Reader Tips

Reader Tips 32 Comments

A lot of recent hit songs aren’t really songs in the truest sense of the word, in that if you were to strip away all the ear-candy sounds and the, erm, posing, there isn’t actually a song structure to speak of; if one were to play with one finger on a piano the – putative – melody of one of these songs, there’d be nothing resembling a song that anyone could remember. In contrast, the old folk songs from the oral tradition had to pass through a kind of multi-generational human filter; they only lived on, in the years before the advent of recording and playback, because their inherent, pleasing treasures could be released at any time by anyone at all, using just melody, words, and rudimentary chords.
Tonight’s musical selection, by Maine-based American songwriter David Mallet, is a modern-era song that would definitely survive in the oral tradition even if there was no recorded music. Over the last forty years or so it’s been sung with pleasure, around a million campfires and family get-togethers, by amateur singalong-ists with just the barest of guitar skills, for one simple reason: the words and melody unite to create a timeless, heartfelt song that speaks to people of all ages, from two to two-hundred. So gather up your loved ones and celebrate the yearly miracle of rebirth by singing along with Tommy Makem & Liam Clancey’s fine version of The Garden Song.
You are invited to plant your Reader Tips in the comments.

32 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Brian Lilley:
    “The general reaction of Canadians to the $1 billion cost of security for the G8 and G20 meetings has been, ‘You’re spending what?’ On the left and the right, although not within our government, there is no shortage of people wondering what on earth we need to spend that much money on.
    “On Tuesday Prime Minister Stephen Harper told us the reason; the G8 and G20 are bigger than the Olympics. Responding to a question to a question from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff the PM said, ‘The reality Mr. Speaker, is that we have more delegates at these summits than we had athletes at the Olympic Games. It is of enormous scale, the risks are immensely greater.'”
    (…)
    “To put all of this in perspective and go back to the prime minister’s defence in the Commons, a meeting of G20 leaders will have more delegates than the 5,500 athletes and coaches that attended the Vancouver Games. One estimate I have been given is that international media alone could match the number of athletes that went to Vancouver. In addition to finding these people a place to stay, each must go through security clearances…”

  2. EBD
    Loved the song, even if there was a pianer;)
    The enduring message that life is an incremental product of work is universal.
    Syncro

  4. Thank you for the music.
    This morning I felt miserable.
    If Ol’ Yeller been my dog I would have shot him three times.
    But now I am at peace.

  6. Your music selections here always are attention grabbers, and the artists exceptional. So, tonight, I first heard Liam Clancy sing one of my all-time favorites: ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda…’ when it showed up in the ‘other’ suggestions. The images of his face told the whole sad story as much as did the song.

  7. I know what you mean about his facial expressions, Jack. He has a northern, mystic heart.
    Fearless Leader: glad to hear that. It has the same effect on me.

  10. Backward, ho!
    We have quoted before the credo of Delhi’s three-wheel drivers — “a path will emerge” — and given the pessimist tone in many of our recent effusions, we are perhaps overdue to lob something from the side of hope.
    http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/

  11. We once again witnessed the manifestation of this song all around us this spring. Even though we no longer actively participate in the seeding activity, it is still a pleasure to see the grains, gardens and flowers growing. Even all the political garbage going on around us can not dim the beautiful sights of spring.

  12. Revnant Dream, Thank you for introducing me to David Warren. Wish I could express myself so well as he and I’ll be watching for new columns there. Have a great summer!

