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“Words”.
“Always engage brain before operating mouth.” Same was a regular piece of advice doled out by Eliza Jane, my Grandmother.
Proverbs 15:28: “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.”
According to the late Robin Gibb (CBE), (1949 – 2012) of the musical group, “Bee Gees” the song ‘Words’ reflected a mood, and was originally written following an argument. Barry and Robin Gibb had both been arguing with someone, about absolutely nothing. They were just words, however, as we all appreciate, the spoken words can make a person happy or words can make a person sad and angry.
Vocals: Bee Gees
Lyrics: Maurice Ernest Gibb; Robin Hugh Gibb and Barry Alan Gibb
Smile an everlasting smile,
A smile can bring you near to me.
Don’t ever let me find you gone,
‘Cause that would bring a tear to me.
This world has lost its glory.
Let’s start a brand new story now, my love.
Right now, there’ll be no other time,
And I can show you how, my love.
Talk in everlasting words,
And dedicate them all to me,
And I will give you all my life.
I’m here if you should call to me.
And you think that I don’t even mean,
A single word I say.
It’s only words and words are all I have,
To take your heart away.
And you think that I don’t even mean,
A single word I say.
It’s only words and words are all I have,
To take your heart away.
It’s only words and words are all I have,
To take your heart away.
It’s only words.
END
I’m a Worried Man
Lyrics: Late, great American country singer-songwriter Johnny Cash (1932 – 2003)
I’m a Worried Man
Worried man, worried man.
I’m a very worried man.
Hungry babies don’t understand,
Papa is a worried man.
The place I used to draw my pay,
Slammed the door on me today.
And told me just to stay away,
And don’t come back again.
I went back home to break the news,
My woman saw that I had the blues.
She said the babies need new shoes.
And, I’m a worried man.
Worried man, a worried man.
I’m a very worried man.
Hungry babies don’t understand,
Papa is a worried man.
Well there is no way that I can see,
That I can feed my family.
Cause I don’t own a money tree.
And very little land.
But I said, “Mamma, don’t you cry,
I’ll get a job before the day’s gone by.
I don’t know where though, and that is why,
I’m a worried man”.
Worried man, worried man.
I’m a very worried man.
Hungry babies don’t understand,
Papa is a worried man.
END
Don’t Go Near the Water.
Lyrics & Vocals: Late, great American country singer-songwriter Johnny Cash (1932 – 2003)
“Don’t Go Near the Water” was a song which featured on the 47th album recorded by Johnny Cash entitled “Ragged Old Flag”, which was released on his Columbia Records label back in 1974.
The song addresses what was a red hot political issue back then and sadly remains even more of an environment issue, almost 50 years later, in 2023.
Don’t Go Near the Water.
From the fountains in the mountains,
Comes the water running cool and clear and blue,
And it comes down from the hills,
And it goes down to the towns and passes through,
When it gets down to the cities,
Then the water turns into a dirty gray.
It’s poisoned and polluted,
By the people as it goes along its way.
Don’t go near the water children,
See the fish all dead upon the shore.
Don’t go near the water,
The water isn’t water anymore.
“I took my boy fishin’ to my old favorite fishin’ hole.
I had caught many a fish out of that deep clear water
From the time I was a boy like him.
After we’d fished a few minutes, he said, “Did you get a bite yet daddy?”
I said, “I think I got a nibble son”
“Me too”, he said
Then he said, “Daddy if we catch a fish can we eat him”
I said, “Well there was a time son, this water’s bad now and it might not be safe to eat the fish.
But there was a time.”
There was a time the air was clean,
And you could see forever ‘cross the plains.
The wind was sweet as honey,
And no one had ever heard of acid rain.
We’re torturin’ the earth,
And pourin’ every kind of evil in the sea.
We violated nature,
And our children have to pay the penalty.
Don’t go near the water children.
See the fish all dead upon the shore.
Don’t go near the water,
‘Cause the water isn’t water anymore.
Don’t go near the water children.
See the fish all dead upon the shore.
Don’t go near the water,
‘Cause the water isn’t water anymore.
END
Anne Feeney (July 1951 – February 2021) was an American folk musician, singer-songwriter, political activist and an attorney. [Her grandfather was William Patrick Feeney of Irish parents that arrived to the United States at the age of fourteen, during the last quarter of the 19th century, and later became State Representative in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, between the years 1910 -1912.]
