I like "The New Restaurant" too. Also the children's song (I heard her sing it at a concert many years ago, and haven't heard or seen it since) that contains the stanza "I have a barnacle, His name is McGonigle, Oh slishsloshery wishwashery under my boat. He lives on the boring Of old teakwood flooring, And when he is snoring, He can't sing a note".
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net
||: We are all strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others. :||
The only reference I can find on the web is to a Finnish record company Love records LP released in 1970 by Martha Graber with the following track listing
LRLP 23 Martha Gaber
1970 Martha Gaber
The Crow on the Cradle | I Come And Stand | Dana dana dana | Joe Hill | Drill ye terriers drill | Now That the Buffalo's Gone | I've Got to Know | Turn turn turn | Zum gali gali | The Three Ravens | Guantanamera | Every Cop Is Your Brother | Who Killed Columbia? | The Cruel War | Playing War | Le deserteur
I'm only guessing that the Playing War is probably the Malvina song I think the record company is no longer in existence but my Finnish is non existence however here is a web site that refers to the LP (follow the .pdf or .doc link at http://jata.users.daug.fi/musiikkisivut/love/
BTW that listing is a "cut and paste" so terriers is probably tarriers!
I was pleased to see that Malvina's songs were not listed for licensing by the Harry Fox Agency - that would seem to be a sellout to Corporate America. Nonetheless, it would be good for the right person to get payment for recording rights. I'll contact Malvina's daughter Nancy Schimmel and ask. -Joe Offer-
I got a response from Nancy right away. Here's what she says (posted with permission):
Hi Joe
Most requests can come to me at this email address and be dealt with here, but we don't own the rights to Turn Around, Magic Penny, and a very few others. I can get the contact info for those and post them, tho sometimes they change as companies merge. Perhaps a simple answer is best--me--and I can redirect.
Also I'm starting a blog called Writing Malvina about the process of writing my mother's biography, at
http://web.mac.com/nancyschimmel.
I google Malvina now and then and have gotten Mudcat and posted a reply or two, I think. It's a good service. Thanks for it. Can't remember if I posted the new Malvina lyrics site at Western Kentucky University; it's
http://www.wku.edu/%7Esmithch/MALVINA/homep.htm
If you could take a look and post this info, that would be great.
Subject: RE: Help: Everything Malvina! From:GUEST Date: 31 Aug 09 - 09:22 AM
Anyone know where I can get tapes, records or cds of Funnybugs and Artichokes? My grandchildren NEED to hear and learn all of the songs from these. My daughter was raised on them but the old tapes have died. THANKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi-I think the best Malvina CD is "Ear to the Ground"from Smithsonian/Folkways, described in detail above. The Australian OMNI recordings are good, too. This thread is old, but I have corrected most of the out-of-date information. Joe
Subject: ADD: You Can't Make a Turtle Come Out (Reynolds) From:Joe Offer Date: 21 Jan 17 - 01:44 AM
YOU CAN'T MAKE A TURTLE COME OUT (Malvina Reynolds)
You can't make a turtle come out, You can't make a turtle come out, YOu can call him or coax him or shake him or shout, But you can't make a turtle come out, come out, You can't make a turtle come out.
If he wants to stay In his shell, If he wants to stay in his shell, You can knock on the door but you can't ring the bell, And you can't make a turtle come out, come out, You can't make a turtle come out.
Be kind to your four-footed friends, Be kind to your four-footed friends, A poke makes a turtle retreat at both ends, And you can't make a turtle come out, come out, You can't make a turtle come out.
So you'll have to patiently wait, So you'll have to patiently wait, And when he gets ready he'll open the gate, But you can't make a turtle come out, come out, You can't make a turtle come out.
And when you forget that he's there, And when you forget that he's there, He'll be walking around with his head in the air, But you can't make a turtle come out, come out, You can't make a turtle come out.
