9/11: Responding through Music

Subject: RE: 9/11: Responding through Music
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 01 - 01:43 PM

Is there a MIDI of the Tom Paxton song or has it been released on CD? I'd like to hear the tune.
Genie

Subject: RE: 9/11: Responding through Music
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 01:46 PM

Especially after reading the songs that many of you have written, I am reminded of The Sweet Singer of Michigan, Mrs. Julia A.Moore--she would have done well with this event, though of course, she has been gone for more than 80 years--I am posting her song about the Chicago fire, which, eerily, contains many images of the WTC tragedy--

THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE

The great Chicago Fire, friends,
Will never be forgot;
In the history of Chicago
It will remain a darken spot.,
It was a dreadful horrid sight,
To see that City in flames;
But no human aid could save it,
For all skill was tried in vain
In the year of 1871,
In October on the 8th
The people in that City, then
Was full of life, and great.
Less than four days it lay in ruins,
That garden City, so great
Lay smouldering in ashes,
In a sad and pitiful state

It was a sad, sad scene indeed,
To see the fire arise
And hear the crackling of the flames
As it almost reached the skies,
And sadder still, to hear the moans,
Of people in the flames
Cry for help, and none could get,
Ah, die where they remained

To see the people run for life
Up and down the blazing streets
To find then, their escape cut off
By the fiery flaming sheets,
And others hunting for some friend
That perhaps they never found,
Such weeping, wailing, never was known,
For a thousands miles around.

Some people were very wealthy,
On the morning of the 10th.,
But at the close of the evening
Was poor, but felt content,
Glad to escape from harm with life
With friends they loved so well,
Some will try to gain more wisdom,
By the sad sight they beheld.

Five thousand people were homeless
Sad wanderers in the streets
With no shelter to cover them,
And no food had they to eat.
They wandered down by the lake side,
Lay down on the cold damp ground,
So tired and weary and homeless,
So the rich, the poor, was found.

Mothers with dear little infants,
Some clinging to the breast.,
People of every description,
All laid down there to rest,,
With the sky as their covering,,
Ah, pillows they had none.,
Sad, oh sad, it must have been,,
For those poor homeless ones.

Neighboring Cities sent comfort,
To the poor lone helpless ones,
And God will not forget them
In all the years to come.
Now the City of Chicago
Is built up anew once more,
And may it never be visited
With such a great fire no more.

Reprinted from The Sweet Singer of Michigan: Poems by Mrs. Julia A. Moore, ed. Walter Blair (Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1928).