Granddaughter Anne enrolled in college at the University of Pittsburgh and joined “Thinking Students for Peace”, latter a group that protested the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
In 1972 Anne attended the annual Conference on “Women and the Law” and inspired by the group that founded “Women Organized Against Rape” in Philadelphia, she began a campaign for a rape crisis centre in Pittsburgh and successfully co-founded Pittsburgh’s first rape crisis centre.
It was in that same year, while an undergraduate, she was arrested in Miami at the Republican National Convention, where she was protesting Richard Nixon’s re-nomination for President of the United States.
Anne graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, going on to earn a Juris Doctor (JD) degree in 1978, seeking to effect social change through the legal system.
She worked as a lawyer for 12 years but ultimately decided to engage her pursuance of activism, through her music, blending Irish music with American folk and bluegrass, as well as her political message, through her regular attendance at protest rallies.
Carrying a business card that read “Performer, Producer, Hellraiser”, regrettably Anne passed away at a hospital in Pittsburgh, on February 3rd 2021, at the age of 69; a victim of Covid-19.
The song hereunder evokes history and celebrates events people can be proud of in the context of the elimination of child labour, slavery and the extending of the vote to women, noting that these changes could not have occurred without changes within the law and the acts of people who were willing to take a stand that involved going to jail for their ideals of natural justice.
Have You Been to Jail for Justice?
Lyrics: Anne Feeney
Vocals: Peter, Paul & Mary.
Was it Cesar Chavez? or Rosa Parks that day.
Some say Dr King or Gandhi that set them on their way.
No matter who your mentors are it’s been plain to see,
That, if you’ve been to jail for justice, you’re in good company.
Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand,
Cause sitting in and lyin’ down are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.
Hey, you law abiding citizens, come listen to this song.
Laws were made by people, and people can be wrong,
Once unions were against the law, but slavery was fine.
Women were denied the vote, while children worked the mine.
Yea, the more you study history the less you can deny it,
A rotten law stays on the books til folks like us defy it.
Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand,
Cause sitting in and lyin’ down are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.
Well the law’s supposed to serve us, and so are the police,
But when the system fails us, it’s up to us to speak our piece.
We must be ever vigilance, for justice to prevail,
So get courage from your convictions, let them haul you off to jail!
Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand,
Cause sitting in and lyin’ down are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.
Have you been to jail for justice? Have you been to jail for justice?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.
END.
Author of “Aghadoe”, John Todhunter (December 1839 – October 1916) was an Irish poet, playwright, and medical physician.
It’s a ballad about the Irish 1798 Rebellion, supposedly narrated by a bereaved female, about her rebel lover, who was betrayed and executed. It is not known if the event described in the lyrics were based on any real-life story.
Lyrics: John Todhunter MD, (December 1839 – October 1916).
Vocals: Liam Clancy (September 1935 – December 2009).
Music: Liam Clancy with The Irish Philharmonic Orchestra.
Dr Todhunter was educated at a Quaker school in Mountmellick, Co. Laois, and later at Bootham, in the city of York, in England; before being apprenticed at the age of 16 years, to the Dublin Quaker firms of Bewley’s and Pim, Dublin, both tea-and-sugar importers. (Thomas Pim, one of the original members of Pim Brothers & Co; born in 1771, grew up also in the Mountmellick area of Co. Laois).
Todhunter entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1861, to study medicine, winning numerous college prizes for his prose and poetry.
His poem “Aghadoe” was set to music by the late Tipperary folk-singer Liam Clancy.
Aghadoe.
There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe.
There’s a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe.
Where we met my love and I, love’s fair planet in the sky,
In that deep and silent glen in Aghadoe.
There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe.
There’s a deep and secret glade in Aghadoe.
Where I hid in, from the eyes of the redcoats and their spies,
That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.
But they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
When the price was on his head in Aghadoe,
O’er the mountain through the wood as I stole to him with food,
But the bullets found his heart in Aghadoe.
I walked from Mallow town to Aghadoe, Aghadoe.
I took his head from the jail gate to Aghadoe.
There I covered him with fern and I piled on him the cairn*.
Like an Irish king, he sleeps in Aghadoe.
END
* Cairn: Meaning in this case a heap of stones piled up acting as a memorial or as a landmark.
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