Waltz Time, Part I

When I woke up the other day with an inspiration for a theme post, I knew it was time to come back. And so, here I am, less than a week from my father’s passing, resuming posting on my blog. I don’t want anyone to think me heartless. The fact is, my father died of Alzheimer’s. If you know much about it, you know that my family and I have been losing him little by little for the last few years. So I began mourning him while his body still drew breath. But I don’t want to dwell on this now. Suffice it to say, as of now, Oliver di Place is back. And thank you all for your good wishes and kind words, and for your patience.

Before I get on with it, just a few words about where I’m going next. My inspiration for this post was the word Waltz. As I started thinking about songs, the post quickly grew too big. I found that splitting it in two yielded two posts, each with a different feel, and each of which made sense on its own as a coherent post. So here is part one; part two will appear later this week, and there will be a special album review this weekend for my official 100th post. The memorial service for my father is coming up, and after that, I will be posting a special edition of For a Song in tribute to him. And then things will get back to normal, with my one year anniversary and holiday posts in December.

For now then, without further ado...

Dan Zanes (with Deborah Harry): Waltzing Matilda

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We begin waltz week with Waltzing Matilda. This one, in this arrangement at least, isn’t a waltz at all. And the song has nothing to do with dancing. But, as will become clear, this had to be the starting point.

Waltzing Matilda is one of two songs I can think of which are commonly performed as kid’s songs, but which have also proposed as national anthems. The other song is This Land Is Your Land. In Australian slang, a matilda is a pack made by tying a cloth onto a stick. To go waltzing matilda is pack up your possessions in a matilda and go roaming. In the song, the one who goes waltzing matilda is a “swagman”, an itinerant worker. So our hero the swagman goes wandering in search of work, and decides to rest under a tree near a river bank. He is able to capture a wild sheep, which he is just putting in his pack, when a “squatter” comes with three policemen, and accuses him of stealing the sheep. A squatter is a man who has settled a piece of land and worked it. He now claims the land as his own, but the legal grounds for that claim are weak. Certainly, the sheep is not one of his. Nevertheless, our swagman knows that any judgment in this matter will go against him, and he will be hanged. So he throws himself into the water and drowns. Thereafter, the swagman’s ghost haunts the spot forever.

So this jaunty seeming song is a tale of class conflict, and a ghost story to boot. The slang terms sound silly, especially to non-Australian ears, but the subject is serious. I get the sense that Australians, especially in the early days, had an us against the world attitude, and that is why this song resonates so strongly there. I would love to here from my Australian readers on this in the comments.

Eric Bogle: And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

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Waltzing Matilda is played in Australia at all sorts of important occasions. Here it turns up in a ceremony to see off troops departing overseas to fight World War I. World War I was fought because a series of treaties were written to stipulate that, if a series of events were to occur, various nations would join others to fight others. The trigger for all this was a series of events that “could never happen”, but did. By the time it was all over, all of the participating nations had paid a terrible price.

World War I was the inspiration for many fine anti-war songs. And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda is one the best. Eric Bogle does not glorify the gore, but he does not pull punches. He eloquently makes the point that, in war, casualties must be counted not only amongst the slain, but also among the “survivors”.

Tom Waits: Tom Traubert‘s Blues

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Waltzing Matilda is also the jumping-off point for Tom Traubert’s Blues. In this song, Matilda was an actual person, a woman Tom Waits met on a trip to Copenhagen. It is said that an addict or an alcoholic must hit bottom before than can truly begin to recover. No one has ever described that bottom better than Tom Waits does here.

Calexico: Sunken Waltz

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Sunken Waltz was written about the urban sprawl in Tuscon, AZ. Carpenter Mike was an acquaintance of songwriter Joey Burns who left and built a tree house outside of town, and then lived in it. This makes literal and concrete the desire for escape that is expressed metaphorically in the beginning of the song. Carpenter Mike winds up living outside of society’s strictures, just like the swagman in Waltzing Matilda. But this one ends on a hopeful note.

Priscilla Herdman: Waltzing With Bears

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This is a pretty heavy selection of songs. So I wanted to finish in a lighter vein. Uncle Walter is another social outsider. He reminds me of the woman in the poem, When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple. Uncle Walter is not concerned about the opinions of the world. He has found something that gives him joy, and he intends to keep doing it. And those he loves are invited to join in.

So there it is, the first part of waltz week. And you may have noticed that none of the songs are love songs, at least not in the usual sense. But waltzing has a lot to do with love, so I will make that connection in Part II

Spanish Accents

Many of my favorite musicians are restless artists. They are explorers, always looking for something to add to what they do. And many are eventually drawn to the music of Latin America. There is a powerful rhythm and a strength which calls out to them. Occasionally, this proves to be a bad fit. But more often, the results sound like a celebration.

