Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)

Subject: Your parents gave you
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 10:59 PM

Back in the late 1980s I heard a song that included the lines "Your parents gave you all that they had to give. If that ain't enough, its too damn bad". I had three teenagers at the time, so it struck a chord with me. I tried to buy it from Andy's Front Hall Records a couple of times and was told that it was temporarily out of stock. Can anyone help me out with this? I think it was a singer songwriter product rather than trad. I doubt the record made the transition from vinyl to CD, not to mention more recent technologies, but I'd sure like to get a hold of it.
Thanks

Subject: RE: Your parents gave you
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 11:08 PM

Who did the song?

Subject: RE: Your parents gave you
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 11:33 PM

Peace asks
Who did the song?

Sorry. That was supposed to be part of my question. All I can remember about it are those lyrics.

Subject: RE: Your parents gave you
From: Peace
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:09 AM

Mike: You mantioned trying to buy it from Andy's Front Hall Records. Could you please elaborate a bit on that? I think that unless someone knows the specific song, we'll need a bit more to go on.

Subject: RE: Your parents gave you
From: Peace
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:18 AM

BTW, just for scansion and rhyme, it may have been

"Your parents gave you all they had
If it ain't enough that's too damn bad"

I am comin' up empty on Mr Google.

Subject: RE: Your parents gave you
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:38 AM

I'm afraid I'm not being very helpful here, but this was twenty years ago and all I can remember is that fragment. The attempts to buy it from Andy's Front Hall were back in the 80's as well. As I recall (and you know by now just how good my memory is)the two lines did not rhyme, i.e.

Your parents gave you all that they had to give
If that ain't enough, that's too damn bad.

I came up empty on Google too.

Subject: RE: Your parents gave you
From: Peace
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 12:53 AM

OK.

1) We gotta keep the thread up for a while. I'll tend to that.

2) Do you remember where you heard the song--that is what city. Type of song it was--folkie, country, rock. Male/female singer? Stuff like that.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: Azizi
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 07:37 AM

Sorry, Mike in DC.

I don't know anything about this song. I hope you find information about it.

I'm popping into this thread to say that the lines you remember 'sound' like an interesting topic for discussion. I think this would make a good BS thread.

[If] Your parents gave you all that they had to give
If that ain't enough, that's too damn bad.

or

Should parents give their children all they [the parents] have?
[I assume we're talking about giving non-material things like love and support when the parents are alive. But we could also be talking about material things like money]

I'm throwing out the suggestion to anyone who wants to take it.
I just started a thread last night and I'm limiting myself to starting one thread at a time].

Is anybody game for starting such a thread?

If not, okay...

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:11 AM

Thanks Peace

I heard the song in Washington DC on Mary Cliff's Traditions program (on WETA at that time - on WAMU now). I e-mailed Mary about it recently but got no response. I don't think she's especially in to computers, though she has a web site in connection with her program.

The singer was male. I would call the song "folkie", as opposed to your other categories. Fairly uptempo. Probably just the singer and his guitar. I doubt the song is traditional (if it were, someone would have recognized it by now) but, as Mary says, it's "in the tradition".

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 03:36 PM

My wife tells me she remembers this song (but not the singer) too, so I'm not hallucinating.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: Peace
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 03:43 PM

OK.

We need Jim and Q on this.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 03:25 PM

Hi

Just trying to resuscitate this thread in the hope that someone with an answer will come along. Thanks.

Mike

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 11:37 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 02:12 AM

Mike, I am still comin' up with bupkiss. Maybe something to try: e-mail the station manager where Mary Cliff is and ask him/her to pass the message to Mary.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 12:09 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: GUEST,Mike in DC
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 12:10 AM

And Happy New Year

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:30 PM

Sounds rather like a variant on Philip Larkin's celebrated grouchy poem about parents and children.

So to distance myself from his sentiments there, Happy New Year, all.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 23 May 09 - 04:13 PM

I started this thread almost a year and a half ago, when I was still a Guest and still lived in DC. Nothing came of it, though Peace made a good stab at it. The thread title notwithstanding, I wasn't looking for the lyrics, just the name of the singer and some idea as to the album's availability. (I didn't make that clear though.)