  14. “The Tea Party vs. the Intellectuals
    By Lee Harris
    A movement of attitude, not ideas”
    “”The lesson of history is stark and simple. People who are easy to govern lose their freedom.”
    “Liberals can attack and deride the Tea Party without fear of alienating their traditional allies among ordinary voters.”
    “In the eyes of polite company conservatives, the Tea Partiers clearly represent “rude company” conservatism.”
    “The nature of American politics has been revolutionized by the Tea Party’s ability to politicize people who were once apolitical.”
    “Cultural hegemony, according to Gramsci, did not have to be imposed on the people through threats and intimidation.”
    “A governing elite that has a monopoly over the allocation of prestige has immense power over a culture.”
    “Ideas, customs, and traditions that no longer find favor in the eyes of the cultural elite have been stigmatized.”
    “The lesson of history is stark and simple. People who are easy to govern lose their freedom. People who are difficult to govern retain theirs. What makes the difference is not an ideology, but an attitude. Those people who embody the “Don’t tread on me!” attitude have kept their liberties simply because they are prepared to stand up against those who threaten to tread on them. To the pragmatist, it makes little difference what ideas free people use to justify and rationalize their rebellious attitude. The most important thing is simply to preserve this attitude among a sufficiently large number of people to make it a genuine deterrent against the power hungry. If the Tea Party can succeed in this all-important mission, then the pragmatist can forgive the movement for a host of silly ideas and absurd policy suggestions, because he knows what is really at stake. Once the “Don’t tread on me!” attitude has vanished from a people, it never returns. It is lost and gone forever — along with the liberty and freedom for which, ultimately, it is the only effective defense.”
    http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/94344384.html

  15. Mao Stlong’s Yeal of Tigel.
    …-
    “Chinese man mauled to death after entering tiger enclosure
    BEIJING – A 45-year-old Chinese man was mauled to death at a wildlife park after he and his son wandered through the open gate of the Siberian tiger enclosure, state media said on Monday.
    The man, surnamed Zhang, was visiting the Qinling wild animal park on Sunday in Xi’an, capital of northern Shaanxi province, with his 17-year-old son, Xinhua news agency said.
    “The gate to the tigers’ zone was open, so we walked in. Then the tigers attacked us,” the son was quoted as saying.”
    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2010/06/14/14379406.html
    …-
    “Free Chinese Calendar 2010 – Year of the Tiger”
    “The Tiger Personality – By Theodora Lau
    “People born in the year of the tiger have a lively disposition and are forthright and uninhibited in nature. They are broad-minded and quick to action. But there is another aspect to their characters. They are full of suspicion, and sometimes will take hasty action. They never hide their feelings. They are honest, tender, generous and humorous at the same time. They are always kind, love babies and animals, and like anything that arouses their imagination. More…”
    http://www.herongyang.com/2010/

  16. O’s a human trafficker/slave master?
    Hildabeast Clinton says so.
    Hildabeast equates Saudi Arabia/Islam with the United States.
    Hildabeast = Scumbag Lady.
    …-
    “In some cases, foreign workers, drawn by the hope of a better life in America, are trapped by abusive employers,” said Hillary Clinton. “And there are Americans, unfortunately, who are held in sexual slavery. And this report sends a clear message to all of our countrymen and women – human trafficking is not someone else’s problem. Involuntary servitude is not something we can ignore or hope doesn’t exist in our own communities.”
    “US Report Cites 13 Countries for Human Trafficking”
    http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/human-rights/US-Report-Cites-13-Countries-for-Human-Trafficking-96326094.html

  18. Hey Watcher,
    For all it’s worth I’ll also post something that is usually “ignored” by SDA because I assume it’s not “serious” enough and might be viewed, sadly, much like the MSM views, as ‘fringe’ stuff from ultra right wing nut jobs.
    Never mind that the John Kerry scandal was first
    uncovered by the ‘unserious’ National Inquirer.
    Here’s my looney fringe reader’s tip:
    “The American President told me in confidence that he is a Muslim,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Nile TV. That could explain why Obama has instructed that the term “Islamic extremism” no longer be used in official government documents and statements…”
    http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=128&view=item&idx=2041

  20. It appears that filming of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is actually underway after seemingly endless delays:
    http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118020578.html?categoryid=4026&cs=1
    Unfortunately, it’s going to be a low budget “Indie” film instead of the blockbuster with high-profile stars that was promised a while back. The actors/actresses are largely unknown to me.
    At least they’re going to split it up into a trilogy instead of compressing the whole thing into one movie.
    I don’t have a problem with Indie films; some of them are pretty good. I hope this one impresses to the upside.

