"She sang the song slowly, as if she in fact did not really remember it, but was trusting each word to take her to the next, relying on the melody - and in her quivering voice, there was no melody anyone but she could hear - to give her the story... For as long as the song lasted, she made you forget that anything outside the song existed at all." - Greil Marcus, in Envoi
Looking up the literal meaning of envoi, I come upon some hints: "a short stanza concluding a ballad," coming from envoyer in French, meaning to send. It is related to the word, envoy, "a messenger or representative." Where we've been, where we're going, we're here to pick up and send messages through time and space in some way, sometimes through music and image, sometimes composed as song and place.
I Ride an Old Paint performed by Carl Sandberg, 1938
I ride an old paint, I lead an old Dan
I'm goin' to Montan' for to throw the hoolihan
They feed in the coulees, they water in the draw
Their tails are all matted, their back are all raw
Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow
For the fiery and snuffy are a rarin' to go
Old Bill Jones had two daughters and a song
One went to Denver, the other went wrong
His wife, she died in a poolroom fight
Still he'd sing from mornin' to night
Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow
For the fiery and snuffy are a rarin' to go
Oh when I die, take my saddle from the wall
Put it on my pony, lead him out of his stall
Tie my bones to his back, turn our faces to the west
And we'll ride the prairie that we love the best
Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow
For the fiery and snuffy are a rarin' to go
I think this particular song perfectly captures the idea of envoi - the cowboy, who has lived and witnessed loss, wishes to send his bones into the distance. Out of connection to his pony and prairie and out of love, the cowboy sends his story, humble bones upon his most precious companion. Without knowing exactly where it will go, or how it will be received, the message is sent in faith. Somehow, the theme of envoi, reminds me of the following poem:
Night Highway Ninety-Nine by Lew Welch
...only the very poor, or eccentric, can surround themselves with shapes of elegance (soon to be demolished) in which they are forced by poverty to move with leisurely grace. We remain alert so as not to get run down, but it turns out you only have to hop a few feet, to one side, and the whole huge machinery rolls by, not seeing you at all.
The construction of moments as exact echoes of other times and places, seem to be captured in the basic language of folks songs - in their lyrics, syntax, tone, and rhythm. The amazing thing about the echo is that something so specific as a song is able to maintain itself in rapidly changing contexts. Lew Welch mentions a "whole huge machinery" that in this case of envoi, could be taken as commercialization and co-opting of the messages and messengers of song. Learning about the specific songs from specific people and specific places this past semester has helped me to become a little bit more alert in positioning myself on some kind of path, hopefully off to the side to experience it for a moment.
12/20/14
11/21/14
Chicago City Blues
William Ferris quoting Shelby Brown:
One thing about Chicago, people told me that money was even growing on trees there. I went and got me two sacks to carry with me for that money tree in Chicago. I went there and my brother, he saw me with two sacks. He say, "Shelby, what you carrying them sacks for?"... He grabbed the sacks and throwed them in the garbage can and said, "Don't do that. You let the folks make a fool out of you. Chicago is a free place, but don't come looking for money on the tree. They'll know you ain't nothing but a country fool."
The story of migrating people from the Mississippi Delta into Chicago at the promise of prosperity reminds me of how my parents ventured into the city and to the United States, eventually getting me here. In 1960, my mother moved on her own to Taipei to attend junior high. She was coming from the country side in Miaoli where my grandpa worked for an oil company and my grandma ran a grocery store. In the country, they had a house with three rooms for two large families. The floors were made of compacted, swept ground, and everyone had tatami mats to sleep on. Everyone got enough water, rice, vegetables, and sometimes, the oil company would host film screenings for the neighborhood. When Christmas came, Western missionaries would visit the neighborhood and give out food and treats. My mother recounts getting used Christmas cards with beautiful prints of Western families on them enjoying Christmas and words written in English.
My father's side also ended up in Taipei. My grandpa sold lunch boxes at the Taipei train station as a child, and my grandma was a maid for a Japanese family. In 1960, my father had made it through high school and entered a college for technology. He eventually became an engineer for Fairchild, a prestigious American company, and was the first one to afford a car while giving the majority of his income to his mother until he was married in 1976. My parents moved to Fresno with my brother in 1980 with ambitious hopes to make it rich, followed by ups and downs, and me, here, wondering why I became a gardener and why my brother became an auto mechanic.
