Song for Day 67 - "Shadows On A Dime" by Ferron

Day 67 - "Shadows On A Dime" by Ferron

Songwriter Ferron.

      A generation ago, especially in the Great Northwest, Deborah Foisy, "Ferron", was an icon in the folk and LGBTQ communities.  She remains the single finest confessionalist songwriter in recent history.  "Shadows On A Dime", from the 1984 album by the same name, is the third Ferron such contribution (after the eponymous "Testimony", sung by Marcelle Davies Lashley on Day 2, and "Cactus" on Day 12) to this series.

      "Shadows on a Dime" was released while centrists ("Reagan Democrats") were helping Ronald Reagan humiliate Walter Mondale by 58.8% to 40.6%.  This song is a panoply of perspectives, including many featured in both elections, 1984 and 2016 (and many since):  moving forward, labor, losing options, complicit crime, health, feeding dreams, and "selfhood" (i.e. duty, identity and destiny:  "Who would I be if I didn't sing?").  The more romantic second half can inspire some to think fondly of a recent Democratic candidate, especially at the end of the campaign.

     The New York train stops here.

Lyrics:

This window makes a perfect frame
For New England leaves like painted rain
They hold me as I hold this train
All shadows on a dime.
You move forward fast by holding back
You gauge your steps and you don't look slack
Me I'm looking backward down the track
To see us dreamers in our prime.

I poured my soul in Santa Cruz
I ached all night,
Next day I lost my shoes
It's so optional what you may or may not lose
in this pattern we call time.

Fifteen years ago I worked the line
With a thousand more all doing time
While a foreman smiled complicit crime
We were strangers to the plan.
An old old woman ran the gears
She couldn't move
They said she'd been there forty years
...I think that's rude...
'Cause forty years is forty years
And I was only fifteen then.
And the work waged war upon our backs
But we gauged our steps and we didn't look slack
One day the old woman didn't come back
I couldn't work so well and they let me go.

But I don't forget about the factory
I don't expect this ride to always be
Can I give you what you want to see?
Can we do it one more time?

Ten years have worn this guitar down
Its ivory whites are now mustard brown
Its face bears cracks from every town
Still it resonates with age.
Where would I be without its ring?
Who would I be if I didn't sing?
For half a chance you spare nothing --
A tethered bird to a tethered cage.

I sing to you to feed the dream
I call to you 'though it's a muted scream
We're one on one projected beams
Translucent future be our sage.

Five years have blazed since she warmed my side
She is my gift I've loved and cried
With her level look she is my guide
A spirit on the wing
Our love has jostled like this train
Or like the moon to wax and wane
But to know somebody worth the strain --
Me I have one gift to bring

I cried for her then I let her down
She let me go and then we came around
I felt us new and I felt the ground
And I felt myself believing.

And now a tired conductor passes by
He takes my ticket with a sigh
I don't think he meant to catch my eye
But he doesn't turn away.
He says "I have a daughter as old as you
And there's really nothing anyone else can do
Do you play guitar...well good for you
Me I play the violin"
I imagine him with his hair jet black
Does he hide his fiddle in the back?
He gauged his words as the train went slack:
The New York train stops here

But I don't forget the factory
I don't expect this ride to always be
Can I give them what they want to see
Let me do it twice --
The second time for me.

'Cause these windows make a perfect frame
For New York buildings like upright trains
They hold me as I hold the rain
All shadows on a dime.

Song for Day 56 - "Biko" by Peter Gabriel

Day 56 - "Biko" by Peter Gabriel

Confucius:   "They may crush cinnabar, yet they do not take away its color; one may burn a fragrant herb, yet it will not destroy the scent."

Songwriter Peter Gabriel.

      Conscientious and experienced officials are being demoted or discarded.  When asked to do the inappropriate, some have resigned, only to be replaced by far less scrupulous amateurs.  We need to develop innovative ways for government functionaries to oppose the unthinkable without going full-blown "Russia House".

      This being the 56th Day, the time has come to speak of Isoroku Takano.  His first name is Japanese for "56", his father's age when he was born.  Little Isoroku had the good fortune to be adopted by the influential Yamamoto family.  We know him as Admiral Yamamoto, the Harvard grad who implemented the attack on Pearl Harbor, despite being against the initiative. 

Isoroku Yamamoto at 26.

      Isoroku was dearly loved by one and all, including the Emperor.  As a junior officer, Yamamoto had been given another order he disliked.  Japan had more pilots than planes.  The "solution" to this "problem" (seriously, WTP?) was to cut down on the number of flyers by having them swim [coincidentally] Hiroshima Bay.  Yamamoto voiced his objections but was overruled by the powers that were.  Strict military protocol was not the only thing preventing Isoroku from giving these idiots the finger;  he'd lost his index and middle ones* in the Battle of Tsushima.

      On the day of the test there was a huge ceremony, after which the pilots lined up along the water's edge and dove into the bay on command.  When the last of them hit the water, Yamamoto surprised one and all by stripping down and joining them.  The entire general staff freaked.  Each knowing his ass was grass if anything happened to Hirohito's home-boy, they ran along the shoreline in their formal uniforms, ceremonial swords and knee-high boots, screaming obscenities, waving batons and ordering Yamamoto to GTF out of the water.  Puffing and wheezing, these septuagenarians were relieved when Isoroku made it to the other side.  They must have soiled their dress uniforms when they witnessed what happened next.  Not certain that he'd made his point with these incorrigible hacks, Isoroku climbed onto the rocks, stood up, saluted his superiors, and dove back into the ocean for a return trip.

      Need I add that there were no more "swimming tests"?

Beware the Ides of March!

      As for the rest of us, the arts have given us an equally inventive and effective way to oppose injustices of the past, present and future.  By definition, every masterpiece will survive the inequities it describes.  In addition to other media, we have music as a universal language.  We don't always need to flood social media with speeches.  We can post tunes and let the melodies and lyrics speak for themselves.  We don't need to speak of the First Amendment as an abstraction;  its reality can be made evident by playing protest songs, starting with those removed from our airwaves:  "Burn, Baby, Burn" (by Bruce Cockburn),  "Black Day in July" (by Gordon Lightfoot)  or "Requiem For The Masses" (The Association), to name a few.  There is no requirement to harangue less politicalized friends with heavy-handed rants. 

     Just play the damned song.

 Lyrics: "Biko" (1980)

September '77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

When I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one color dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

* Yamamoto lost these fingers in his left hand;  he'd be saluting these prats with his right hand.