Pilgrims & Immigrants: Rosalie

Alejandro Escovedo: Rosalie
[purchase]

Most of the music that I like isn’t popular, and that’s fine. Sometimes, artists that I like become popular, and that’s usually fine, too. But most of the stuff that I listen to is by musicians and bands that have achieved, at best, niche popularity and maybe some degree of critical acclaim. Alejandro Escovedo is a favorite, but probably not in my top 10, if I had a top 10 (this isn’t High Fidelity). And yet, for some reason, I have said about him, probably more times than about anyone, that I wished I lived in a world in which Alejandro Escovedo was a big star.

He deserves it, and not just because of the difficulties he has overcome. His songwriting is brilliant, his musicianship is superb, and his imagination and ambition is broad. He writes rockers, ballads and everything in between. I’ve only seen him twice, as an opening act either solo or with a second guitarist, and at some point I hope to see him with a full band (I was supposed to see a free show in Central Park a few years back, but he cancelled). I’ve previously written about him briefly as part of another piece, which mentioned his large musical family, but I’ve never put him in the spotlight. And it seems appropriate to write about him here, because Escovedo is the son of Mexican immigrants (the group that seems to cause the most concern among the opponents of immigration reform), and he has written a great deal about his family’s experiences.

In fact, Escovedo wrote a play, By The Hand of the Father, about the Mexican-American immigrant experience, inspired by the life of his own father, and including stories by other Mexican-American writers and videos. The play has been performed around the country to positive reviews, usually with Escovedo taking the lead role, but during his battle with hepatitis C, others stepped into the role. The song “Rosalie” tells the story of the romance between Rosalie and Joe, separated by an “ocean of powder and dust” held together mostly through letters and brief meetings. The version of the song from the By The Hand of the Father album, sounds somewhat traditional, and contains spoken excerpts from the correspondence between the two lovers.

This version, from Escovedo’s A Man Under the Influence album is more of a rocker, but it loses nothing of the power of the theatrical version.

Pilgrims and Immigrants: Pilgrimage

[purchase Murmur ] 

Touring rock bands, short on sleep, are making their own kind of pilgrimage from club to club. Road weary, perhaps they begin to hallucinate. Was that a two headed cow in the field over there? Jefferson I think we're lost.

Not even Michael Stipe can say for certain what "Pilgrimage", one of the many memorable songs off their debut album Murmur,  is about. 

"'Pilgrimage' still baffles me," he's said. "At one point, right after we recorded it, I heard it and it made perfect sense. I was so exhilarated. I thought I had accomplished what I set out to do. And then I forgot."

PILGRIMS & IMMIGRANTS: NOTHING BUT THE SAME OLD STORY

Pity the poor emigrant. No, this isn't a misprint. You can, and maybe will, blame this on my inability to fully appreciate Thanksgiving; isn't it around "my" country's failure to win the War of Independence? Anyhow, whatever Bobby Z has to say about the poor immigrant, how about the other side of the coin? So here is one of my favourites, Paul Brady, voicing the plight of the refugee. This is around the mass migration of the Irish to the UK, usually for work:

Maybe I am playing with tautology, but it gives me opportunity to write about Paul Brady and the Hibernian drift overseas more generally.

Paul Brady is still not and has probably never been a household name, but the chances are you will be familiar with his songs through either Bonnie Raitt or Tina Turner. It was actually substantially after he started his recording career that he made a transition from traditional Irish folk to writing his own wider derived material.

Between 1967 and 1974 he was a member of The Johnstons, before becoming a latter-day member of the definitive revivalists, Planxty, in time for their final first time around recording, and then as a duo with Andy Irvine, from which I give you his showstopping version of Arthur McBride, still staple of his live performance. Subsequently, in 1981, he launched his non-traditional solo career, with Hard Station, from which the featured song above derives. A string of albums appeared throughout the 80s, leading even Bob Dylan, 2nd mention, to comment: "People get too famous too fast these days and it destroys them. Some guys got it down-Leonard Cohen, Paul Brady, Lou Reed......

Perhaps of interest is the above, from a 1977 rarity, which explores what may have happened to Arthur McBride, had he accepted the Kings Shilling, again a reflection of the plight of those transplanted, for whatever reason, from their homes.

Brady continues to work and continues to tour. seek him out, if you can. As a final pointer, returning again to the intended theme, here is another version of the song that leads this piece, this time from a BBC series that became a double disc CD that I also endorse, dealing with the whole gamut of Irish emigration to the UK, USA and beyond, "Bringing it all Back Home". Here's a link to Philip King, whose brainchild it had been.

Buy Paul Brady

Pilgrims & Immigrants: Immigrant Song

Led Zeppelin: Immigrant Song
[purchase]

Sometimes the right choice is the obvious one. For people of my generation, I would bet that if you said, “name a song about immigrants or pilgrims,” the majority would mention Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” And while I have been trying to come up with other things to write about, and I still might, I kept coming back to this one.

I’ve written in the past about how my friend Chris and I learned about music together in high school, and how we introduced each other to bands. There was a time when he liked Led Zeppelin, and I wasn’t a fan. He dragged me to see The Song Remains the Same, and my mind was changed forever. I know, it is a crappy movie in many ways, and the performances might not have been their best, but in an era when you didn’t have access to YouTube clips and online videos, I didn’t have much to compare it to. And I was blown away by their sound and their power. Not long after that, we saw them play live at Madison Square Garden, and again, that tour was not considered to be their best, and they messed up “Stairway to Heaven,” but it was still incredible. By the time we saw them, though, “Immigrant Song,” was no longer part of the setlist.

