Susannes Folksong-Notizen
[1993:] Thousands of years ago our ancestors, wherever they
lived on this earth, knew only to trust their own tribe, and
struggle to the death against any other tribe entering their
hunting grounds. Then clever folk learned how to use boats,
horses, wheels. They learned how to use symbols, language,
numbers. Now we've spread over all the earth, and find ourselves
jammed in cities, competing for crumbs from the rich man's table.
My guess is that if there's a human race still here in a hundred
years it will be because we've learned to value Survival over
$uccess, to live and learn, to grin and bear it. We'll use our
new tools of communication to reach out to our cousins,
hard-working folks in every single corner of this globe. A
worldwide search for justice.
In trying to find ways we can work together, we'll use sports,
arts, humor of many kinds. I've tried to combine old, old songs
with brand new ones. Tried singing in different languages. Tried
working with little kids, and with old folks. And above all urged
folks to participate, in politics, in music, in all life.
[This is] a song put together over 30 years ago. I swiped a
Caribbean melody and a Caribbean beat. [...]
Where did I get this tune and rhythm from? [...] In 1991 I
discovered that it was Louise Bennett, Jamaican folklorist, who
in 1952 sang me a song which is almost identical to this melody:
Woman Tawry Lang. (Seeger, Flowers 13ff)
In early times human beings lived in separate tribes with
separate languages and folkways. It was unthinkable to adopt
another tribe's way of dressing, eating, singing. But several
thousand years ago around the Mediterranean Sea, different
cultures started borrowing from each other on a large scale.
Words, architecture, foods. From Africa, from Asia. After the
Roman Empire fell, the tradition of borrowing continued in
Europe. The windmill came to Holland from Persia in the 11th
century. Soon after, gypsies brought the guitar to Spain. Genghis
Khan's warriors brought the fiddle, and perhaps pasta, though
Marco Polo, 90 years later, is usually credited with this. So now
you can see what led to the song [...]. One line in the song is
disputed. "The stories behind the word 'Okay' are as varied
as the imaginations of the lexicographers who penned them. A
native American contender: In the Choctaw language 'oke' meant
'it is' or 'it is so'. The Choctaw language served as the trade
language in the Southeast and 'oke' signified that the two
parties were in agreement." (Jack Weatherford in 'Native
Roots', Crown Publishers).
At any rate, credit that old racist, President Andrew Jackson,
(he'd spent years in the Southeast Indian Wars), for signing
state papers "O.K., Andrew Jackson" and starting its
career as the world's most famous word. (Seeger, Flowers 88)
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