Now fast forward to yesterday when I was looking through the "Your Getting Bothered Doesn't Marry Me" thread in which Jim Dixon mentioned the U.S. Copyright Office site. So off I went to that site and typed in "Your Parents Gave You". Bingo!! The singer is Dick McCormack and the LP is "Who Ever Said it Would be Easy?", released on Rooster Records in 1981. The song's title is "Your Parents Gave You the Best They Had to Give." No lyrics are given, but I'm sure its the song I (vaguely) remember.

I Googled Dick McCormack and, assuming I've got the right person, he seems like a pretty interesting guy. He's a State Senator in Vermont who has also been a professional folk singer for the past thirty years or so.


Here's
a video of him performing one of his own compositions and
here's one of him in his Senator persona. Perhaps there are some Vermonters (or anyone else) out there who could tell us more about Senator McCormack.

Note to Joe or one of his clones: Is there some way to insert McCormack's name into the thread title so as to attract those who might know more about him? Thanks.

Mike

Subject: RE: lyr req: Your parents gave you all they had
From: Peace
Date: 23 May 09 - 04:15 PM

Mike, that's wonderful. Good one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 May 09 - 11:15 AM

Here's a political biography of Dick McCormack at Project Vote Smart. It appears to be a bit out of date, though; it says "Senator, Vermont State Senate, 1988-2002" but the current directory of the Vermont State Senate shows he is still a member.

I am finding it rather hard to find information about him, though; maybe someone familiar with Vermont will do better.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: topical tom
Date: 27 May 09 - 02:11 PM

My wife and I first heard Dick McCormack perform at a small, one-day folk fest in Montpelier, Vermont. I forget the actual name of the celebration. This was a number of years ago (the 80's perhaps). I recall him singing "Dancing With Bears" and "Waltzing Around in the Nude" among many other songs. At one performance in a school gymnasium the sound system quit but Dick told everyone to huddle together around him and he performed the set in its entirety! He was a very personable man and I liked all the songs that he sang. We may have seen him perform once at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival but of that I am not sure.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: GUEST,Friend of Dick McCormack's
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 10:27 PM

Especially to "Mike in DC" who then maybe moved to Brunswick...?

I have the lyrics to this song (own the album w/lyrics), but when began typing them in here, it wouldn't let me insert line breaks ... and after all this time, I don't know you still want them AND there are LOTS of lyrics! If you could post an email addy, I could send 'em to you. I'll check back on this site every now & then ...

Dick is still a Vermont state senator, from the Windsor district. He's a heck of a nice guy. Doesn't perform hardly at all anymore. In addition to his senatorial activities, he went back to school & got his master's degree & is teaching (VTC, I think? Shoot, or is it Vermont Law School?) Don't know what else you want to know.

Cheers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 11:10 PM

Hi Friend of Dick. Thanks for your kind offer. Here's my e-mail (slyly encoded to prevent an influx of ads for cheap pharmaceuticals).
Mikew210 (at) gmail (dot) com

Mike

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: Midchuck
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 07:26 AM

Dick (aka "T. F. S." - "The Senator") and I have been friends for coming up on 40 years. I do a bunch of his songs, including some he's forgotten.

But I never learned that one. I would consider it one of his disposable ones.

Peter

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: Elmore
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 10:46 AM

I really enjoyed Dick's appearances at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival during the eighties and ninties. By the way, that wonderful festival appears to be in serious financial difficulty. No signs of a 2012 lineup.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: GUEST,History Redux
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 08:47 AM

Hi Mike,

An old post which i stumbled upon.. in case you are still looking.

The song title is "Your Parents Gave You the Best They Had to Give" and was also on Dick's 1981 album (Rooster Records) "Who Ever Said It Would Be Easy". It comes up on the Bay occasionally (there's one now) . I'd rather not print the lyrics here without his permission, but it is a fun and very witty song, would not consider it disposable at all :D .

cu

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: GUEST,History Redux
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 09:47 AM

Since you struggling to remember the refrain above, here's the album version, should be ok, it is only a small partial quote of the "parents' verse.

But your parents gave you the best they had to give
With the only tools available to work with
If it brought you down, if it made you sad
If it wasn't good enough, that's too damn bad
Your Parents gave you the best they had to give
Such as it is

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Your Parents Gave You... (Dick McCormack)
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 11:50 PM

Thanks, Guest HR. I don't use E Bay and my last turntable died years ago, but maybe I should think about changing that.

Mike