Joe Jackson: Cha Cha Loco

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The music of Joe Jackson was originally identified as new wave. But he expanded from that base into jazz tinged pop for his album Body and Soul. And one of the flavors it comes in is Latin jazz. Cha Cha Loco is, as far as I know, Jackson’s only foray into Latin flavored music, but it’s a good one.

David Byrne: Loco de Amor

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Playing Latin flavored music appears, at least to some, to be a way to “get crazy”. Both Jackson’s and David Byrne’s song here are “loco”. Loco de Amor originally was written for the movie Something Wild. The song was not included on the vinyl release of Rei Momo, but was added to the CD release. For Rei Momo, Byrne assembled a band of the best Latin musicians he could find in New York. Each song on the album presents a different style of Latin music. The album as a whole was the last time Byrne explored this music. It was certainly a celebration; Rei Momo means “king of the carnival”.

Kirsty MacColl: In These Shoes

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Kirsty MacColl was the daughter of English folk singer Ewan MacColl, and her early work was tinged with folk, often featuring acoustic guitar prominently in the mix. But, for her album Tropical Brainstorm, MacColl decided to take her music in a new direction. She traveled to Cuba, and learned everything she could about the native music. Then, she came home and applied what she had learned, to wonderful effect. Sadly, we will never know where she would have taken this. MacColl was killed in a boating accident shortly after the release of Tropical Brainstorm.

Raul Malo: Every Little Thing About You

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When The Mavericks originally came on the scene, the marketing hook focused on these two brothers from Cuba who could really play country. Their music was so good that it quickly became unnecessary to mention their Cuban roots. But, when Raul Malo made his first solo album, he wanted to reconnect with the music he grew up with. The results were both heartfelt and exciting. His subsequent solo work, as far as I know, has not gone any further with this. If anyone knows of any more of this wonderful music that Malo has done, let me know in the comments.

Tom Waits: Jockey Full of Bourbon

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Of all the songs in this post, the Spanish accent in Jockey Full of Bourbon is the most subtle. But Tom Waits’ music, especially from early in his career, demonstrates a vast knowledge of jazz. And that would certainly include Latin jazz. The guys in Los Lobos could certainly hear the Spanish accent in this song; their cover makes it explicit.

Songwriters React To War

My parents came of age just in time for World War II. They used to tell me how the whole country united behind the war effort. My Father was proud of his small part in helping to defeat the Nazis; he saw it that way, even though he served in the Pacific. And the history books reinforce the fact that this was a war that everyone in America believed we had to win.

But my coming of age occurred during the Vietnam War. That same father took me to my first peace march. The country was sharply divided over whether we needed to win or leave. And it has been this way, in varying degrees, for every war the US has been involved in in my lifetime.

So just as does the public at large, songwriters feel a mix of emotions when their country goes to war. The emotions are always running high, and often drive the creation of some of their finest work.

The songs I am presenting do not present a balanced survey of songwriters’ responses to war. There are songwriters whose work on the subject suggests that they believe that the country is always right in wartime. But the examples of songs that I have heard from them seem to me lacking in nuance. Or perhaps, it’s just a question of my personal biases. In any case, I stand by my selections as showcase of the variety of ways songwriters deal with what is for many people a difficult subject to discuss.

Norman Blake: Graycoat Soldiers

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Norman Blake wrote Graycoat Soldiers in the shadow of the Vietnam War. But Blake evidently wanted some distance from his subject. So the song, about the homefront, takes place during the Civil War. The song is an eloquent depiction of those who get left behind in war.

Gray coat Soldiers is a first for me, and something you won’t see very often. I posted the song some time ago on Star Maker Machine. I won’t normally repeat myself this way, but I couldn’t see addressing this theme, and leaving this one out.

Tom Waits: Soldier‘s Things

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Tom Waits writes about the effect of war on people in a unique way. He imagines a war widow holding a yard sale, and selling all of her soldier husband’s decorations from the war. “Everything’s a dollar in this box”, she croons. By not specifying which war this was, Waits crafts a song which describes the pain of losing a loved one in a war in a universal way.

Peter Gabriel: Games Without Frontiers

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Peter Gabriel takes a mix of characters who represent current and historical figures, and makes them children on a beach. Their fight for territory is just a game to them, but Gabriel reminds us that the consequences are all too real. Gabriel is not writing about a specific war, but the attitude of the song is reflective of British attitudes about World War I. It would seem that this is a war that has cast a long shadow on the Brittish psyche. Some of the character names Gabriel uses also suggest World War II, but I think Gabriel did this to make the song more universal.

XTC: Generals and Majors

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XTC’s Generals and Majors appeared the album Black Sea. Much of this album was XTC’s response to the Falklands war. But Generals and Majors is about war in general. The band is criticizing the elements of society that seem to always want to lead us into war.

Richard Thompson: Dad‘s Gonna Kill Me

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Richard Thompson is not interested here in universality. Dad’s Gonna Kill Me is about the Iraq war. “Dad” is what the soldiers over there call Baghdad. Thompson takes the role of a soldier stationed there, and depicts him as believing that he will never return home alive.