And me thinking this was about the Malvinas (les Îles Malouines), founded by sailors from St Malo (the people of which town are known as Malouins), which itself was founded by the Irish saint Malo (Mach'lo, Maclou, Maclovius, Machutus), a co-navigator of Brendan the Navigator who sailed to America rather than digging canals like later Irish navigators or navvies…
"We Hate to See them Go" is in the Digital Tradition as "The Bankers and the Diplomats":
THE BANKERS AND THE DIPLOMATS (Malvina Reynolds)
INTRO Last night, I had the strangest dream, I saw a big parade, with ticker-tape galore, And men were marching there the like [in the ranks] I'd never seen before:
1. Oh, the bankers and the diplomats are going in the army: Oh, happy day, I'd spend my pay to see them on parade, Their paunches at attention and their stri-ped pants at ease - They've gotten patriotic and they're going overseas. We'll have to do the best we can and bravely carry on, So we'll just keep the laddies here to manage while they're gone.
cho: Oh, we hate to see them go! The gentlemen of distinction in the army!
2. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army It seems a shame to keep them from the wars they love to plan, We're all of us contented that they'll fight a dandy war - They don't need propaganda they know what they're fighting for They'll march away with dignity and in the best of form, And we'll just keep the laddies [young folk] here To keep [each other] the lassies warm.
3. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army: We'll have to make things easy, 'cause it's all so new and strange, We'll give them silver shovels when they have to dig a hole, And they can sing in harmony while answering the roll, They'll eat their old K-rations from a hand-embroidered box, And when they die, we'll bring 'em home and bury 'em in Fort Knox!
by Malvina Reynolds, from Faith Petric, 1977. Copyright Schroder Music Company 1959 @political @Army filename[ BANKDIP TUNE FILE: BANKDIP CLICK TO PLAY JB
Here are the lyrics from The Malvina Reynolds Songbook, 2nd enlarged edition, 1974, page 86
WE HATE TO SEE THEM GO (Malvina Reynolds)
INTRO Last night, I had a lovely dream, I saw a big parade with ticker-tape galore, And men were marching there the like I'd never seen before.
1. Oh, the bankers and the diplomats are going in the army: Oh, happy day, I'd give my pay to see them on parade, Their paunches at attention and their stri-ped pants at ease - They've gotten patriotic and they're going overseas. We'll have to do the best we can and bravely carry on, So we'll just keep the laddies here to manage while they're gone.
CHORUS: Oh, we hate to see them go! The gentlemen of distinction in the army!
2. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army It seemed too bad to keep them from the wars they love to plan. We're all of us contented that they'll fight a dandy war - They don't need propaganda, they know what they're fighting for. They'll march away with dignity and in the best of form, And we'll just keep the laddies here to keep the lassies warm.
3. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army: We're going to make things easy, 'cause it's all so new and strange, We'll give them silver shovels when they have to dig a hole, And they can sing in harmony while answering the roll, They'll eat their old K-rations from a hand-embroidered box, And when they die, we'll bring them home and bury them in Fort Knox!
by Malvina Reynolds, from Faith Petric, 1977. Copyright Schroder Music Company 1959 @political @Army filename[ BANKDIP TUNE FILE: BANKDIP CLICK TO PLAY JB
Just a few differences (and the title) - I put them in italics.
This may have been addressed, but the melody to "From Way Up Here" was by Pete Seeger, whom Malvina gave the lyric to to set to music.
Thanks for keeping me honest. I went up to the songbook index above and added attribution to all songs that were not by Malvina Reynolds alone. -Joe Offer-
Waaaaay back on September 29, 2004 you posted the lyrics for The Little Land. You said you could provide the tune (chords?) if asked to transcribe it. Is that, ah... offer (sorry, Joe) still good?
I've seen the two YouTube recordings and I think the slightly different melody I remember may be because I always seem to associate it with The Limeliters (it was on their Sing Out album). Never realized when I was little that it was a Malvina Reynolds song.
For a while now the song's been going through my head and I'm curious to know what her chords were. Just returning yesterday from my first trip to Ireland has only added fuel to the fire.
The OC Weekly (I think that's the freebie hippie newspaper in Orange County California) has an interesting article titled The Life and Times of Malvina Reynolds, Long Beach's Most Legendary (and Hated) Folk Singer. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2016 AT 3:53 P.M. By Gabriel San Foman
Link provided by the San Francisco Folk Music Club Harmony List.
-Joe-
Oh, this is good stuff.
