Isaac Laquedem

Happy birthday, Professor Lehrer

Today is the 95th birthday of Tom Lehrer, who rose to fame as a singer and satirical songwriter in 1953, performed and toured for about 15 years, and then returned to academia.  Some of his songs are fossils of their era (we know what became of Hubert, and Wernher von Braun did in fact study Chinese).  Others that he wrote for the events of the 1950s and 1960s are painfully apposite to the fears of the present day, including the one linked here.  Happy birthday, sir!

 

For Juneteenth this year, Lift Every Voice and Sing

How can an American not hear without national pride the ascending melody and stirring words, "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave," with which each verse closes?  If your great-grandparents were slaves in the "land of the free," you may hear those words differently.  Although The Star-Spangled Banner did not become our national anthem until 1931, Francis Scott Key wrote his stirring words about "the land of the free and the home of the brave" in 1814, when slavery was yet part of our nation.  Key owned slaves himself, black people who were in the land of the free but not free themselves. 

Key alluded to slaves, without irony, in the third verse, which only pedants know.  I'll quote it in its entirety:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Who are the "hirelings and slaves" of Key's verse?  According to Robin Blackburn, a British socialist historian, the slaves of Key's verse are American slaves.  The British army had freed the American slaves that it encountered, some of whom joined the British army to do battle with the nation that had enslaved them.  Key's verses about "the land of the free" ignored the unfree in America, and mocked those that sought the same freedoms that Key himself, as a white slaveowner, enjoyed.

Every American should know Yankee Doodle, the most prominent song of our nation's independence.  Every American should know the first verse of The Star-Spangled Banner and the coldly ironic story behind the other verses.  There's a third patriotic song that every American should know.  It's called Lift Every Voice and Sing.  James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the words in 1899 and his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) set it to music in 1905.  It begins with these three lines:

Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Unlike the invocation of immediate peril in La Marseillaise, or the florid description of the battle in The Star-Spangled Banner, James Johnson's verse alludes only subtly to the slavery era:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

The college classmate from whom I first heard the song many years ago said it was the black national anthem, and in fact the NAACP had so designated it in 1919.  As an anthem it's a remarkable statement of hope.  It's nearly as remarkable for what it doesn't say: it doesn't wish destruction on anyone, and it doesn't, unlike Key's song, celebrate freedoms that more than half of Key's compatriots couldn't enjoy.

Juneteenth is a fine day to celebrate the end of slavery and to remember what Francis Scott Key was too oblivious to see.

Equal time for the defense: "Hang In There, Mr. President" (1974)

Richard Nixon inspired not just whimsical songs about the Watergate scandal that brought his presidency to an end, but also songs to rally his supporters.  Henry Tobias wrote this one, which Bernie Knee recorded with accordionist and polka king Frank Yankovic (1915-1998) and his orchestra.  The author wasn't afraid to use the i-word in the lyric:

You've got courage so just reach 'em (Fight! Fight! Fight!)

Let them holler 'Let's impeach him!"  They're wrong, you're right!

It's hard to imagine how the current administration would publicize a song in support of President Trump, as it no longer holds press conferences.  His lawyer Rudy Giuliani could sing it on his behalf, but he's shown a facility for getting his lines wrong.

A look back: Watergate had its own protest songs, including one written by a Congressman

The scandals of the current administration make those of the dim past almost amusing in retrospect.  Even the Watergate scandal and the resulting impeachment effort produced its bits of humor amidst the shadows. One such bit was this whimsical song called "Down At the Old Watergate" by William Hungate (1922-2007), a congressman from Missouri.  He recorded it, accompanying himself on the piano, and set up a phone line where his constituents could call and listen to the recording.  The linked version isn't his own recording - I wish I could find it, as he had it pressed onto vinyl.  It is, however, a reminder of a happier time when partisanship could be expressed through intellect and not just through intolerance.

 

 

 

The Oregon Symphony has a new conductor -- maybe

Today the staff and orchestra of the Oregon Symphony picked up a possible explanation for why they never see Carlos Kalmar (the Symphony's music director) and Charles Calmer (the Symphony's artistic administrator) in the same room.

The musical ambition of Pete Seeger (1919-2014)

It all boils down to what I would most like to do as a musician.  Put songs on people's lips instead of just in their ear.  I wish I could live long enough to see more people singing again, either solo or in groups.  For recreation.  For reverence.  For learning and laughter.  For struggle.  For hope, for understanding. 

I know I won't live that long, but if this world survives, I believe that modern industrialized people will learn to sing again.

-- Pete Seeger, Where Have All The Flowers Gone: A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (1993)

Happy Mother's Day to Venerable Mom Laquedem, assisted by Professor Lehrer

Venerable Mom Laquedem was instantly taken with "Momsms," by Anita Renfroe, to which I linked in my other post for this Mother's Day, when I played it for her for Passover.  (Our family has some unusual observances.)  My regular Mother's Day serenade to her is Tom Lehrer's song "Oedipus Rex," which I'll sing to her today, as is my custom.  Venerable Mom will reply as is her custom, with a couple of words that aren't in my day-to-day vocabulary followed by the suggestion that a card and a box of chocolates would have been adequate. 

