new world to build;
Meet the people, that's a thrill,
All together, fits the bill.
Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people;
It's wonderful; to represent the Guild.