The caravan of Klansmen crept to a stop around midnight in front of the home of David and Lizzie Milder on Nov. 17, 1932. Their quaint bungalow in the Carroll Park neighborhood of Long Beach had just played host to a fund-raiser for the International Labor Defense (ILD), a group affiliated with the Communist Party USA. Members were seeking donations for the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American teens whose convictions in the rape of two white women in Alabama had recently been overturned. That night, Ben Isgur, boyfriend of the Milders' youngest daughter, Eleanor, spoke eloquently about the injustice in the case—and that was just too much for the KKK.
Klan members from Orange County united with their Long Beach brothers for the raid. About 50 eventually gathered outside the Milder house, armed with guns, clubs, rubber hoses and a gasoline-soaked wooden cross. The family's very existence—Jewish, immigrant, communist, anti-racist—could not stand. They planted the cross on the Milders' lawn and set it ablaze. Klansmen stood guard with guns drawn at the porch while others tried to break through the front door.
David, Lizzie, their son Samuel and other daughter, Malvina, were sipping coffee with Isgur when the Invisible Empire tried to barge in. The family leapt from the table and tried to keep the door from budging—but it wasn't enough. A group of hooded men circled around to the back entrance and found a way in.
"Where are you hiding all your communist literature?" they yelled. Samuel's wife, Miriam, pranked the raiders, pointing them to a pile of everyday newsstand magazines, which the KKK promptly tossed out the window. They then demanded everyone take a ride in the Klan cars—but the Milders wouldn't go quietly.
Reynolds singing the truth
Alejandro Stuart
"Won't somebody help us?" Malvina cried to neighbors. "They're killing us!" A Klansman struck her in the jaw, gagged her with a handkerchief and dragged her outside. They beat her father down with a rubber hose and broke Samuel's shoulder. Neighbors rushed outside to assist, but the armed Klansmen kept them at bay. The Klan finally forced the Milders and their guests into cars and prepared to speed off when the Long Beach Police Department's "Red Squad"—tasked with monitoring left-wing activities in the city—just happened to swing by. They stopped the attempted kidnapping, but not before the Klansmen left handbills reading, "Communism will not be tolerated! The Ku Klux Klan rides again."
The midnight raid scarred the Milders and made national headlines—but it also gave birth to a legendary troubadour. The eldest Milder daughter went on to become one of the fiercest folks singers in American history. Malvina Reynolds used the terror of the Klan raid to fuel a life and career of radical politics, organizing and writing columns and even running for the Long Beach City Council. But her most lasting legacy are her tunes of justice, songs covered by Joan Baez, Marianne Faithfull and other musical giants, most famously Pete Seeger, who popularized her "Little Boxes," the stinging critique of suburbia more familiar to modern-day listeners as the theme song for the TV series Weeds.
As prolific and storied as Reynolds' life was, no one has ever written a biography about her. Mentions of her life in Long Beach are rare. Nevertheless, the themes in Reynolds' political music—economic justice, environmentalism, women's rights and anti-racism—remain all too relevant today.
* * * * *
Reynolds and Schimmel perform in Japan in 1970
Courtesy Nancy Schimmel
Malvina Reynolds' musical life seemed destined to be intertwined with activism. Two years after her birth in San Francisco on Aug. 23, 1900, her parents joined the Socialist Party. David Milder, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, served in the United States Navy during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and ran a naval tailor shop in the city. He soon became consumed with politics, helping to start The Revolt weekly newspaper and even running as the party's candidate for city tax collector.
Along the way, he befriended radical labor organizer Tom Mooney, who indirectly gave Reynolds her start in music. In 1916, Mooney was charged with setting off a suitcase bomb that had killed 10 people and injured scores more during a pro-World War I parade in San Francisco. Milder took a teenaged Reynolds to the activist's home so his daughter could take violin lessons from Mooney's wife, Rena, who was teaching classes to survive after being acquitted in her husband's trial. Reynolds excelled beyond her teacher's ability, but she wanted to pursue literary, not musical, ambitions in college. There was only one snag; her parents' opposition to World War I caused her high school to deny her a diploma.
Teachers helped Reynolds enroll at the University of California at Berkeley despite being blacklisted. She majored in English while playing violin in a dance band. One day in class, a professor had students study old British ballads as poetry. Reynolds quickly realized the ballads weren't meant to be read as poems, but sung as music. "Why don't you sing them for us?" the professor asked when she pointed this out.