Yo-Yo Ma lends out his cello

The noted cellist Yo-Yo Ma was in Portland this last weekend, where he played a concert with the Oregon Symphony.  The conductor, Carlos Kalmar, and the orchestra did him proud -- though Mr. Ma's one piece was the highlight of the program and he ripped through it with verve and elan, the Symphony played that and the other three pieces at a very high standard.

Mr. Ma doesn't rehearse much before an orchestral performance -- he spent about an hour and a half with the Oregon Symphony Sunday morning -- but the musicians said that he was likable and very approachable, so much so that at one point he turned to one of the Symphony cellists, held out his cello, and said, "Here, play mine."  What's so special about one cellist lending his instrument to another?  Mr. Ma travels with his own cello, a valuable Stradivarius worth something in the $millions.  (Word got out 11 years ago when he left it in a New York taxicab.)   I'd be afraid to even breathe on it.

Three songs of America, part 3: Lift Every Voice and Sing

I ended Wednesday's post with a teaser: other than its treacherous melody, what is the fault or omission in The Star-Spangled Banner?  It's this.  Although we did not adopt it as our national anthem until 1931, Francis Scott Key wrote his stirring words about "the land of the free" in 1814, when slavery was yet part of our nation.  Key owned slaves himself, black people who were in the land of the free but not free themselves.  Key even alluded to slaves, without irony, in the third verse, which I'll quote in its entirety:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Who are the "hirelings and slaves" of Key's verse?  According to Robin Blackburn, a British socialist historian, the British army included American ex-slaves whom the British had freed, and who wanted to do battle with the nation that had enslaved them.  Key's verses about "the land of the free" ignored the unfree in America, and mocked those that sought the same freedoms that Key himself enjoyed.

This background brings me to the third patriotic song that every American should know.  It's called Lift Every Voice and Sing.  James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the words in 1899 and his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) set it to music in 1905.  It begins with these three lines:

Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Unlike the invocation of immediate peril in La Marseillaise, or the florid description of the battle in The Star-Spangled Banner, James Johnson's verse alludes only subtly to the slavery era:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

The college classmate from whom I first heard the song many years ago said it was the black national anthem, and in fact the NAACP had so designated it in 1919.  As an anthem it's a remarkable statement of hope.  It's nearly as remarkable for what it doesn't say: it doesn't wish destruction on anyone, and it doesn't, unlike Key's song, celebrate freedoms that more than half of Key's compatriots couldn't enjoy.

Three songs of America, part 2: The Star-Spangled Banner

Despite its other fine musical and lyrical qualities, Yankee Doodle, about which I wrote on Monday, didn't have the dignity of a national anthem.  This is not to say that the anthems of other nations are uniformly fine pieces of work; for example, Great Britain's anthem, God Save the King (or Queen), started life in 1745 as a tribute to King George II.  Its first verse began "God save great George, our King / Long live our noble king / God save the King."

The song got more lively in the second verse:

O Lord our God, arise
Scatter his enemies
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On him our hope we fix,
O save us all.

The British were less sanguinary than the French, who in 1795 adopted La Marseillaise as their anthem.  It includes this fierce bit:

Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces feroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Egorger vos fils, vos compagnes!

Which translates approximately to this:

Do you hear these ferocious soldiers
Roaring in the forests?
They're coming almost up to arms' reach
To cut the throats of your sons and wives!

Americans didn't go in for singing pious hopes for our leaders, nor (most of the time) for singing about how fierce and deadly the enemy was.  In fact, our country didn't adopt a national anthem until 1931, when Congress selected The Star-Spangled Banner over the other contenders.  Francis Scott Key had written it in 1814 while watching the British attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812.  The song's first verse doesn't express pious hopes for the president, nor does it threaten citizens with slaughter, nor does it boast about America.  Rather, and very unusually for national anthems, it simply asks a question: "Last night at sunset, our flag was flying over the ramparts [of Fort McHenry in Baltimore].  The sun is about to rise.  Can you see it flying yet?"   The second verse says "yes, it is still flying."

Key's third verse is a little more in the French model, beginning with these lines:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

He returns to modest Anglophilia in the fourth and final verse, which says approximately, "Praise God for making us a nation and saving us this time; we will conquer when our cause is just. Let us hope it is always so as long as our flag shall fly."  All four verses end with the anthem's most famous line, "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."  Again, it's an unusual anthem, because it mostly doesn't brag, exhort, pray, or threaten, but rather asks if our flag is still flying and rejoices that it is.

Where Key slipped up was in his choice of music.  He wrote the verses to be sung to the tune of a British song called To Anacreon in Heaven, the club song of the Anacreontic Society.  It's replete with classical references and double entendres.  It's also nearly unsingable: it stretches over an octave-and-a-half and has one leap of more than an octave.  It has another fault, or perhaps an omission, which later writers have tried to solve, as I'll discuss in my third and concluding post on this subject.