Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 09:28 AM

Now I'm Easy, about drought, and Farewell to the Gold, in which a prospector is swept away in a flood.

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Mar 09 - 11:45 AM

Backwater Blues by Bessie Smith won a contest in the 1920s after the Mississippi Flood.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: cetmst
Date: 25 Mar 09 - 09:46 AM

Brief scanning of my index yields several songs about disasters and a few about ecology and some just about weather:
Galveston Flood (Wasn't That a Mighty Time/Storm)
Johnstown Flood
Cyclone at Rycove as sung by the Carter Family
Open the Window, Noah
Three Score and Ten
Connecticut Twister
The Blizzard, by Harlan Howard
White Squall, by Stan Rogers
Bushfire, Eric Bogle
If I Knew Then (Last Days of Pompeii)
Drought Is Like A Fever
Forty Below
Coldest Winter in Living Memory
Goodbye to a River, Bok/Muir/Trickett
Panhandle Wind
I've Been in the Storm So Long (Bernice Johnson Reagan)
John Cook
The Rain Comes Down on Everyone
Run Come See Jerusalem
The Great Storm Is Over
Weather the Storm
Waiting For Rain
Dust Bowl Refugee, Woody Guthrie
Dust Bowl Children, Peter Rowan
Ready for the Storm
Sarah, There's a Storm
When He Sets the World on Fire
There are many songs about shipwrecks caused by storm
Coal mine disaster songs are partly natural and partly man-made
There's a thread on the forum - Natural Disasters and Tragedies in Song and many other songs scattered through the Mudcat

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: ClaireBear
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 02:11 PM

Did I forget to paste my link? Sure did.

Seminole Wind

Sorry!

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 01:40 PM

Peter Kagan and the Wind

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: ClaireBear
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 01:10 PM

Gotta include John Anderson's "Seminole Wind."

Youtube here -- and lyrics available there, too if you click on "more info."

Subject: RE: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 12:55 PM

The Unicorn Song?????


CELLAR!

Subject: Vengeful nature/Eco catastrophe songs
From: matt milton
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 02:01 PM

It struck me a lot recently listening to a lot of old blues songs that their subject matter is increasingly relevant again. Songs about flooding in particular, given the recent problems afflicting Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and of course New Orleans over the last couple of years.

Listening to Sleepy John Estes the other day, i noticed he had quite a few songs which - whether literally or metaphorically - spoke to me in these days of impending ecological catastrophe (if you're a paranoid, George Monbiot-reading greenie like me). Songs like:

Floating Bridge
Clean up at Home
Working Man Blues
Everybody Oughta Make a Change
Time is drawing Near

All have very powerful no-nonsense lyrics (even if they are a bit raggedy and confused: Sleepy John did like his drink...)

Three Feet High and Rising is another obvious one of course.

Cool Drink of Water ("i asked for water, she gave me gasoline") has a certain resonance for me these days.

I'm starting to think about maybe putting a set of these sort of songs together. I think I draw the line at Dolly Parton's "I'll Oil Wells love You".

Any suggestions?