My parent's story is vastly different from the Mississippi-Chicago route, but at the heart of it may be a hope for a better life, for money or freedom, and an eventual sequence of reality checks of sorts that are grounded in one's relationship to a place, home, and history.
Taipei in 1960 -
11/18/14
11/6/14
Woody Guthrie
NOTES:
p. xiv - "The songs Woody sang and wrote all his life were inexorably bound to his own being."
p. xxiv - "Let me be known as just the man who told you something you already knew."
I wonder if it is possible for folks these days to wander and observe the world the way Woody Guthrie did. You need time and commitment and a certain level acceptance of spontaneity, I imagine. With digital navigation systems at my fingertips, I find it really difficult to be in a position where no one knows where I am, including myself. I wonder if in order to command a language of observation that is independent in the way Woody Guthrie's might have been, one would need to create their own map of the places they traveled, figuring it out step by step. Not to say that Woody Guthrie didn't have maps he could read, but that the presence of maps at particular moment would have been limited to the weight and volume of those maps.
p. xiv - "The songs Woody sang and wrote all his life were inexorably bound to his own being."
p. xxiv - "Let me be known as just the man who told you something you already knew."
I wonder if it is possible for folks these days to wander and observe the world the way Woody Guthrie did. You need time and commitment and a certain level acceptance of spontaneity, I imagine. With digital navigation systems at my fingertips, I find it really difficult to be in a position where no one knows where I am, including myself. I wonder if in order to command a language of observation that is independent in the way Woody Guthrie's might have been, one would need to create their own map of the places they traveled, figuring it out step by step. Not to say that Woody Guthrie didn't have maps he could read, but that the presence of maps at particular moment would have been limited to the weight and volume of those maps.
10/30/14
Leadbelly
NOTES:
The scenes from the re-enactments of Leadbelly's story are striking. The March of Times Newsreel production makes me think of a term I'm not sure is correct: the term, exceptionalism, where narratives that are few and far between are tactically used to dispel certain harsh realities amongst the public consciousness. It seems that Leadbelly's story may have been especially fascinating to the American newsreel viewers because it is a narrative that is dramatic enough to fit within the racial narrative of the time - he is characterized, understood, and made comfortable within White American media. The snapshot of the stage scene where Leadbelly says his lines, acting as "himself," to the patriarch character, Alan Lomax, is especially fascinating. The composition of the frame exposes the dynamic while keeping it hidden in plain view. What else is hidden in plain view?
Anthology of American Folk Music
NOTES:
Anthology, from the mid 17th century, meaning 'flower' + 'collection' via anthos + logia
The songs in the anthology strike familiarity, giving contemporary popular music some context. As a whole collection, it is difficult to imagine it was compiled in 1952, before its aftermath. When consuming contemporary music on a daily basis from place to place, I find that I overlook the connections between music and the dimensions of time and place, fetishizing the commodity like a free packet of sugar.
The idea of commoditization is not new to me, but the realization of it comes slowly. This week, I was introduced to the idea that space can be succinctly framed by the words, be here now. In being, in place, in time. As simple and mundane as that sounds, I find it very difficult to acknowledge it in day to day experiences; the cues deflect. Maybe there later.
Back to the idea of the flower collection, Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music offers a collection of precious, homegrown pieces that make up a powerful arrangement of texture and color. A poem by Czeslaw Milosz comes to mind.
By the Peonies, 1945
The peonies bloom, white and pink.
And inside each, as in a fragrant bowl,
A swarm of tiny beetles have their conversation,
For the flower is given to them as their home.
Mother stands by the peony bed,
Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,
And looks for a long time into peony lands,
Where one short instant equals a whole year.
Then lets the flower go. And what she thinks
She repeats aloud to the children and herself.
The wind sways the green leaves gently
And speckles of light flick across their faces.
Anthology, from the mid 17th century, meaning 'flower' + 'collection' via anthos + logia
The songs in the anthology strike familiarity, giving contemporary popular music some context. As a whole collection, it is difficult to imagine it was compiled in 1952, before its aftermath. When consuming contemporary music on a daily basis from place to place, I find that I overlook the connections between music and the dimensions of time and place, fetishizing the commodity like a free packet of sugar.
The idea of commoditization is not new to me, but the realization of it comes slowly. This week, I was introduced to the idea that space can be succinctly framed by the words, be here now. In being, in place, in time. As simple and mundane as that sounds, I find it very difficult to acknowledge it in day to day experiences; the cues deflect. Maybe there later.
