Housing Project

I have been involved in a project modeled after Habitat For Humanity, except that instead of building houses from scratch, we are performing extensive renovations. Because much of the work is done by volunteers, (myself included), it takes a long time. We’ve been working on one house for over a year now. As it turned out, the house needed to have completely new wiring and plumbing, it was is converted from oil to gas heat, walls were removed or moved, all of the windows were replaced... It has been pretty amazing. I wanted to help, but I am not exactly handy. I had always assumed that these jobs were things you paid someone else to do. How they were done was something I thought would always be a mystery to me.

Now the project is reaching the point where the house is starting to be put back together. It is possible to imagine it as a house, and not just a shell. And this got me thinking about houses, and the songs about them.

Pete Seeger: Little Boxes

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Malvina Reynolds wrote Little Boxes in 1963, when housing developments were a new thing. She saw them as a symbol of conformity. Reynolds coined the term “ticky-tacky” for this song; you can now find the term in the dictionary.

I chose Pete Seeger’s version of Little Boxes over the Reynolds original, because this is the version I first heard. The song was part of my childhood. My parents embraced the sentiment of the song as a way to encourage me and my brothers to not take the common path, to dare to think for ourselves.

John Mellencamp: Pink Houses

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I would love to hear someone like Richard Shindell do a solo acoustic version of Pink Houses. John Mellencamp recorded the song at the peak of his popular success, as the rock anthem heard here. But the song is not that far removed from folk songwriting in terms of structure and lyrical content. Mellencamp presents sketches portraits of three people who dreamed of better things in their lives, prompted by the fact that they were each able to buy a house. But each of these dreams has hit a dead end. These houses may be the same ones Reynolds wrote about, but twenty years later, and with their original owners long gone.

Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Our House

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My last two selections are about particular houses. CSNY describe this house as a refuge from the stresses of life. Here, love blooms in a jar flowers in one the windows. In my house, however, one of the cats always tries to eat the blossoms. So this song is not so much about a physical place as a state of mind.

Madness: Our House

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Madness performs my last selection, and that fits. Here is a house full of people, always in hurry and often running late. And yet, in the midst of all this, there is a sweet memory of a quieter time. This last one is a house, yes, but also a home. And sometimes the family that lives there gets a chance to catch their breaths, and remember that.

Kid’s Songs

My goal at Oliver di Place is to present the best music I can find. This provides, I believe, a valuable antidote to the cookie-cutter mentality especially at the major labels that results in so much pop music sounding the same.

Nowhere is this approach more needed than in the category of kid’s music. The formula for kid’s music is to use simple-minded lyrics and the intrusion of squeaky high voices, that either are, or are trying to sound like, children. The playing and the arrangements are also simplistic. The result is often sappy and condescending at the same time. Actually, that’s not an easy combination to achieve!

But kid’s music doesn’t have to be like that. The best kid’s music also appeals strongly to the parents. Many of the finest talents in folk music have tried their hands at music intended for children Nowadays, there are also artists from other genres who find themselves recording music for kids. Many of them started writing and recording music for children as a direct response to becoming parents themselves. So there is a ton of great music to choose from. The trick is finding the wheat among the vast amount of chaff. Let me be your guide.

In putting this post together, I had to leave out a great deal of wonderful material. So this might become a series. Let me know in the comments if you would like to hear more.

Pete Seeger: Abiyoyo

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Let’s begin with a classic from my own childhood. Pete Seeger combines music and storytelling in his telling of the tale of Abiyoyo. The tale delights kids because it is laced with humor. It also has characters the kids can identify with: two normal sized people must overcome a fearsome giant, just as kids must learn to deal in a world where everyone is a giant compared to them. And the giant turns out to love music, as long as it has a good beat. Kids often feel the same way.

Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer: Rhythm of the World

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Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer were well known in the folk world, both together and individually, before they ever recorded a note of music for children. But they recorded a trilogy of albums for kids that is some of the best kid’s music out there. They have a sweetness that is never cloying, and the music swings and sways.

Trout Fishing in America: What I Want is a Proper Cup of Coffee

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What I Want is a Proper Cup of Coffee has the same appeal to kids as the Dr Seuss classic Fox on Sox. This is a tongue twister, only set to music.

Trout Fishing in America has devoted their entire career to making music for kids and their adults. There are very few songs in their catalog that miss the mark. What comes through is their warmth, and their willingness to take kids seriously.

Billy Jonas: Some Houses

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Billy Jonas plays percussion on found instruments. His stage set up includes plastic drums in various sizes, as well as other odd percussible items. The emphasis is on rhythm. Jonas also makes the point that anything can be an instrument, and anyone can play something. This is as empowering to kids as the tale of Abiyoyo.

Jessica Harper: A Crazy Machine

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Did you know that Jessica Harper, the actress, was also a fine source of music for kids? This could easily be nothing more than a vanity project, but her kid’s music is the real deal. All of the key elements are in place: strong rhythms; sensitivity to a kid’s point of view; and a sweetness that never becomes cloying.

A Crazy Machine is about a toy that seemingly does everything, although no one is sure how. Yes, this is another take on The Marvelous Toy. It takes guts to take on a classic like that, but Harper pulls it off.

The Organism

Over on Star Maker Machine, We have just completed a week of songs of peace and fellowship. I originally thought of posted “Down By the Riverside” there, but, as I thought of what I wanted to say, I decided the post belonged here instead.

I went to my first peace demonstration as an eight year old, in 1968. My father took my two older brothers and me to protest the Vietnam War. No doubt, I first heard folk music and spirituals at these demonstrations, but that is not how I remember things. For an eight year old, the most memorable thing was just the hugeness of it all. I boarded the bus in a town of 800 people, and disembarked into a sea of one million. My senses were overwhelmed. We formed this giant organism that slithered down the streets of New York or Washington to some common space that was never quite large enough to hold all of us. We sang together and chanted together as we marched, and cheered speakers and musicians together at the rallies. While we were together, a million strong, we could not imagine how anything or anyone could deny our will.

It was always amazing to me to see the news coverage, and the pictures in the paper the next day. There would be overhead shots meant to emphasize the size of the crowd. I knew that viewing these images with a microscope, it would be possible to find me.

I was aware of the music as it played and the speakers as they spoke. We were raised in my family to place great importance in such things. But, as we headed home, the details would begin to blur in my mind. The information would stay lodged in my brain, and as I encountered some of the music again later in life, I would have the sense of meeting an old friend. But the next day I could not have told you who we had heard.

I am sure that I first heard “Down By the Riverside” at one of these demonstrations. It could have been Pete Seeger or Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee performing it. Or, it could have been someone else.

Pete Seeger: Study War No More (Down By the Riverside)

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Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee: Down By the Riverside

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