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All Mixed Up

  • Trad / Pete Seeger
  • I think that this whole world
    I think that this whole wide world
    Soon mama my whole world
    Soon gonna be get mixed up

    You know this language that we speak
    Is part German, part Latin and part Greek
    Yes this language - has some Celtic and Arabic all in a heap
    Well amended by the man in the street
    Choctaw gave us the word 'okay'
    'Vamoose' is a word from Mexico way
    And all of this is a hint, I suspect
    Of what comes next

    I like Polish sausage, I like Spanish rice
    Pizza pie is also nice
    Corn and beans from the Indians here
    Washed down by some German beer
    Marco Polo travelled by camel and pony
    Brought to Italy the first macaroni
    And you and I as well as we're able
    Put it all on the table

    There were no redheaded Irishmen
    Before the Vikings landed in Ireland
    How many Romans had dark curly hair
    Before they brought slaves from Africa
    No race of men is completely pure
    Nor is any one's mind, and that's for sure
    The winds mix the dust of every land
    And so will man

    This doesn't mean we must all be the same
    We'll have different faces and different names
    Long live many kinds of races
    And difference of opinion; that makes horse races
    Just remember The Rule About Rules, brother
    What's right with one is wrong with another
    And take a tip from La Belle France
    Vive la difference

    You know I don't know where this song comes from
    Maybe I should just play it on
    I'll tell you it's really just the overture
    Now the programme begins for sure
    But before the next song I sing
    I will have to tune a string
    Yes before the next song I sing
    I'd like to tune a string

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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