Reynolds graduated with a degree in English, but the Milders' socialist reputation made jobs hard to come by in the Bay Area. The family moved to San Pedro in 1925, then Long Beach so David could open up a tailor shop to serve naval fleets. Reynolds joined her family in 1931, after dropping out of graduate school. By then, the Milders had joined the Communist Party and happily hosted fund-raisers and political meetings at their home.
Long Beach during the Great Depression was proudly white, Protestant and conservative—an Iowa-By-the-Sea far removed from the Milders' Marxism. When the Long Beach Press-Telegram ran a series of articles in 1932 warning of active communist groups in the city, it easily struck fear in the hearts of its readers. It was inevitable the Klan would go after the Milders.
"I was very much frightened," Reynolds recounted in 1977 during a KPFK-FM 90.7 radio interview with Dorothy Healey, a communist labor leader who met the musician in San Pedro three years after the raid. "These guys [were] about to load us into cars to take us away. They had lynch ropes in the car."
The Klan thought law enforcement would let them go; to their surprise, police took 16 members for questioning. Four identified themselves as Orange County peace officers with legal permits to possess firearms. Twelve got released on the grounds the victims could not positively identify their attackers. Four stayed in jail, accused of being the masterminds; those Klansmen were eventually convicted on assault charges but only got six-month sentences and $500 fines.
Reynolds took the stand to identify her attacker, but she knew the legal system wouldn't deliver justice. "When we came to court, there was evidence of what these guys carried on the table—[the weapons] looked like twigs!" she told Healey.
She tried moving on with life. After her first marriage dissolved, she began a relationship with Bud Reynolds, a high-school sweetheart. The two departed for Nebraska, where Bud had been assigned to unionize workers. Malvina gave birth to their only daughter, Nancy, in 1935; the new family headed to Berkeley later that year and got married. Once there, she re-enrolled at UC Berkeley, earning a doctorate in romance philology in 1939.
But the same problem that originally drove her out of the Bay Area prevented Reynolds from finding steady work. Around that time, she began writing for the Daily People's World, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA. Soon after, the FBI started a file on her.
The death of her father in 1944 brought Reynolds back to Long Beach to run the family shop with Bud. After Japan surrendered to the Allies, ending World War II, the two sold the business, and Reynolds left stitching sailor clothes for her true passion: writing songs of discontent. "I wrote fiction and poetry before that, but it didn't roll until I picked up a guitar," she wrote in her book Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs. "What a guitar it was! A big old F-hole orange crate with a crack in the back."
* * * * *
Reynolds giving lessons in her Long Beach living room
Courtesy Nancy Schimmel
Reynolds began her musical career at 45, as the post-World War II folk-music revival was getting fine-tuned with the return of key players. Woody Guthrie's time as a merchant marine led to his most prolific stretch. Seeger had done a stint entertaining the troops, and in late 1945, he helped to start People's Songs, an organization anchoring the folk revival's left-wing flank.
People's Songs' inaugural bulletin laid out its mission to "create, promote and distribute songs of labor and the American people." They put out monthly publications and organized "hootenannies," spreading to cities across the country, including Los Angeles. Reynolds first met Seeger at a People's Songs shindig in LA in 1947.
"Here's this middle-aged woman, white hair. To my male eyes, she seemed one more housewife," Seeger recounted in a radio documentary about her life that's on file in the Pacifica Radio Archives. "Yet, she heard me and some other singers and said, 'I want to try writing songs, too.'" She took guitar lessons from Earl Robinson, an influential composer blacklisted from Hollywood, during his People's Songs classes in LA.
Reynolds got her chance to sing in 1948 when People's Songs threw its musical support behind Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace, who was vice president under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Independent Progressive Party (IPP) formed in California to support Wallace, and Reynolds became the IPP's chairman in Long Beach. She wrote an "Adventures of a Doorbell Ringer" column for Daily People's World, noting interesting conversations going on in Long Beach homes.
"Tell me, granting that you don't go with Wallace on this question, doesn't his platform on other matters please you enough that you could pass this one up for now?" Reynolds asked after failing to sell a white worker on Wallace's pledge to end racial discrimination.
"Ma'am," he responded, "'I'd rather have Negroes living next door to me, eating in the same restaurants with me and riding beside me in the street car than to have monopolies ruling over me."
The Reynolds house became a stop for like-minded musicians and activists. "Paul Robeson came to dinner once," recalls Reynolds' daughter, Nancy Schimmel. "It was a big dinner in his honor." The Reynoldses loved to entertain guests, political or personal, with a witty sense of humor. "My parents liked to throw parties—my mother for the food and dancing and singing, my father for the chitchat," Schimmel says. "She encouraged me to bring my friends home—and to use the dictionary!"
When Reynolds wasn't ringing doorbells or hosting parties, she was performing at Wallace rallies. She scored her first hit in progressive circles with the roman á clef "Sing Along." The catchy tune's opening lines speak of a timid troubadour who gains confidence from a sing-along crowd:
My congressman's important, he hobnobs with big biz, He soon forgets the guys and gals who put him where he is. I'll just write him a letter to tell him what I need, With a hundred thousand signatures, why, even he can read.
Despite the efforts of People's Songs and like-minded activists, Wallace's campaign failed; he earned less than 2.4 percent of the vote, as incumbent Harry S Truman squeaked past Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey. People's Songs folded the following year because of financial problems, but Reynolds continued. She wrote "Magic Penny" and "Bury Me In My Overalls" during her time in Long Beach. Of "Magic Penny," Schimmel recalls, "I came home from [a junior high school] dance, and she had written this song about dancing the night away. That was one of her most popular songs."
The inspiration for "Bury Me In My Overalls" came from something more ominous. Bud worked various construction sites as a union carpenter with the American Federation of Labor until political organizing caught up with his health; he suffered a heart attack from all the stress. Reynolds worried about her husband and wrote the song, taking on the fear of death with a touch of humor and working-class thrift:
The undertaker will get my dough, The grave will get my bones, And what is left will have to go For one of those granite stones, But this suit cost me two weeks' pay So let it live another day, And bury me in my overalls.
Bud died of a stroke in 1971.
* * * * *
Reynolds and Schimmel in Long Beach circa 1948
Courtesy Nancy Schimmel
As Reynolds networked with national figures, she still involved herself in local politics. In 1950, the Long Beach City Council planned to adopt an ordinance requiring Communists to register. Reynolds spoke in vain against it. Frustrated with a city hall she felt was beholden to oil barons, Reynolds decided to take them on in April 1951 by running for a council seat. Her platform: municipally owned electricity, fair wages for city employees and expanding recreational facilities. Running under the IPP banner, Reynolds survived the primary and prepared to face off in the general election against Third District incumbent Raymond Kealer, a petroleum engineer and chairman of the council's oil, harbor and industries committee. She was the only woman candidate that year.
Though Reynolds held a doctorate and did political work, her ballot designation read, "housewife." If Reynolds' foray into politics was that of a housewife, she pledged in an open letter to Long Beach residents to clean up local politics from the stain of big business "with hot water, soap and a broom!"
A war of words soon broke out among Daily People's World, Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Long Beach Independent over Reynolds' campaign, a skirmish documented by the FBI and House Un-American Activities Committee. The Independent—which had covered Reynolds objectively during her primary race—struck first with the May 18, 1951, headline "Council Candidate Closely Allied to Red Front." The article noted that she "registered as a Communist in Alameda County [in] September 1942." And even though she canceled the registration two years later, the story sternly noted, Reynolds remained active in organizations with communist ties such as the Daily People's World and the Long Beach chapter of the Civil Rights Congress, an organization principally funded by Reynolds' weekly guitar classes to suburbanites and their children.
The Daily People's World fired back two days later, calling the Independent's article a "Red herring smeared with oil" and offering Reynolds space to respond. "The [Independent's] article 'accuses' me of defending civil rights and working actively for world peace," Reynolds said. "Such activities which conform to the desires of every honest person can only be attacked with red-baiting."
The Press-Telegram hyped the election in an editorial as "the most important council the city has ever had." Long Beach expected a $175 million oil boom to flow into the city's coffers during the next term thanks to the Justice Department exempting the city from tideland litigation, with the U.S. Supreme Court expected to follow suit. Reynolds campaigned hard to have oil taxes benefit all residents of Long Beach, a message she framed in a long-lost untitled song preserved only in her daughter's memory. "It was a song about better use of the oil taxes for civic improvement rather than for lining people's pockets," Schimmel says before singing the verse:
We'll have a wondrous city With boulevards and trees A play land at the water For every son and daughter Beside the bluest seas!
A day before the election, Reynolds addressed the "Communist Question," in the Press-Telegram while stressing her platform. "The story of registration at another time and in another climate is old news by now," Reynolds said. "The program I propose for Long Beach is new news—and good news." IPP members pushed hard, dropping off 40,000 leaflets at households and mailing another 20,000.
The Press-Telegram predicted a blowout despite calling Reynolds "one of the most active campaigners" in the race. And they were right: Kealer walloped Reynolds with 34,449 votes to her 5,584. The Daily People's World tried to put a positive spin on her performance, writing that 13 percent of the vote was "impressive" in light of "a red-baiting campaign conducted against her for several weeks by [Long Beach's] two commercial newspapers."
But Reynolds' time in Long Beach was about to end. The FBI kept up its surveillance of Reynolds: An August 1952 report described her as "a very active Communist in the Long Beach community." "I have nothing to say to you," Reynolds told an agent who approached her as she hung laundry outside her home. "Beat it off my property now."
Had she won the election, Reynolds would've stayed in the city for at least the duration of her three-year term. But defeated, with her daughter enrolled at her alma mater up north and tired of the city's right-wing politics, Reynolds moved back to Berkeley in 1953, never to return to Long Beach.
* * * * *
Schimmel returns to the site of the KKK raid
Claudia Marrow
By her own admission, Reynolds never had a great singing voice. "She felt that the best tunes grew out of the rise and fall and tempo of the speaking voice," says Schimmel. But despite that limitation and her late start, Reynolds found a following after leaving Long Beach by expressing complex truths with poetic simplicity. In 1960, at age 59, she recorded her first album with Folkways Records, Another County Heard From, which included "Sing Along." Two years later, while driving through Daly City on the way to a gig, Reynolds told Bud to take over the wheel so she could write "Little Boxes," a tune poking fun at the suburban conformity sprouting on Daly City's hillsides.
Seeger covered "Little Boxes" in 1963, and it was a hit. Reynolds didn't get a chance to commercially release her version until landing a deal with Columbia Records, resulting in the 1967 album Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth. Since then, "Little Boxes" has lived on in an array of covers from slain Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara to a newer generation of musicians who recorded their versions to serve as the intro theme for Weeds on Showtime.
For all its drama, Reynolds never wrote about the Klan raid of her parents' home in Long Beach. But Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth does include "Battle of Maxton Field," a song she penned in 1958 after Lumbee Indians ran off the Klan during a North Carolina rally. "She sat down and wrote that song that day, words and music, and sang it that night," Schimmel says, calling the song her mom's "revenge."
Reynolds recorded more albums; wrote children's music; started her own label, Cassandra Records; published songbooks; and toured overseas well into her late 70s. She even appeared on Sesame Street as a folk singer named "Kate."
"I can almost hear them saying, 'Who is this old bat?'" Reynolds told Healey. She'd win them over with clever storytelling between songs. "In about 10 minutes, they're singing along with me and laughing."
While working on songs for her final album, Purely Political, a friend asked Reynolds to come to Orange County for a protest at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. "I was cranky about it, but when I got there, it was a great demonstration!" Reynolds told Healey. The rally left such an impression on Reynolds that it inspired one of her last hits, "Power Plant Reggae."
Reynolds died on March 17, 1978, after pancreatitis caused her kidneys to fail. She wanted little fanfare to mark her passing—in "Wake for a Singer," Reynolds wrote, "Celebrate my death, of whom it could be said/She was a working-class woman and a red." Family and friends held a private wake at her Berkeley home, but a public memorial concert followed, with Seeger closing out a lineup that included Margie Adam and Chicago's Steve Goodman. Two years later, Purely Political was posthumously released as Mama Lion.
Schimmel wants her mother's story to be fully told. She asked famed folklorist Ellen Stekert to write a biography of Reynolds, but illness kept Stekert from pursuing the project. Schimmel started blogging about her mom in 2006 and even visited her grandparents' Long Beach house, the one the Klan raided decades ago. A singer in her own right, Schimmel hopes to transform the blog into Out of the Box, a book with more of a memoir feel.
Uncle Ruthie Buell befriended Reynolds after many interviews between the two on Buell's Halfway Down the Stairs, which has aired on KPFK since 1959. Both women shared being Jewish folk singers with People's Songs pasts. The Children's Music Network honored Buell for her lifetime of work in 2010 with its Magic Penny Award, named for Reynolds' song.
"When you're a songwriter, you don't die," says the 86-year-old Buell, who continues to teach Reynolds' songs to blind children in Hollywood. "You get to live forever."
Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears: ---- Song in My Pocket: Songs ---- Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs ---- The Malvina Reynolds Songbook
Other place(s) where the music to this song appears: ---- People's Songs, Volume 3(3) (April 1948), p. 7 ---- Songs for Wallace, 2nd ed. (New York: People's Song for the National Office of the Progressive Party), p. 9
Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed: ---- Another County Heard From
Recordings by other artists on which this song is performed: ---- Bluestein Family: Sowin' on the Mountain (Fretless FR141, 1979)
Additional note 1. Where Malvina writes "I'm an awful nothing by myself," she was speaking politically, not personally, but singers not comfortable with that line could sing "I can change a tire by myself and change the world with you" (men could sing "change a diaper"). She sang "why the heck" or "why the hell" depending on the audience.
Mildred: What're you rebelling against, Johnny? Johnny: Whaddya got? ~ Marlon Brando in "The Wild One", 1953
Marlon Brando's reply to Mildred's question suits Malvina Reynolds to a T: but unlike Johnny in The Wild One, Singer-songwriter Malvina Reynolds (August 23, 1900—March 17, 1978) was a learned rebel. She got her Ph.D. the old-fashioned way—she earned it, in the UC Berkeley English Department in 1938. She never used it to teach, however, because her first act of rebellion was to refuse to sign the California loyalty oath when she was accepted for a teaching position at Berkeley. Faced with Robert Frost's life-changing choice at the fork in the road she took the one less travelled by—"of whom it could be said: She was an artist, and a red." (MR) Read More
Subject: RE: Help: Everything Malvina! (songs) From:Joe Offer Date: 15 Jun 20 - 03:27 AM
This year is the 120th anniversary of the birth of Malvina Reynolds, so we paid special tribute to her at the San Francisco Free Folk Festival this year. It's a link to a film called "Love It Like a Fool," a tribute to Malvina:
Subject: ADD: Down to Hanson's (Malvina Reynolds) From:Joe Offer Date: 22 Jun 20 - 01:28 AM
Down to Hanson's
Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990.
If you go out to Idaho, Just take my advice, Stop in at the Hanson's, The folks are mighty nice. Whenever the wind begins to blow, The farm it blows away, But the mud rain brings it back again Any rainy day.
Chorus: Let's go down to Hanson's, That's the place for me. Let's go down to Hanson's, Beside the inland sea, The rugs are made of sable, There's bear meat on the table, And whenever I am able, That's where I want to be.
They catch the catfish ready smoked And it is fine and fat, And since they call it catfish, They feed it to the cat, But when they call it bullhead, They fry it in a pan, And sure that makes a noble food For either dog or man.
(Chorus)
The vines grow round the outhouse Till it can not be seen; You sit in state and contemplate Beneath a roof of green. And up the hill lives Ernie, Contented as a clam, And if he never sweeps the floor, Nobody gives a damn.
(Chorus)
Now Irv he traps the muskrat, The link cat and coyote, He is a mighty hunter On snow shoes or afloat. The little foxes run in fear To scent him on the breeze, But the mountain deer, they follow near To share his beer and cheese.
(Chorus)
Now Ruth is in the kitchen Concocting a ragout, She raised the beef to make it, The spuds and carrots, too. And when she needs a side of beef To cook for three or four, The steers come up upon the porch And knock at the kitchen door.