Back to the idea of the flower collection, Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music offers a collection of precious, homegrown pieces that make up a powerful arrangement of texture and color. A poem by Czeslaw Milosz comes to mind.
By the Peonies, 1945
The peonies bloom, white and pink.
And inside each, as in a fragrant bowl,
A swarm of tiny beetles have their conversation,
For the flower is given to them as their home.
Mother stands by the peony bed,
Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,
And looks for a long time into peony lands,
Where one short instant equals a whole year.
Then lets the flower go. And what she thinks
She repeats aloud to the children and herself.
The wind sways the green leaves gently
And speckles of light flick across their faces.
10/21/14
10/9/14
Appalachia II - the British balads
NOTES: Some points from the reading on Cecil Sharp via Mike Yates - the idea of isolation from the city and the intimacy between landscapes that are far apart - basically, the idea of geographical distance as a static measure versus cultural distance as an intimate relationship. First, the sentiment on isolation:
"Mr Sharp told of rescuing English folk music; how he and his associates, seeking out persons untouched by the on-rush of education, had entered the workhouses and jotted down the songs of old peasants now living on the parish. No one under 70, he said, had yielded a song worth the taking. Another twenty years and English music would assuredly have dissolved in sophistication ... By Mr Sharp's definition a new folk music is impossible without a complete reversion to a feudal state. This is true, because folk music is the product of an unselfconscious peasantry; a peasantry which refuses to transmit the eccentricities of any individual; which simply omits and forgets what does not belong to the spirit of the people ... But this is a doleful theory to propound to Americans who feel the urge of nationality. How can we have any folk music? We are in the clutches of compulsory education. The farest backwoods farmer has a phonograph with records of Rubinstein's melody of F and Mischa Elman's richly sentimental reading of Dvorak's humoresque ... Thus Mr Sharp leaves us to a barren fate, not possessing a folk music and not able to get one." (Campbell)
Second, the sentiment on intimacy:
I have been very interested in the wild flowers and ferns, comparing them with our English ones. It is quite exciting to find every now and again exactly the same flower growing under precisely the same conditions as in England. (Sharp)
It's interesting to me the positions of isolation and connection between two seemingly distinct places, such as a "the city" and "the country." One is not itself without the other.
What is the value of folk music outside of being an historic resource if it is not part of a future. The question Campbell asks, does "Mr. Sharp leave us to a barren fate, not possessing a folk music and not able to get one?" What does it mean to posses a folk music? In Sharp's case, it meant collecting and recording it for "posterity's sake."
Sharp recognizes "exactly the same flower growing under the precisely the same conditions as in England." I think this observation may have something to do with this question of cultural adaptation and migration. I'm still left with a lot of questions about how this fits into our often global framework today - speaking and framing in global terms that are not clearly placed.
A passage from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind:
"How may of you are there?"
"Thousands on the roads, the abandoned railtracks, tonight, bums on the outside, libraries inside. It wasn't planned at first. Each man had a book he wanted to remember, and did. Then, over a period of twenty years or so, we met each other, traveling, and got the loose network together and set out a plan. The single most important thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we mustn't be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone else in the world. We're nothing more than dust jackets of books, of no significance otherwise."
10/2/14
Appalachia
NOTES: The category of images that appear in a Google search are the following -
People Of
Mountains
Poverty
Rural
Modern People Of
Appalachia seems to be viewed from the external as a marginal place and people - far beyond the outskirts of urban centers, modernity, and economic power. I'd like to attach this idea to something I'm exploring in another class - creating a framework to understand urban-rural dialectics. In many cases, the idea of rural is arbitrarily considered a condition of marginality.
I'm particularly interested in this framework and its problems because my family comes from a tradition rooted in what is considered marginality. My parents and all of their known ancestors are Hakka, which is a clan that comes out of the Yellow River area in China in the 13th century. They were known to flee from empirical rule by migrating to and from marginal lands, bringing with them the bones of their ancestors. Hakka means "guest" and traditionally insinuates poverty. Living on what was considered the margin afforded Hakka people freedom to maintain their own identity and language, a characteristic I think is related to the position of Appalachia.
People Of
Mountains
Poverty
Rural
Modern People Of
Appalachia seems to be viewed from the external as a marginal place and people - far beyond the outskirts of urban centers, modernity, and economic power. I'd like to attach this idea to something I'm exploring in another class - creating a framework to understand urban-rural dialectics. In many cases, the idea of rural is arbitrarily considered a condition of marginality.
