July: Money For Floods

Joan Baez: Money For Floods

[purchase]

Richard Shindell: Money For Floods

[purchase]

We’re About 9: Money For Floods

[purchase]

“My name is Eliza I live by the river My daughter Louise will be three in July…” A little digging uncovers a large number of songs to choose from for our new theme. However, I love a challenge, so I wanted one that did not reference the fourth of July. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great fourth of July songs that I hope we get to over the next two weeks. But there is also Money For Floods.

It wasn’t a hit, but Joan Baez has recorded the most popular version of the song to date. I often find that people who don’t like Joan Baez object to the sound of her early recordings. These were pure folk, and Baez’ voice at the time was admittedly an acquired taste. She had a high soprano voice that could sound shrill to some, and with only her guitar playing as accompaniment, you could not miss that voice. But two things happened as time went on. First, Baez began to experiment with fuller arrangements of her music. Some of these experiments, to my tastes, served her poorly, but she was certainly one of the most innovative folk artists of her day, and the best of this music still sounds fresh today. Second, Joan Baez was very young when she started, and her voice had changed noticeably by the time her career was ten years in. By the time she recorded Money For Floods, Baez was singing in an alto to low soprano range. This mature voice is capable of emotional depths that Baez could not achieve in the same way in her youth. The early shrillness, which I never minded, is a distant memory on this recording. Money For Floods is a song that gains a great deal by being sung by a woman, and Joan Baez delivers.

Baez has a few songwriting credits sprinkled throughout her career, but she is best known as an interpreter of traditional songs and the work of other writers. Such is the case here. Money For Floods was written by Richard Shindell. Shindell can write and sing a song from a woman’s point of view and make us believe in the song, because he is just that good. His arrangement of the song dictates that the sound begins intimately, and then swells at the first chorus, and the other versions I present here each follow this pattern in their own way. It is a musical metaphor that is fully explained in the lyrics by the end of the song, and it is a brilliant device.

Finally, I have included a version of the song in an a capella arrangement. We’re About 9 finds a way to make this work in a minimal arrangement that derives its power from its sparseness.

I found one more version of Money For Floods that I chose not to include, by Rob Rowe. Rowe has a voice that I find to be overly dramatic for the song, and his band doesn’t find the emotion of the song, to my ear. Also, Rowe changes the lyric so that the point of view is male, and that just doesn’t work for me on this song.

Disasters: Money For Floods

Richard Shindell: Money For Floods

[purchase]

We're About 9: Money For Floods (Richard Shindell cover)

[purchase]

Sandy is barreling down upon us here in the upper East Coast, and our home is quite rural, with a fragile power grid presence; as such, I may not have much time before the lights go out. But after a major post on songs that use the metaphor of the storm over at Cover Lay Down yesterday, I find myself left with a long list of "other" disaster songs just waiting to be shared. And a quick dip into the archives reveals one of my favorites has never been posted here, though its emotional potency easily rivals the more than a dozen songs we've previously shared from its creator.

Richard Shindell's original version of Money For Floods, recorded and released in 1997 on Reunion Hill, may be couched in the floodwaters, but it isn't so much a natural disaster song as it is a rich, layered tale of poverty and underclass desperation, really - a nuanced complaint about how the obvious and media-ready environmental disaster brings a kind of politicized attention to its victims that others desperately need in their daily lives, but never seem to garner. The fluid bass and guitar run through it like the river of its lyrics, smothering the voice of its narrator as she drowns; the combined effect of instrumentation, arrangement, and narrative is powerful, indeed, and it demonstrates aptly just why we post Shindell's work so much here at SMM.

But We're About 9's a capella take is stark and eerie, stripping away that river, and replacing it with the echoing silences of the deserted soul. Its hopelessness and exhaustion may be framed differently, but they are no less real.

And so I pass along Shindell's sentiment in both forms, as a reminder to us all: disaster comes in all types, to all people; those that watch silently when the trucks pass by their houses are no less needy, and no less ours. May those who weather the storm find community and support, in all cases. And may we remember them, when the storm has passed.

Postage Paid: P.S. Edition

John Wesley Harding: To Whom It May Concern

[purchase] (scroll down to New Deal)

In August 1997, I began an e-mail relationship with someone through the Dar Williams discussion list - by virtue of our shared love for Dar's music, our correspondence escalated to in-depth cyber-conversations about books, movies, parenting, marriage, and of course other musicians... which led to us sending each other mix tapes through the mail... and, in his first one to me, my new friend included John Wesley Harding's Infinite Combinations. I completely fell in love with the song, and of course had to buy the CD, by an artist I'd heard of but never listened to - I also discovered To Whom It May Concern, another tune that described our long-distance connection. Over 12 years later, we are still in each other's lives, albeit less frequently than before... and we've met up twice (once in 2000 and again six months ago) - never underestimate the power of the written word..

Dar Williams: If I Wrote You

[purchase]

Speaking of Dar, I would be remiss if I didn't include this song for our weekly theme - I've heard her say it was semi-inspired by the passing of Townes Van Zandt. In her words:

"I started writing this song in Austin, Texas, and to me the influence of the area is obvious. There's more open space than in many of my songs, and there is an insinuation that the narrator is clean and sober now, which would describe many Texan songwriters I know today. Larry Campbell's guitar parts and Richard Shindell's harmony made me very emotional for a while, but I'm getting over that."

We‘re About 9: Writing Again

[purchase]

We're About 9 is a twenty-something trio (Katie Graybeal, Pat Klink and Brian Gundersdorf), home-based in Maryland, with literate lyrics (who uses the word concatenate in a song?!?) and stunning harmonies - this tune, written by Brian, underscores the theory that one's best writing is done after experiencing great pain ("this is my letter to tell you the truth, I can't tell if I'm better, I've been thinking about the way most things are difficult to open and easier to close"). I especially love the way the tapping on the guitar simulates a beating heart - reminds me of the quote: "Writing is easy. Just sit at the keyboard and open a vein."...