Origins: How Far We Have Come

Subject: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 08:30 AM

Song history, anyone?

"When our fathers came to this golden land
There was nothing but forests, rivers, and sand
And a few million indians running around
Now look what we made of the little they found

There's cities of silver that shine in the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
And only an echo of indian drums
Who can deny how far we have come"

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: kendall
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 08:37 AM

How far in the wrong direction...
When the white man first invaded this land, the natives had a really primitive society. Not a book to be found in any tee pee, the women did all the work and raised the kids while the men hunted and fished all the time. Can you picture Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse changing a diaper or paying alimony?
And we thought we could improve on that?

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 06:51 PM

(refresh)

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 07:28 PM

Kill the natives, destroy their cultures, pollute the land and air, and multiply like rabbits. The story of civilization.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 07:35 PM

Hi,

Where did you get that set of lyrics? That might help.

Since you have such complete lyrics, do you know the title?

More info please

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 02:35 PM

complete lyrics, male vocal with guitar

HOW FAR WE HAVE COME

When our fathers came to this golden land
There was nothing but forests and rivers and sand
And a few million Indians running around
Now look what we've made of the little they found

Theyre's cities of silver that shine in the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
And only an echo of Indian drums
Who can deny how far we have come

The slave ships they came with the whip and the rack
And a million black people with scars on their back
Picked cotton, drew water, and slept in the cold
With a bible for comfort they were happy and cold

The laws they were passed, slavery went
Our lives integrated at least six percent
In the sharecroppers shack and the big city slum
Who can deny how far we have come

The immigrants came from the green Irish shore
From Poland and Russia, ten million and more
Germany, Italy, all the world round
To settle our ghettos and immigrant towns

Their brains and their bodies they put to the wheel
To build our great factories and towers of steel
To march to our battles and carry our guns
Who can deny how far we have come

Now all through the Andes, they've heard of our name
On the factory wall, in the palace of shame
They drink Coca Cola and the times that they spend
Goes straight to the pockets of our businessmen

To pay for our Fords, and our split level homes
Our Hi-Fis and records and six percent loans
Our profits protected with dictators guns
Who can deny how far we have come

In Asia and Africa, they're learning too
How free enterprise can do wonders for you
South Africas prisons are bursting with men
Barbed wire keeps the Vietnamese in

Where elections are daydreams that never get far
American weapons are there standing guard
We're ready to fight for the lands that we run
Who can deny how far we have come

Our fears they are many though they're seldom saved
They're black and they're yellow and they're brown and they're red
They see through the legend, they smell the decay
They're learning to fight the American way

And we in our armchairs are quick to condemn
Our bankbooks are falling, our profits might end
The breaking of change is our funeral hum
Who can deny how far we have come

When our fathers came to this golden land
There was nothing but forests and rivers and sand
And a few million Indians running around
Now look what we've made of the little they found

Theyre's cities of silver that shine in the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
And only an echo of Indian drums
Who can deny how far we have come

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 03:36 PM

Powerful polemic song. Just shows how putting a quote in context can change how people interpret it...

The line about South Africa indicates that atv latest it's from before 1990, when Mandela was released and the apartheid system collapsed. But I suspect it'd be from 20 years before then.

Any clues? Not Phil Ochs is it?

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 03:55 PM

No, I've been through the Phil Ochs discography, no match to the lyrics I'm guessing its 1970s vintage, came off a reel to reel tape that had no song/artist names.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 04:14 PM

Not being in Phil Ochs discography doesn't necessarily mean he mightn't have written it, just that he never recorded it. Not that there's any reason to assume it was written by anybody whose name would ring a bell. Plenty of good songs written by people no one has ever heard of. Folk songs in general, for example.

Some clever use of language in there - for example the ambiguity of "They're learning to fight the American way".

That line "Who can deny how far we have come" sounds like the kind of line a politician would put in a speech.

And what sort of tune does it use?

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 07:12 PM

The online Phil Ochs lyrics site is very complete, even for songs he never recorded. I'm hoping someone has heard this before and will recognize the songwriter or singer. My guess, from the reference to "Vietnamese", is the song dates to the Vietnam war era.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 04:12 PM

That line "Who can deny how far we have come?" does sound like it's a quote, with the song being a comment on whatever context that quote comes from - a speech or an article or a book maybe.

Maybe someone is going to drop in who has come across the song. Or who might try singing it.

Reading the words, a tune that comes to mind is the one Woody Guthrie used for his "1913 Massacre".

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 05:03 PM

A powerful song but not a clue where it might have come from other than the late 1960's or early 1970's.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 05:16 PM

I looked for a speech or song beginning with or containing "Who can deny how far..." but without result.
Intriguing.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 08:52 PM

Hey,

Sometimes the only clues that can solve a puzzle come from details associated with the tape.

If you can trace (if that's possible) where the tape came from, you might get some clues.

Another thing you can do if have the tape made into a CD or MP3 file so that you can let other people hear it. You can put it on a web-site and then attach a link.

Because the lyrics to both your songs can't be traced with google search it leads me to believe these are original songs by an unknown artist.

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 09:42 PM

Not Phil Ochs--doesn't scan like a Phil Ochs song--it scans kind of like "The Night Before Christmas"

Other clues for dating it are the term "Hi-Fi",the six percent mortgage, "split-level homes"--all of which were mid sixties sort of things(split levels were the next big thing in about 1958--and we all remember the "Hi-Fi", that unnecessarily large record player/piece of furniture was the perfect showpiece for the split level home)--no one really wrote songs like this til the Vietnam war was in full swing, though--

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 09:15 AM

Richie,
I have mp3 files on CD, but how do I copy them onto a website?

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 06:25 PM

I've found one possible candidate for the line I said reads like a quotation from a speech -

"How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward light? Are we nearing the light--a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?"

From Eisenhower's first inaugural speech, January 1953.

That'd be ten years or more before the earliest date this song could have been put together, at least in its present form. And of course it's a phrase that could crop up in any speech or article.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 10:27 PM

Refresh.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 09:43 PM

No sign of this song in the initial years of Broadside Magazine, No. 1 through 25, 1962-1963.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: oldhippie
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 06:13 PM

This mystery has been solved. The writer/singer was "Bill Frederick", recorded on LP "Hey, Hey, LBJ" in 1967. I heard from the artist, now singing under his real name, Fred Stanton.

Subject: RE: Origins: How Far We Have Come
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 06:16 PM

Thanks for posting that - I like a mystery being solved.

Of course, that still leaves the mystery of the quote which appears to lie behind the song. Maybe Fred Stanton could solve it? (Or reveal there isn't any such quote, if such be the case.)