I'm particularly interested in this framework and its problems because my family comes from a tradition rooted in what is considered marginality. My parents and all of their known ancestors are Hakka, which is a clan that comes out of the Yellow River area in China in the 13th century. They were known to flee from empirical rule by migrating to and from marginal lands, bringing with them the bones of their ancestors. Hakka means "guest" and traditionally insinuates poverty. Living on what was considered the margin afforded Hakka people freedom to maintain their own identity and language, a characteristic I think is related to the position of Appalachia.
9/25/14
O Mary Don't You Weep
O Mary Don't You Weep
If I could I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood
Pharoah's army got drowned
O Mary don't you weep
O Mary don't you weep don't you mourn (2x)
Pharoah's army got drowned / O Mary don't you weep!
Moses stood on the Red Sea Shore
Smotin' the water with a two by four / Pharoah's army...
The Lord told Moses what to do
To lead those Hebrew children thru...
God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water but fire next time...
Mary work three links of chain
Every link was freedom's name...
When I get to Heaven, gonna sing & shout
Nobody up there to put me out!
One of these mornings, it won't be long
You're gonna call my name, but I'll be gone...
One of these days 'bout 12 o'clock
This old world's gonna reel & rock...
One of these days in the middle of the night
People gonna rise & set things right...
Coming from both the Old and New Testaments, this song and other recent songs prompts me to imagine an echo that literally travels through time. The song comes from the belly, and is passed to a set of ears which take the song in and pass it through the belly again and so forth. And this is how the song is passed and digested through time and through bodies. Decades and all kinds of people and somehow to us. The breath and the strength of O Mary Don't You Weep travels through us when we sing it to lift us up, so lucky.
If I could I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood
Pharoah's army got drowned
O Mary don't you weep
O Mary don't you weep don't you mourn (2x)
Pharoah's army got drowned / O Mary don't you weep!
Moses stood on the Red Sea Shore
Smotin' the water with a two by four / Pharoah's army...
The Lord told Moses what to do
To lead those Hebrew children thru...
God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water but fire next time...
Mary work three links of chain
Every link was freedom's name...
When I get to Heaven, gonna sing & shout
Nobody up there to put me out!
One of these mornings, it won't be long
You're gonna call my name, but I'll be gone...
One of these days 'bout 12 o'clock
This old world's gonna reel & rock...
One of these days in the middle of the night
People gonna rise & set things right...
Coming from both the Old and New Testaments, this song and other recent songs prompts me to imagine an echo that literally travels through time. The song comes from the belly, and is passed to a set of ears which take the song in and pass it through the belly again and so forth. And this is how the song is passed and digested through time and through bodies. Decades and all kinds of people and somehow to us. The breath and the strength of O Mary Don't You Weep travels through us when we sing it to lift us up, so lucky.9/23/14
Reflecting still on Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
NOTES: After reading Chapter 14. of the Sorrow Songs from Souls of Black Folk by Du Bois, I feel somewhat relieved. Last week, when trying to understand and interpret Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, I found it difficult to really connect.
Excerpt from Du Bois: "Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song -- soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit."
I believe that in this case, the song comes from a place I cannot truly imagine. The truths sung in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot are not my own and will never be. In this way, they are sacred. I feel more comfortable admitting this: lack of understanding, lack of connection, a real distance from the song and the place it comes from. Although the song, its tones and words, are obviously profound, obviously convey a soul and spirit, there are secrets in there that do not belong to me.
These songs are precious and perhaps deceptively straight-forward. If anything, I do believe they are a gift sometimes, to be appreciated with humility.
Excerpt from Du Bois: "Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song -- soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit."
These songs are precious and perhaps deceptively straight-forward. If anything, I do believe they are a gift sometimes, to be appreciated with humility.
9/18/14
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
I looked over Jordan & what did I see
Comin' for to carry me home
A band of angles comin' after me / Comin'...
I'm sometimes up & sometimes down
But still I know I'm heavenly [freedom] bound
If you get there before I do
Tell all my friends that I'm comin' too
If I get there before you do
I'll cut a hole & pull you though
language is the spirit voiced, in pencil marks, rhythms and lines
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
I looked over Jordan & what did I see
Comin' for to carry me home
A band of angles comin' after me / Comin'...
I'm sometimes up & sometimes down
But still I know I'm heavenly [freedom] bound
If you get there before I do
Tell all my friends that I'm comin' too
If I get there before you do
I'll cut a hole & pull you though
language is the spirit voiced, in pencil marks, rhythms and lines
the senses come together at this point in time to tell you a secret story
stolen cows sing to you now, sweet illogical harmonies
you, the cows are dancing now, a faint glimmer and into the distance
NOTES: The rhythm and sound of the spirituals, work songs, and gospel share a particular closeness to the metaphysical qualities of experience - the spirit takes, the soul keeps. The song takes us there and keeps us here by cutting a hole and pulling us through from one moment to the next. The voices in these songs take us to the truth. In Jumping Judy, the hit of the hammer comes on the first of four beats and is followed by a voice summoned from the core. The stumbling, grumbling voice in Joseph Spence's Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer dances all over the four beat, goes where ever it will go. Particularly deep tones come out of the words, "chariot" and "home" in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. The "a" and "o" notes are sustained and ring deep.
NOTES: The rhythm and sound of the spirituals, work songs, and gospel share a particular closeness to the metaphysical qualities of experience - the spirit takes, the soul keeps. The song takes us there and keeps us here by cutting a hole and pulling us through from one moment to the next. The voices in these songs take us to the truth. In Jumping Judy, the hit of the hammer comes on the first of four beats and is followed by a voice summoned from the core. The stumbling, grumbling voice in Joseph Spence's Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer dances all over the four beat, goes where ever it will go. Particularly deep tones come out of the words, "chariot" and "home" in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. The "a" and "o" notes are sustained and ring deep.
9/9/14
You Are My Sunshine
You Are My Sunshine
The other night, as I lay sleepin'
Dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke dar, I was mistaken'
An' I hung my head an' cried
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away
I'll always love you an' make you happy
If you will only say th same
But if you leave me for another
You'll regret it all some day
You told me once't dear, you really loved me
An' no one else could come between
But now you left me for another
You have scattered all my dreams
via Missouri State University
NOTES: Simple, mundane objects of experience so ubiquitous as sunshine make for a connection to love so strong and profound that it is nearly impossible to be without. The song brings our imagination to a place that hinges between one with sunshine and one without - we teeter totter between the real and imagined state of being without our love, our sunshine, our home which keeps us feeling whole. Phrased in the past tense, we get a sense of time and memory which both strengthen and distort our story as time goes on. Maybe someone is sitting in their kitchen, alone, looking at the old counter top and imagining how it once was - simple, mundane, whole.
The audio version by Ollie Gilbert, recorded in 1971 is the most simple - a single voice singing, a cough, textured vocal tones free of context - and distills the meaning of the song to the listener, who is free to connect with their own particular experience and place. Her sound speaks to her age and experience distilled and expressed. In contrast, Jimmie Davis' version is more orchestrated and embedded in the style and tones of the peppy clarinet flourish, muted trumpet, and idyllic guitar strums - this version speaks to Jimmie Davis' particular time and place. Gene Autry's version further smoothes out the roughness of the tune with straight kept time. Still, the meter and meaning of the words in all versions endure and is enough to convey a particular experience.
The other night, as I lay sleepin'
Dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke dar, I was mistaken'
An' I hung my head an' cried
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away
I'll always love you an' make you happy
If you will only say th same
But if you leave me for another
You'll regret it all some day
You told me once't dear, you really loved me
An' no one else could come between
But now you left me for another
You have scattered all my dreams
via Missouri State University
NOTES: Simple, mundane objects of experience so ubiquitous as sunshine make for a connection to love so strong and profound that it is nearly impossible to be without. The song brings our imagination to a place that hinges between one with sunshine and one without - we teeter totter between the real and imagined state of being without our love, our sunshine, our home which keeps us feeling whole. Phrased in the past tense, we get a sense of time and memory which both strengthen and distort our story as time goes on. Maybe someone is sitting in their kitchen, alone, looking at the old counter top and imagining how it once was - simple, mundane, whole.
The audio version by Ollie Gilbert, recorded in 1971 is the most simple - a single voice singing, a cough, textured vocal tones free of context - and distills the meaning of the song to the listener, who is free to connect with their own particular experience and place. Her sound speaks to her age and experience distilled and expressed. In contrast, Jimmie Davis' version is more orchestrated and embedded in the style and tones of the peppy clarinet flourish, muted trumpet, and idyllic guitar strums - this version speaks to Jimmie Davis' particular time and place. Gene Autry's version further smoothes out the roughness of the tune with straight kept time. Still, the meter and meaning of the words in all versions endure and is enough to convey a particular experience.
9/7/14
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