Ballad of Ira Hayes

Subject: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: mkebenn
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 08:29 AM

I love this song, and I have some trouble with the final verse keeping my voice from cracking, so I guess it's important to me :}. I know it was written by Peter Lafarge in the late fities or early sixties, and I know some of his story, another light burned out too soon. My question is this. I learned this from J. Cash's recordings, and he speaks the lyric and sings the refrain. Latey I have found myself drifting into singing the lyric also. I know I should play it the way it feels best to me, but as I've never heard the author sing it I was wondering if he sang it or if he spoke it like Cash.
I know this is the place to find out. Thanks in advance, Mike

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 09:13 AM

It's on Peter LaFarge's On the Warpath / As Long As the Grass Shall Grow. He almost narrated it, like Cash & Dylan.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 12:47 PM

I just heard Tom Russell, a fine singer-song writer, do it in concert a few weeks ago. He also speaks most of the lines. He's also recorded it on one of his recent CDs - sorry, can't remember the title.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: open mike
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 01:07 PM

my band mate sings this one...
about a Pima indian who fought
in WW2, and was not treated like
the war hero he was when he got
back to the states. When he died
he was drunk in a ditch. sad.
Lyrics here in D.T.
or here...http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=5800
i think the tom russell c.d. must be Indians Cowboys Horses and Dogs

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 01:30 PM

This is a great song. Best done by the "Man in Black"...

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Steve-o
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 01:52 PM

I don't know...Patrick Sky did a pretty great version (mostly spoken, as well), which seems to have added weight because he is Indian.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 02:06 PM

Ira Hayes was one of the Marines photographed raising the flag over Iwo Jima; that's why he was reluctantly thrust into the spotlight, taken around the country on War Bond frundraising drives along with the other surviving flag-raisers. He had great difficulty coping with celebrity, which probably aqgravated his drinking problem.

I read a very interesting book about the battle for Iwo Jima, the iconic photograph (which later became the model for a famous sculpture), and the lives of the men in the picture, including Mr. Hayes. The book was published fairly recently -- it was brand-new when I read it about two years ago. If I can dig up more information, I'll post more later.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 03:03 PM

I remember the movie starring Tony Curtis as Ira Hayes.

I believe the Johnn Cash version was used in the movie. Can anyone confirm?

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 05:54 PM

The excellent book I referred to above is entitled "Flags of Our Fathers." Here's a link to Amazon's pages on this book, including a number of reader reviews:

Flags of Our Fathers

The author is the son of one of the Marines in the famous photograph; he did not learn of his father's presence in that picture until the time of his death. The author tells a story of how all the young men caught in that iconic split-second (including Ira Hayes) were affected by their accidental fame.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 10:28 PM

M. Gibson, the movie(? TV show?) I remember had Burt Lancaster. One of the "ironies" of Ira Hayes death involves the aridity of the piece of land the Pimas had to live on. Some efforts were being made to develop a water project -- some restoration of diverted water or way of saving/distributing so the supply would be improved and go farther to help the community. Hayes, when sober, was maybe participating in this effort. Then he falls in a ditch with less than an inch of water, or something like that, and alcohol has so disabled him, he drowns.    Tw

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 03:48 AM

Here's a link to the famous photo. Ira is the man on the far left who has just turned loose of the flagpole.

Lin

Click

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 08:18 AM

The TV version I remember starred ex-Marine Lee Marvin as Ira Hayes.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: roving
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 08:35 AM

Townes Van Zandt recorded this song as well, I am pretty sure it was on his Live and Obscure lp, and I think others..

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST,Norman
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 08:39 AM

Is this more Republican bullshit?

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Mark Ross
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 12:58 PM

Actually, I remember reading that the first picture was spoiled somehow and the photgrapher had the Marines raise the flag a 2nd time and that's the picture we are all familiar with.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 01:28 PM

From what I remember, the first flag raised was quite small. Someone had a larger one (or it came up Mt. Surabachi very, very soon after the first was raised) and it's the one in the famous photo. The first one is, I think, in a museum.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 01:59 PM

The flag-raising for the photo was more-or-less "posed," and was the second flag raised on Mt. Suribachi. However, It was still quite early in the month-long battle for the island of Iwo Jima, and the Marines in the picture as well as the photographer were still in a fairly perilous situation.

Three of the six men in the picture did not survive the battle; the other three (including Ira Hayes and "Doc" Bradley, father of the author of "Flags of Our Fathers") were transferred stateside to serve as "celebrity spokesmen" for War Bond sales.

A couple of years ago -- probably as part of an anniversary celebration -- the newsreel footage of the flagraising was shown several times on US TV. It happened so quick, and looked so unremarkable, that one had to realize how amazing (and fortuitous) it was that the still photographer happened to capture the one split-second when the group picture was so perfectly composed as to become instantly famous.

One more thing:

I beg to differ with anyone who argues that any mention of wartime heroics is "more Republican BS." Neither political party should be able to claim ownership of military valor, nor should anyone confuse respect for the sacrifices of individual soldiers with endorsement of any and all present and future military misadventures.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 03:33 PM

Pat Sky has the best version of this, really. Far more soulful and poignant.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 03:52 PM

There is another good version of this song by Hazel Dickens on Rounder CD 0200. If you like the hard edged mountain style of vocal then this is to be recommended. Surprised nobody else has mentioned it yet.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 07:35 PM

Nice to hear about Patrick Sky here. He was a good friend of Buffy Sainte-Marie back in the Greenwich Village days. I know the Ira Hayes song mainly from the Cash and Dylan recordings.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST
Date: 23 May 07 - 09:40 PM

Johnny Cash was part Indian, just for further information.
He also wrote half of the songs from the album of the original recording of Ira Hayes, and Peter LaFarge wrote the other half of the songs, plus one by Johnny Horton. Cash also wrote a number of Native American ballads that can be found on other albums.
Being part Cherokee, this song as well as other Native ballads is
a fitting part to his character as a musician.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST
Date: 23 May 07 - 10:07 PM

Song is under COPYRIGHT - Cherokee - own more than oil.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Ira Hayes
From: GUEST,Henryp
Date: 24 May 07 - 09:52 AM

Peter La Farge was a Native North American himself. According to Wikipedia;
"Peter La Farge was descended from the Nargaset Indian tribe, which had virtually ceased to exist by the end of the 19th century. Along with his sister, he was raised by members of the Tewa tribe on the Hopi reservation adjacent to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent much of his childhood on a nearby ranch, and was adopted at around age nine by writer Oliver La Farge, author of the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Laughing Child, which dealt with the Navajo Indians. La Farge served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, earning five battle stars, but he later came to regard the Korean War as a tragic waste of human lives."

Laughing Boy is indeed a great book. I understood that Peter La Farge acted as a strong, silent bodyguard for Bob Dylan. He died suddenly and sadly, perhaps by his own hand. From A Village Walking Tour;
"After spending time sleeping on floors and taking whatever hospitality was offered to him by concerned mother substitutes and occasional girlfriends, Dylan lived here (it's since been renamed the Washington Square Hotel) for a short while, in room 305, as did Ramblin' Jack Elliott (room 312) and Red Indian folksinger Peter LaFarge (room 306), an unpaid bodyguard and composer of The Ballad Of Ira Hayes, famously recorded by Johnny Cash and by Dylan himself. LaFarge was later to commit suicide in Liam Clancy's bathtub, in an apartment on Sullivan Street."