Issue #4
Christmas 2001
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The World Trade Center and a Folk Singer's Dilemma by Dave Sear
If you are from the tradition that believes that American folk music is a body of literature that celebrates the life-affirming values of our people, and is a relevant expression of the times, what do you do when you have to give a concert after the senseless, fanatic, inhuman and tragic attack which destroyed the World Trade Center and countless lives? To complicate things, this folk singer hasn't owned a flag since he was ten years old and has often been on a different page, as most folk singers are, from the people who are always waving the flag.
Ted Koppel and Night Line came to the rescue. Shortly before my concert date at the New York Institute of Technology, Ted did a program on decent in America stating that "if Osama bin Ladin, Alcaeda and the Taliban were to drape themselves in the American Flag they still would not represent us, because it is what is under the flag, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that makes us who we are."
This struck me like a lightening bolt and all of a sudden I had my concert. After walking around in depressed circles for days I knew what to do. Through out my entire career in folk music I have been singing about what is "under the flag" because that is what American folk music is all about, as any folk singer who is worth his salt knows.
I opened the concert with Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" dedicated to the memory of the WTC tragedy, because the motivations of the perpetrators and the complexities of the whole event are so beyond comprehension that there are no easy answers out there. The song also has some great lines that are applicable, like "How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died," and "How many times must the cannon balls fly before they're forever banned," and others.
I then told the story of Night Line and commenced with a group of songs that are "under the flag" i.e., who we are and what we stand for. First off, "The Rifle Men of Bennington" and "Rally Round the Flag", freedom songs from the American Revolution and the Civil War. Then on to George M. Cohan's "Grand Old Flag" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" from the first world war and Woody Guthrie's "Ruben James" from the second. I ended the section with Lee Hayes' "Hammer Song" singing about justice, freedom and love.
To conclude the concert on an affirmative and cheerful note, I included a square dance medley, plus "Family Tree", "All Gods Critters Got A Place in the Choir", "River" "The Birthday Song", a lullaby for my new granddaughter Marissa, "Get Up and Go" for senior citizens, Stan Rogers' "The Mary Ellen Carter" (dedicated to the world seeing that such a tragedy never happens again) and ended with a medley of spirituals.
People came back to say hello after the concert and some were in tears, so it must have struck a chord.
Although most of us folk singers don't usually wave the flag, we sing about what's under it and what supports it. I support the military war against terrorism, wherever it is found, and the governments that sanction it. What I think we have to watch very carefully is Ashcroft and Bush and our civil rights and liberties which represent the best of who we are, and if our freedoms are trampled, as they have been before, there are many songs in the literature for the next concert.
Dave Sear has been a folk musician, concert organizer and radio personality since the 1950’s. His program, “Folk Music Almanac” appeared on WNYC for over 40 years. He has sung and played with such folk music legends as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Oscar Brand, Odetta and Tom Paxton.
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