Thoughts on Si Kahn's songs

Subject: RE: Thoughts on Si Kahn's songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 10:50 PM

I don't really like Si's singing voice, although he brings out the meaning of the songs very well. I guess I like his songs better when they're sung by somebody else.

I suppose my favorite is "Aragon Mill," since it gives such a profound expression of the impact of the loss of jobs in American industry. "Gone, Gonna Rise Again" is another - yeah, I remember the day that my grandfather died.

-Joe-

Subject: Thoughts on Si Kahn's songs
From: Bupkes
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 10:37 PM

Si Kahn is on NHPR's Sunday evening program Art of the Song as I write this. [The web site http://www.artofthesong.org/tune-in/shows/show-249/ says they'll have it available to replay next week.]

He happened to sing "Here Is My Home", and I again want to say how much this simple call and refrain song means to people, in my experience. Those who hear it for the first time are moved to come up and ask about it, and say they're resolved to learn it themselves. It's a farewell song at folk-singing sessions and I've found YouTube videos of it as a choral piece in ceremonial settings. My friend Tim Radford, an Englishman who resides now with his wife on Cape Cod and from whom I learned it, says he cannot sing it any longer because it invariably makes him cry.

There are many sweet and earnest songs Si Kahn has written over a long career as an activist and singer. I wonder if others want to write about their personal favorites.