The song was written in response to a show on the band’s 1970 tour in Iceland, and is filled with Viking imagery, telling the tale of the Norsemen’s conquest of new lands. It uses the phrase “hammer of the gods,” which became synonymous with Led Zeppelin’s sound, and was the title of a notorious book about the band, which they hated. And it probably started the connection between heavy metal music and Scandinavian/Viking themes. But most of all, it has an incredible riff and Robert Plant’s iconic wail. One of Zep’s few actual singles, it was successful around the world.

Almost two years ago, I started working from home, and while there are some downsides to that arrangement, one plus is that I can occasionally grab a midday nap. I know that there are innumerable studies that make the case that the nap increases productivity, and I certainly agree with that, and wish that our Protestant Work Ethic society would be more accepting of grabbing a few Z’s during the day. But now that I’m my own boss, I can implement the “Naps Allowed” policy. When I try to nap, I like to put on a half-interesting TV show to help me doze off. It works for me.

One day, I felt the need to crash, and saw that the History Channel was running a marathon of a show called Vikings. With the History Channel, though, the chance of getting actual “history” and not some pseudo-historical crap is low, but when I turned it on, I found out that it was actually a drama about Vikings, and not a dry documentary. Turns out, it was too interesting for napping, and I got hooked. I went online and found out that the show was, in fact, getting good reviews, so I binge watched the first season to be ready for season 2, which was about to start. And it was great.

The show tells the story of Ragnar Lothbrok, a semi-historical figure, who, according to the show, was the Viking who suggested that they stop attacking each other’s villages in Scandinavia and head west to find new lands, ultimately finding England, which was a whole new market for pillaging. Although most episodes have some graphic violence (and, apparently in the version that airs in Europe, some nudity), for the most part, the show is about the politics and lives of the Vikings. From what I have read, it is relatively accurate (although poetic license has been taken with some of the characters and plots). I suspect, though, that as harsh and dirty as their lives appear on the show, it was worse in real life, and I also suspect that not every Viking, male or female, looked like a model, but that’s TV. And next season, they will be storming Paris.

“Immigrant Song” was covered by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with Karen O as the opening theme for the English-language version of the film The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (in which a prominent role is played by Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, whose son Gustaf is an important member of the Vikings cast as the eccentric shipbuilder Floki). Some enterprising YouTuber set this cover to scenes from Vikings:

Pilgrims & Immigrants: Wishbone Ash

Download [Wishbone Ash: The Pilgrim]

There have been several comments here recently that are fitting for our next theme: Blog contributor "A" notes survival despite anonymity (forging a new path and facing oblivion). J. David (to me) brings together farming and pilgrimages. Yasgur's farm was a pilgrimage for many: a difficult trek toward the hope of a future world. The Woodstock pilgrims set out on a journey to re-set their lives: it was a trip (in more ways than one for some) towards a new life.

The pilgrims that figure in the Thanksgiving story had little intention of returning home, although they appear to have been bound to many of their roots. Being as the pilgrims of Plymouth were not the first to settle in the new land, they were also not the first to celebrate a "thanksgiving". Recently, current president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would have us believe that other Old World peoples may have thanked their lord on the shores of the New World earlier than previously recorded. His claims aside, there is evidence that earlier North American settlements celebrated a thanksgiving of some sort.

That said, the 1620 pilgrim/refugees from England via Holland had much to be thankful for. Half of them were still alive and they had a decent crop that would keep the remainder alive for the following year. It was thus that they (so the story goes) celebrated the harvest of 1621  with a feast of thanks, to which they invited their friends to partake.

It was no small feat for the Mayflower voyagers to arrive in one piece: they left once in 2 boats, returned to regroup when one boat began taking on water, cut their number, and started out again. It took them from Sept 6 to Nov 19 to cross the ocean and then nigh on 2 weeks to actually get ashore after they sighted the shores of North America. It then took them another year or so to establish a viable outpost, during which time half of them perished - all of which would certainly incline one to offer thanks.

Few pilgrimages are simple. Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales, relates a relatively easy (for the 15th century) pilgrimage to the relics of Thomas Becket - there are tales of the whole spectrum of mankind that the narrator meets along the way. As bloggers "A" and J. David note, there is someone somewhere who keeps a flame burning - even today - for Thomas Becket.

There is, in fact, a flame still burning for Wishbone Ash - rewind not quite to the pilgrim fathers, but back to the 70s. As one who should have paid more attention to the band back when they were big (reaching the top 30 in the 70s), I regret not having listened more carefully back then (and as "A" says, one of the benefits of blogging here is the chance to learn/delve deeper.) My search for a <Pilgrim> song lead to Wishbone Ash's Pilgrim, nan lo-and-behold, I find myself learning more about and hearing good sounds from a seminal band that featured dual lead guitars. To my ears, it sounds -pleasantly - like the Allman Brothers Duane Allman  and Dickey Betts (edited since first post - sorry). What's even more amazing is that Wishbone Ash is still doing their thing 23 albums/40 years later.

Check it out: