Red Neck, Red Flag - Left Wing Country
- Thread starter deeyo
- Start date
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Folk music is not country. It’s a hard thing to distinguish sometimes, but they are definitely distinct. Quite why one is so communist friendly and the other certainly isn’t is an interesting question partly taken up in - A Forgotten Country
Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan were not country (not on that album anyway).
Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan were not country (not on that album anyway).
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
breaking news - as of sep 30, lil nas x is officially country, since dolly endorsed his cover of jolene! i feel obliged to include it on this thread.
i hope hitmouse or someone else can provide a political background & critique of mr montero, but a list-topping, openly gay black rapper doing a straight version of a country classic good enough for ms parton, is good enough for me
i hope hitmouse or someone else can provide a political background & critique of mr montero, but a list-topping, openly gay black rapper doing a straight version of a country classic good enough for ms parton, is good enough for me
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
This is an interesting article about him and the hip-hop/country divide from a few years back:
The High Rise and the Hollow | Commune
Hip-hop on horseback, against Billboard apartheid
communemag.com
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
interesting article, thanks.
i'd argue that woody guthrie was old school country, and that trying to define him as 'folk' separate from country would be rewriting history. when he started out, he played hillbilly/country'n'western music on c'n'w radio channels.
seeger, not so sure. new york born academic, started out a bit later, when maybe such a split began to exist. deffo part of a 'wider country sphere' and the main influence of a couple of generations of banjo players through his books, performances, tutoring & letters. no problem finding country recordings by him. is he on this thread yet, though?
dylan: major influence on country and heavily influenced by country... have made a lot of country songs. prob will end up in the hall of fame too, some day.
ewan mccoll - great songwriter & socialist. but he's english(/scottish) folk & i'd say he was one or two steps too far removed from country for this thread Humberto - but maybe i'm wrong? straw-grasping & farfetched arguments allowed...
Humberto
Justice is order
Hank Williams was certainly country and had some ideas that speak more to the gospel I read fwiw. There's 'No No joe' which is fine in my book, but for his day he almost seemed counter-culture.
It's not compulsory but it's not easy to write a song like this I expect:
I don't know if he was left wing but there is some tradition woven in there to what is practically a generator of country. With that I'll leave a couple of favorites:
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
'my fathers own father, he waded that river
they took all the money he made in his life..'
songs about the mexican border is a recurring theme in left wing country, the principal one being deportee - plane wreck at los gatos, written by guthrie as a poem in 1948, music by martin hoffman 1958. covered by everyone; cisco houston, joan baez, dolly parton, arlo guthrie, nancy griffith, bruce springsteen, old crow medicine show, highwaymen, byrds, arlo & emmylou, dylan & baez, los super 7 .. & many, many moore.
out of many, for the border theme i picked the version by cash & rodriguez for the spanish lyrics & cashs cool intro, & the version by lyle lovett & los texmaniacs for the tejano vibe & the yellow accordion.
the story of the plane crash & its aftermath is interesting too - i've posted some links about it before:
or there's this one:
One Man's Search to Find the Families of the "Deportees" in the Famous Woody Guthrie Song
Seventy years after the 1948 crash, Tim Hernandez is bringing new recognition to the 28 unidentified "braceros" who died when the plane blew up
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
some other border themed songs:
across the wire - calexico (of tucson, arizona)
backed by a whole mariachi band in that clip.
the song has several references to the works of luis alberto urrea , tijuana born writer & journalist & related to teresa urrea 'the mexican joan of arc'. he's written a lot about the border region that seems interesting. haven't read anything myself, though.
el coyote - guy clark, monahans texas
one of clarks few explicitly political songs, written about the real life tragedy where 18
mexican workers got left to die from heat in the back of a truck.
who's gonna build your wall? -tom russell, la, california
what it says on the tin. second verse is hilariously hypocritical, though. 'i aint got no politics' - yeah, right.
highwomen - highwomen
so fuckin good.
across the wire - calexico (of tucson, arizona)
backed by a whole mariachi band in that clip.
the song has several references to the works of luis alberto urrea , tijuana born writer & journalist & related to teresa urrea 'the mexican joan of arc'. he's written a lot about the border region that seems interesting. haven't read anything myself, though.
el coyote - guy clark, monahans texas
one of clarks few explicitly political songs, written about the real life tragedy where 18
mexican workers got left to die from heat in the back of a truck.
who's gonna build your wall? -tom russell, la, california
what it says on the tin. second verse is hilariously hypocritical, though. 'i aint got no politics' - yeah, right.
highwomen - highwomen
so fuckin good.
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
feminist country:
rosanne cash of memphis, tennesee & eliza gilkyson of la, california: "For a long time, I’d been saying that a woman doesn’t have to be a victim in her life and in her music. I started coming to terms with a lot of it myself and I started asking, ‘Well, how far does it go? How far do you speak up for yourself?’ "
courtney marie andrews, phoenix, arizona: 'The narrator in “I’ve Hurt Worse” is justifying their partner’s behaviors by comparing them to an even worse relationship they’ve been in before. It’s a sarcastic song about recognizing abuse, and allowing your own mental instability to get the best of you.'
samantha crain, shawnee, oklahoma: 'Overall, though, I’m trying to make the statement for musicians to fall back in love with justice and trying to really give the working class and marginalized people their voice back.'
eilen jewell, boise, idaho: 'I was trying, and still am trying, to make sense of what it means to be a woman in a country that somehow elected a self-professed pussy grabber as head of state. What does this mean for my daughter?'
rosanne cash of memphis, tennesee & eliza gilkyson of la, california: "For a long time, I’d been saying that a woman doesn’t have to be a victim in her life and in her music. I started coming to terms with a lot of it myself and I started asking, ‘Well, how far does it go? How far do you speak up for yourself?’ "
courtney marie andrews, phoenix, arizona: 'The narrator in “I’ve Hurt Worse” is justifying their partner’s behaviors by comparing them to an even worse relationship they’ve been in before. It’s a sarcastic song about recognizing abuse, and allowing your own mental instability to get the best of you.'
samantha crain, shawnee, oklahoma: 'Overall, though, I’m trying to make the statement for musicians to fall back in love with justice and trying to really give the working class and marginalized people their voice back.'
eilen jewell, boise, idaho: 'I was trying, and still am trying, to make sense of what it means to be a woman in a country that somehow elected a self-professed pussy grabber as head of state. What does this mean for my daughter?'
I love that
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
lee hazlewood - mannford, oklahoma- this thread could've been made for him.
son of an oil worker & a half-blood (muskogee) creek indian, he called himself a redneck indian cowboy singer, read the capital while in high school in port neches, texas....
'no train to stockholm' an anti vietnam war song from the early seventies & 'anthem' from his last album cake or death
The Making of An Urbane Cowboy
Both before and after Lee Hazlewood wrote hits for Nancy Sinatra and Duane Eddy, he was a Texas musician.
www.texasmonthly.com
deeyo
hurled unheard to this world.
ah, the eternal question. when miller (ft worth, texas) penned 'old worn out suit & shoes/ i dont pay no union dues' - was he telling us to organise for decent wages or was it an expression of his left wing communist view that revolutionaries shouldn't join conservative trade-unions?
(looking for stuff about mr millers politics i found this article bout why king of the road wouldnt have been written today)
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