Issue #2
October 2002
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Paxton Comments on World Trade Tower Disaster
by Dave Sear
Tom Paxton, whom I have considered the dean of America's topical song writers since the nineteen sixties, has a brand new song to commemorate the heroism of New York's brave fire fighters. The song is called "The Bravest" and is available from Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company. (212-561-3000).
Tom is the well known author of such gems as “Ramblin' Boy”, “The Marvelous Toy”, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation”, “Changing My Name to Chrysler” and scores of other topical songs that have succinctly captured the moment and said what was needed to be said for the times.
The publisher was good enough to include the words along with the CD he sent out for promotion. I was moved by the chorus which reads:
Now, every time I try to sleep
I'm haunted by the sound,
Of firemen pounding up the stairs
While we were running down.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, "The Bravest" falls short of his usual mastery of the moment. Where the song falls wantonly short is in the music which does not begin to convey the emotional content of the magnitude of the event.
Songs that come to mind that are great works of art, that do capture the emotional content of the horrific events that they portray, include Fred Small's "Denmark 1941" which tells the story of Denmark's brave effort to transport its Jewish population to safety in Sweden during the Holocaust. Other songs of great depth of feeling are "The Peat Bog Soldiers" sung by the inmates of the German concentration camps and "Freiheit", a song of the German brigade that fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
The wanton destruction of The World Trade Towers cries out for a song equal to the magnitude of the event.
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 himself.
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