Just Another Folk Singer

Do you remember those days in the thirties, when you wandered the country alone?
A young and self exiled traveller, searching perhaps for a home,
In your wildest of dreams, such extravagant schemes,
Must have seemed a light year away,
But banjo in hand, you travelled the land,
And you dreamt of a far better day.

And was it fun in the forties, with Woody and Millard and Lee,
As you sang for the freedom of workers, in an Almanac fraternity,
As you made up the rhyme, wasn't that a time,
To be watching those at your back,
But damn it instead, you were looking ahead,
With Toshi by your side you attacked.

As a Weaver of song in the fifties, you spread a great warmth through the land,
But equality and friendship world over was not what your government planned,
For McCarthy was there, and a chill filled the air,
As they pointed the finger of blame,
But through it all, together with Paul, (Robeson)
You sang and you both overcame.

And what did you make of the sixties, Presidents in the Muddy waste deep,
And the crimes that your country committed, all the lives that were lost,
did you weep?,
And so proudly you sang, anti-Vietnam,
Whilst the wounded came home from the war,
They called you a traitor, a red agitator,
Whilst you and a few asked "What for?"

So you spent most your life swimming upstream, fighting odds stacked as high as a wall,
Whilst some claimed amendments around you, you stood as you sang, straight and tall,
And whilst some people dithered, you built boats and cleaned rivers,
Spoke out when others were scared,
And your obituary, it must surely be,
Thank The Lord, thank The Lord, that he cared.

C Joe Stead - Fore Lane Music - March 1995