Five Years

Tonight I went to a vigil at the town square. It was friggin' cold, and there weren't a lot of us, but people shared stories of PTSD, veterans denied benefits, and other things that inspired us to keep speaking out. A dedicated group here in Greencastle has a vigil every Thursday at 12:15. I can't go because of meetings, but I was glad to make it tonight. Next week is Spring Break, so I hope to take the kids to the vigil on Thursday. At this moment PBS is playing the American Masters special on Pete Seeger, who just sang "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" and is now singing "Bring them Home" (Bruce's cover is better than anything else I could find on Youtube). Quite appropriate, tonight.

Hooray, hooray, the country's risin', for Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen*

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has been digging far too much into YouTube for grassroots political songs. Besides the Obama songs already mentioned by Phil, Teresa has found calypso, Makossa, five more Spanish songs, three raps, a torch song, vaudeville, etc. She also found two Clinton songs that are slightly better than the Laverne&Shirley knockoff that Phil found, a few McCain and Ron Paul songs, and several Huckabee tributes, including a heavy metal number called "Huck 'Em All" (yes, it's a tribute, not a parody). Go read Teresa's post and enjoy all of the links.

*I did it for you, Patrick!

Myths of Music

Right now there is a good discussion going on at Crooked Timber about the distinction between folk music and popular music. Names like Bartok, Lomax, Elijah Wald, and Brittany Spears are being tossed around, so be prepared to duck if you get involved.

My bleg of the other day has been woefully neglected, so I am going to try again. Here is a list of myths about contemporary music. Add or subtract in the comments.

1. There is a distinct difference between contemporary classical music and contemporary popular music.
2. Contemporary classical music (hereby abbreviated CCM) is atonal.
3. CCM is ugly.
4. Nobody really likes CCM.
5. CCM is unnatural, it doesn't follow the laws of acoustics and cognition.
6. It is because of CCM that classical audiences are shrinking.
7. All CCM sounds the same.
8. Music should always sound pretty or pleasant.

So, I've left the list at an annoying 8, with at least two more myths to make the decimal system happy. You don't want the decimal system to cry, do you?