For a variety of reasons, I've been hesitant to approach the Tar Baby of WarBlogging round these parts. This post is no different. But I would like to steer interested parties to some free mp3's of songs from the out of print Vietnam Songbook. No, not exotic "World Music", but Vietnam era Anti-War songs, collected, documented, resurrected and recently performed in NYC.
Saturday, March 1st, 2003 Joe's Pub at the Public Theatre in New York played host to a unique event celebrating the protest-song tradition. Much of the repertoire was drawn from the definitive collection, The Vietnam Songbook, compiled and originally published in 1969 by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber.
The evening featured musical performances by artists who've experienced the '60's anti-War movement including Barbara Dane, Pete Seeger, Tuli Kupferberg... along with younger musicians such as Thurston Moore, Jenni Muldaur, Barry Reynolds, Dean Wareham, Lenny Kaye...
Among the mp3's available at the website are Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore doing a version of Tom Rapp's "Fourth Day Of July", Jenni Muldaur singing "Universal Soldier", even a couple tunes by antique roadshows Pete Seeger and Tuli Kupferberg.
Wasn't it Woody Guthrie's guitar that was labeled "This Machine Kills Fascists"?
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Article comments
1 - VN Rozier
My own feelings are still very mixed. When I was in Vietnam (1965-1975) I most definitely wasn't ant-war nor pro anti-war songs. Now in my collection I have Joan Baez, Pete Seeger etc. I also have a large selection of Vietnamese music from the 1960s. All unutterably sad. One can be involved in a war without being loud mouthed supporters of it. Americans tend to see too much in black and white.
Regards,
vnrozier
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