Soundtrack

[lollardfish]

Listening to Springsteen's album of Seeger songs ... (which means American folk songs, not stuff Seeger wrote, but stuff Seeger recorded and made his own).

15 miles on the Erie Canal...
We've hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal and hay

And I thought, my commodities class needs a soundtrack. Help! Please recommend songs. I'm not bothered if they aren't the exact commodity, but if they address the kind of commodity I'm talking about. Like for Cod, Stan Rogers' "Tiny Fish from Japan." It's not about Cod at all, but that's kind of the point (the overfishing of the Grand Banks). Where I have dual commodities, I'd be happy to have two songs.

And feel free to recommend better songs for things I've already listed. My goal is to find songs that deal with commodity. Not just an item. But humor is good too. These need not be modern songs, but I do need to be able to find recordings of them.

1a. Cod: "Tiny Fish from Japan" - Stan Rogers
1b. Salt:
2a. Silk: "China Girl" - David Bowie (just to be Orientalist).
2b. Horses:
3a. Fur:
3b. Soldiers (Mercenaries): "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" - Warren Zevon
4a. Alcohol: Help. What's the perfect beer/whisky/etc as commodity song. TOO MANY CHOICES
4b. Grain: "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" - Arrogant Worms
5a. Religion: "Missionary Man" - Eurythmics
5b. Sin: "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" - Charlie Daniels Band
6a. Spice:
6b. Power:
7a. Gold and Silver: "Money" - Pink Floyd
7b. Coinage:
8a. Sugar:
8b. Rum:
9a. Tobacco:
9b. Timber: "Erie Canal" - Bruce Springsteen
10a. Wool:
10b. Cotton: "Cotton Fields" - CCR
11a. Slavery
12a. Tea: "Two for Tea" - ??? and/or "Pennyroyal Tea" - Nirvana
12b. Opium

Comments

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Oh. August?

[aelburr.livejournal.com]

The theme from Rawhide perhaps?

Nah, that's more cattle. Check out the Sons of the Pioneers stuff, they were huge on the western theme.

Maybe a bluesy version of The Old Grey Mare. ;)

BTW, what do you mean by 'Power'? Electricity? Arguably not a commodity at all. Coal, on the other hand has a huge library of folk songs relating to it's mining and transport. Many of those have transplanted versions in modern bluegrass very little changed from English, Welsh and Irish versions at least 200 years old.

For salt I'd check Polish folk music. Some of the salt mines near Krakow have been working uninterrupted since Roman times so I'd bet there's a wealth of history plumb.

For sin I would skip the lovable Charlie and go with something like 'Viva Los Vegas' or maybe 'Ladies of Spain' or one of the songs about 'The Black Day' July 31st, 1970. If you want to be hip use something like 'It's Hard out Here for a Pimp'.

For fur you'll have to go French. I've got a book to check but I don't think any of them have good English translations.

Finally, I'd have to ask if by mercenaries you intend modern (for the sake of discussion 1950 or later) or older historical reference. Realistically the variation is very slight but the only really good song I know has references to kings and knights and swords and so may be harder to apply to, say the Gurkhas or the security service companies now providing troops in Iraq and other hot spots, much less guys with guns wandering central Africa today.

Finally, Johnny Bond did song versions of several Robert Service poems about the Yukon, Gold Rushes, timber, booze and sin you might want to check out if you can find them (are you reading this part cakmpls? 10 little bottles 1965. Didn't he do a collection based on Tales from the Yukon around that same time, probably on Gene Autrie's label?) and even if I'm misremembering songs like Three Sheets in the Wind, Sick, Sober and Sorry and the radio style sketches like New Years Day and any version of Ten Little Bottles could be applied on several fronts.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the long response.

All course material, except for the final projects, will be pre-1850, and only the Opium war will be post-1800.

For the songs, though, I don't really care. It's fun, and will give students things to listen to (and maybe add to).

Power - probably needs to leave the list, under further review. What I really want to talk about is the exportation of European power as a result of the spice trade, and to some extent the buying and selling of cannon as a means to gain "power." But I need to tighten it up a bit.

I like "It's hard out here for a Pimp." I do want to be hip.

That's actually the goal here. Be hip. Get the students listening to songs that they like (well, some of which they like), and having fun.