  21. From today’s Thomas Sowell essay: Obama’s Snake-Oil Spill
    “Even our domestic policies can affect foreign leaders: Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the air-traffic controllers’ strike impressed the Russians with what kind of man they were going to have to deal with, as former Soviet officials said publicly many years later.”

  23. Have a look at the CBC article(politics)
    “Sun TV News channel: Meet Journalism 101”
    Do you think they feel threatened? Their will be another voice in Canada other then their socialist crap.
    Link’s available at National News Watch along with a few more related articles.
    And one final thought Do You think the CRTC will allow the change to Sun TV.

  24. O’narcissist’s “sole legacy*”:
    “*This is his [Obama’s] sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.”
    Ziffy Libby’s sole legacy? Ditto.
    O&I: Harvard Ditto Clones of the left-liberal world.
    But, O=Bush.
    …-
    “I admit it: I was wrong to have supported Barack Obama
    In three and a half years of blogging, this has been my single most unpopular post. There’s little point, I know, in reminding readers that my support for Barack Obama was qualified; that I simultaneously endorsed GOP Congressional candidates; that I never saw Obama as a messiah and, indeed, was repelled by the millenarian fervour of his supporters. Nor is there much purpose in rehearsing John McCain’s shortcomings. The fact remains that I backed the Democrat.
    I was wrong. Not that Obama is without his good points, obviously. His commitment to school choice is unfeigned. His foreign policy has been a jolly sight cheaper than McCain’s would have been. The election of a mixed-race president who opposed the Iraq war has made the USA slightly more popular.
    None of these advantages, however, can make up for the single most important fact of Obama’s presidency, namely that the federal government is 30 per cent larger than it was two years ago
    This is not entirely Obama’s fault, of course. The credit crunch occurred during the dying days of the Bush administration, and it was the 43rd president who began the baleful policy of bail-outs and pork-barrel stimulus packages. But it was Obama who massively extended that policy against united Republican opposition. It was he who chose, in defiance of public opinion, to establish a state-run healthcare system. It was he who presumed to tell private sector employees what they could earn, he who adopted the asinine cap-and-trade rules, and he who re-federalised social security, thereby reversing the single most beneficial reform of the Clinton years.
    These errors are not random. They amount to a comprehensive strategy of Europeanisation: Euro-carbon taxes, Euro-disarmament, Euro-healthcare, Euro-welfare, Euro-spending levels, Euro-tax levels and, inevitably, Euro-unemployment levels. Any American reader who wants to know where Obamification will lead should spend a week with me in the European Parliament. I’m working in your future and, believe me, you won’t like it.
    Unsurprisingly, given his enthusiasm for corporatism at home, Obama is an unqualified supporter of the EU.”
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100043479/i-admit-it-i-was-wrong-to-have-supported-barack-obama/
    …-
    *O&I narcissists:
    http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections

  25. Two honor killing trials in Canada end with two guilty pleas for 2ND DEGREE murder? WTF?
    I thought premeditating a killing is first degree murder. How can it not be first degree murder. They were both planned and deliberate. Both were planned, deliberate attempts to kill.
    Who made the decision to allow this to become something that it is not? It is FIRST DEGREE MURDER!
    We have laws for a reason, and shouldn’t make compromises in order to make the prosecutions job easier.

  26. The Prime Minister just blasted Jack Layton & his deputy Libby Davies in the HOC Qp,(Layton asked questions re: the afgani detainee)
    The PM was lambasting over the Israel comments from Davies.
    The PM said she should be asked to resign.

  31. Hold fire on the above tips, I may have jumped the gun on recommending this as Google has a lot of negative hits regarding David Barton, the speaker.
    Andrew Wommack is a respectful preacher and had him on his show, so I didn’t research this deeper.
    However, there are a lot of good points about the US and its Christian roots.
    So, I will apologize if I am found to be wrong in recommending the sessions.

  32. An American folk singer named Mallet? All right. If he had a hammer, would he hammer in the morning? And if so, where, exactly?

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