(Chorus)
The place is full of treasure, It's found on every hand, With garlic in the garden And Indians in the sand. The wild goose flying southward Along his destined way, He looks down at that little red house, And wishes he could stay.
(Chorus)
Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears: ---- The Muse of Parker Street
Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed: ---- [none]
Does anyone know if OMNI Records (Australia) is still in business ??
They issued 3 Malvina Reynolds CD's of which only the 2017 LITTLE BOXES AND MAGIC PENNIES: A CHILDREN'S SONG ANTHOLOGY seems to remain easily available.
Don't know if the following 2 albums have been mentioned:
Skördemåne Records ?– SCD 09 Jan Hammarlund -Uncovered Malvina Reynolds (UK IMPORT) CD 1 –Jan Hammarlund My Little Guitar 2:01 2 –Jan Hammarlund Upside Down 3:51 3 –Jan Hammarlund Jailhouse Door 3:12 4 –Jan Hammarlund The Corners Of Your Mind 2:21 5 –Jan Hammarlund Moogical Love 2:20 6 –Jan Hammarlund A Policeman Needs A Riot 2:10 7 –Jan Hammarlund Angels Of Hell 2:12 8 –Jan Hammarlund The Man Says Jump 1:32 9 –Jan Hammarlund Blues Street 3:17 10 –Jan Hammarlund Housewife’s Lament 1:10 11 –Jan Hammarlund Free Enterprise 3:46 12 –Jan Hammarlund If Two Have Four 1:39 13 –Jan Hammarlund Jail House Buddy 3:22 14 –Jan Hammarlund To A Songwriter 2:16 15 –Jan Hammarlund They’ve Got Everything 3:53 16 –Jan Hammarlund Born In The Town 2:22 Bonus Tracks: Malvina Singing 17 –Malvina Reynolds Touble Keep Away 3:13 18 –Malvina Reynolds Are You Walking There For Me? 3:12 19 –Malvina Reynolds When I Fly From This World 1:11
Hammarlund also produced a 2017 LP for MISSISSIPPI Records, drawn from recordings in Malvina's collection, and a couple of tracks he recorded during a Reynolds tour in Europe:
A1. When I Fly From This World A2. Uneasy Dreams A3. The Judge Said A4. This House Is Your House A5. Don't Jump A6. If You Were Little B1. Don't Jump B2. Sleep, Come On By SB3. Are You Walking There For Me? B4. I Lived Thru This Day B5. Johnny Built A House B6. Love Somebody
there is another Malvina Reynolds thread on MUDCAT: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=31773
Did they wash you down the stairs, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Did they wash you down the stairs, charming Billy? Yes, they washed me down the stairs And they re-arranged my hair With a club in the City Hall rotunda.
Were they pigeons in the square, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Were they pigeons in the square, charming Billy? There were pigeons in the square, And stool pigeons in the air, And they fouled up the City Hall rotunda.
Did they set for you a chair, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Did they set for you a chair, charming Boy? No, the D.A.R. was there, And there wasn't room to spare, So we stood in the City Hall rotunda.
Was the House Committee there, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Was the House Committee there, charming Boy? The Committee it was there, Spreading slander everywhere, While we sang in the City Hall rotunda.
Did the people think it fair, Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Did the people think it fair, charming Boy? No, they didn't think it fair, And they notified the Mayor, And he wept, and he wept, and he wept, and he wept, While they mopped up the City Hall rotunda.
Notes by Malvina: "in may, 1960, the House UnAmerican Committee came to San Francisco and subpoenaed, amongst others, a university student."
I believe the demonstrators were "washed down the stairs" with a fire hose.
Thread #50060 Message #760337 Posted By: Joe_F 05-Aug-02 - 07:02 PM Thread Name: What is the saddest song? Subject: ADD: I Wish You Were Here (Malvina Reynolds)
I WISH YOU WERE HERE (Malvina Reynolds)
I wish you were here to be underfoot, I wish you were here to get in my way, To call me from work, to call me to play -- I wish you were here again.
Oh, what did I do that had to be done, And what did I read that had to be read, When I could have turned to watch you instead? I wish you were here again.
The monuments rise, the monuments fall, The papers are signed and turn into chaff, But I can recall the sound of your laugh, I wish you were here again.
sj
