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

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I've got a great one for horses, "Tribes of the Draft" by Michael Longcor, but I'll have to send you the MP3; will your gmail account accept that?

Slavery is obvious: "Molasses to Rum to Slaves" from the 1776 soundtrack. Be sure you get the original Broadway cast one -- the re-release from a few years ago sucks rocks.

For grain, you might also want to consider Leslie Fish's "Grain Train", if you can get a copy. I might have one, but I think it's on tape, and I haven't gotten to archiving my filk tapes yet.

[zinzinzinnia.livejournal.com]

For cotton, rum, and tobacco, I'm sure you could find lots of old slave picking songs. E.g.:

Gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton...

There's a song ("Abie Baby") in Hair whose lyrics go:

Yes, I's finished on y'all farm land
with yo' boll weevils and all,
pluckin' y'all's chickens,
fryin' mother's oats in grease.
I's free now, thanks to yo' Massa Lincoln,
emancipator of the slaves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
emanci-mother-fuckin-pator of the slaves.

(You might have to edit it a bit if you were to use it in class...)

There's a song by Thin Lizzie called "Opium Trail". Or how about "The Needle and the Damage Done"? (I guess that's more heroine than opium, but they're related.)

Timber could also be "Donkey Riding".

For Wool I bet you could find songs about the Highland Clearances.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

So "sin" is a commodity too, now? Cool!

Tobacco: "Cigarette State" - Robby Fulks
Opium: "Poppies" - Marcy Playground
Slavery: "Buffalo Soldier" - Bob Marley
Alcohol: "John Barleycorn" - Jethro Tull
Coinage: "Money (Dollar Bill)" - Everlast

Songs for subjects already mentioned:
Timber: "Breakfast in Hell" - Slaid Cleaves

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

Power: Umm, possibly "Electricity" - 311
Fur: I stumbled upon this the other day. Perhaps it will help: http://shop.mnhs.org/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=362


Also, I can't seem to shake the feeling of appropriateness of "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers, even though it doesn't speak to a specific commodity.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

How about "All the Pretty Little Horses" for, of course, horses?