Help: Songs to celebrate community

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: open mike
Date: 16 Nov 01 - 02:04 AM

Leon Rosselson's Digger song...

In 1649 to St George's hill
a ragged band they called the diggers
came to show the people's will
They defied the landlords they defied the law
they were the dispossessed

We come in Peace they said to dig and sow
We come to work the land in common
and to make the wastelands grow
this earth divided we will make whole
so it can be a common treasury for all

The sin of property we do disdain
No man has any right to buy or sell
the Earth for private gain...

and it goes on--- I'll look to see if it is already listed in the archives here-- a beautiful anthem...

I, too, live in a group living situation. years ago I helped to publish a magazine, which still exists called Communities... there is an organization called Fellowship of Intentional Communities which may have a special publication about music in the community...

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 08:03 PM

Stewart - I sent an e-mail to Zeke. We'll see what he says.

LD

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Stewart
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 05:01 PM

Charley, The Landlords by Zeke is on his latest (and first) CD - LETHAL REPRIEVE (see link in my post above). That's well worth getting since it contains many of his best songs from the older tapes. I heard Dan Roberts in Seattle sing it to a different tune than what Zeke had - a more trad sounding tune, I think something by JW Sparrow, better than Zeke's I think. So you could find your own tune. Zeke lives with his wife Flip Breskin in Bellingham now. He's an outrageous ironic and humorous songwriter, worth getting to know. Re Peter, I don't know him, but I've only lived in Seattle now for about 5 years.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 04:27 PM

Stewart - "The Landlords" is a jewel of a song I've never run across, and I've run down hundreds. Can you tell me something more about it. Peter Costantini used to be one of my reliable Seattle sources. Last I heard from him he was transforming himself from Rent Control organizer to a condo builder. Any clue what became of him?

LD

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Bennet Zurofsky
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 04:18 PM

I suppose it depends what type of community one wishes to build, but as far as I am concerned the best community song is "Solidarity Forever."

By the way, the Rise Up Singing teaching tapes are now available on CD and are therefore much easier to use. All of the tunes in the book are on the CDs, which are available from Sing Out!

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Stewart
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 02:58 PM

There's a great song by Zeke Hoskin about landlords.

THE LANDLORDS
Zeke Hoskin

In a time without mercy, they cleared the Highlands
Evicted the people to make room for sheep
Uprooted the crofters from stony half-acres
To cross the Atlantic so stormy and deep
To a land without lairds, where ye're no hanged for hunting
And a square mile of land's any settler's to hold
There's more Scots in my land than e'er walked the Highland
They've built a new country more fair than the old.

CHO:
So here's to the landlords, you vile sons of bitches
Who sundered our people from the lands of their birth
For your cold ancient castles and blood-spattered riches
You condemned our ancestors to inherit the earth

The absentee landlords sucked Ireland's blood
While starvation was reaping Kilkenny to Cork
There was no hope in life but to ship out in steerage
Where the great lady stands at the gates of New York
To be cops and cowpunchers and labourers and lawyers
In a new land that Cromwell had never suppressed
More Irish eyes smile in Ohio than Antrim
The wild geese have flown to a far better nest

We'v plundered this land from the Cree and the Chippewa
Iroquois, Blackfoot, Algonquin and Sioux
We herd them to slumlands and try to forget them
While they rot there in squalor with fuck-all to do
And some year, our great ships will take them and dump them
On Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, and Mars
They'll weep for old Earth and they'll curse us for bastards
While their grandchildren grow to inherit the stars

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 11:53 AM

Well, here's another song from my working draft of PITY THE DOWNTRODDEN LANDLORD: A Housing and Neighborhood Song Book.

This latter day revival song is a direct appeal for open housing, individual rights and tolerance for the rights of others, and a sharing of the joys of this earth. Folk singer Pete Seeger wrote this song back in 1966 and provided this advice for singing it:

"I find I like to sing this song with no accompaniment whatsoever. Theoretically it should be possible to make up accompaniment which would not detract but I have not been able to find it. The lack of accompaniment also frees the voice for holding out some notes and shortening others in a free "imperiodic rhythm." I guess this is the same reason why the old Irish ballad singers also preferred to sing with no accompaniment."

Words and music by Pete Seeger © 1966 Stormking Music, Inc. In Sing out!, Vol. 17, #3, pp. 13

My Father's Mansion

My father's mansion has many rooms,
With rooms for all of His children,
As long as we do share His love,
And see that all are free.

And see that all are free to grow,
And see that all are free to know,
And free to open or to close,
The door of their own room.

What is a room without a door
Which sometimes locks or stands ajar?
What is a room without a wall
To keep out sight and sound from all?

And dwellers in each room should have
The right to choose their own design,
And color scheme to suit their own,
Though differing from mine.

My father's mansion's many rooms,
Have room for all His children;
If we do but share in His love,
And see that all are free.

The choice is ours to share this earth,
With all its many joys abound,
Or to continue as we have
And burn God's mansion down.

My father's mansion's many rooms,
Have room for all His children;
If we do but share in His love,
And see that all are free.

Landlady's Daughter, not to be confused with Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: SharonA
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 01:41 PM

I suppose you could sing "Little Boxes", since that's the kind of housing concept you're trying to shift away from.

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 12:37 AM

Refreshing

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Nov 01 - 01:45 PM

How about Tom Lehrer's We Will All Go Together When We Go? It's funny... and about all being in the same boat...

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 05:54 PM

Those look great, Animaterra. I'll be inquiring about the tunes. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't yet own any of Sol's rounds books (I need to fix that), but I have been thru Rise Up Singing.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Help: Songs to celebrate community
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 06:44 AM

Goodness,Becky, where do I begin? I make my living getting people to sing! Here are a few from my group:

1. Weave and spin, weave and spin
This is how the work begins
Mend and heal, mend and heal,
Take a dream and make it real.
2. Strand by strand, hand over hand.
Thread by threaad, we weave the web.

Freedom is coming, freedom is coming
Freedom is coming, oh, yes I know.

Candles keep us from the dark
And fire from the cold
Good friends, good food and music
Are light for the soul.

PM me if you need the tunes! And don't forget Sol Weber's book "Rounds Galore" and even good old "Rise Up Singing"
Allison

Subject: Songs to celebrate community
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 01:34 AM

I live in a relatively new cohousing neighborhood. Life in cohousing means lots of meetings (though we all pray that someday they'll diminish in frequency), and part of the general community meetings is a short "community building" exercise. I'm looking for songs that can be fairly easily and quickly taught to a group of regular people, not all regular singers, to celebrate "community" in any or all of its aspects. Things like rounds that get people into harmony easily might be especially good. Humor's o.k. Anything that can get people into a good state of mind for working/struggling together.

Here's an example:

Today in John Krumm's book, "Joy of My Heart," I spotted a likely suspect: it's a round "in the Xhosa Style" called, "Role of the Roll." (He says, "Each line is a little song to be sung repeatedly by a part of the group. the entrances are quite staggered, but they have a few words in common which are voiced simultaneously.") The text of this song is:

Group 1: Underneath for my toilet paper roll
Group 2: The toilet paper is right if it's over the top.
Group 3: But I just don't care, long as it's there, toilet paper.

The simultaneously voiced words are, of course, "toilet paper."

I figure that if we can sing this song it demonstrates that those holding differing views can still come together in harmony! :-)

Any more ideas??

~ Becky in Tucson (Sonora Cohousing)