Thinking in pictures – Feeling via sound.
On the eve of 9/11, it seems impossible not to be thinking about where one was & how they felt- upon learning of the attacks.
For each generation, I suspect there are special events etched into their brain cells like it was only a yesterday. For my parents generation, it was Pearl Harbor. My brothers and I would learn from them how my father had graduated from Harvard Medical School, completed his intership as Mass Gen, and spent the next 5 years in the South Pacific as a Navy Doctor–ultimately assigned to an oil tanker – the USN Lackawanna – knowing the ship was the ideal target for the enemy to destroy. The Entire Flight and fighter planes depending on the fuel supply. His sistership was sunk by a manned torpedo – with countless sailors burning up, even as the jumped into the ocean..since the surrounding waters were in flames. Such a helpless position for a well trained doctor to only be able to watch and hear the screams and cries.
For us baby boomers, the day was JFK’s assassination. In class, word coming over the school public speakers from the networks reporting that fact that our President was dead. For my own children, born in the early 1980s. it was, of course, 9/11. Once again, that shattering of innocence. A sense of being so vulnerable. I was in my office in Grand Rapids, with cable TV live feed. I soon received a phone call from a younger brother, asking if I could find out if his 2 daughters were OKay..both being in Manhattan – getting settled for school there…with a dorm far too close to the towers. Being bright and insightful, they were okay and found a cybercafe with internet access that worked and could reassure their father they were safe. Their mother was on a medical trip in Europe at that time, I believe. My children were safe, but for millions around the world- there must have been some prolonged periods of not hearing a word !
Now back to the role of the Songwriters-
Many a ballad has been written about the sinking of great ships…long before the Titanic. I will post some from Youtube further down. I could not find a single ballad about a plane crash….many train songs, of course – not all so tragic. Steve Goodman wrote City of New Orleans as a farewell to the passenger train…Arlo made it famous, as Steve was dying from leukemia. But I digress !
The farther removed the sinking of a ship was historically, the more it was free of painful affect and even lyrics with jokes were accepted (Titanic–Uncles and Aunts- little kiddies wet their pants, It was sad when the great ship went down, for example)
Have you Heard of the Ship called the Good Reuben James was presented all polished by the Kingston Trio-so even with the names of the lost, it did not bring people to tears. Then, the ‘bad guy” sinkings – we could feel good about “The Sinking of the Bismark”
But here, close to Lake Superior, on November 10, 1975- the Edmund Fitzgerald Ore Boat sink in a storm, sending all 29 men to their death where they still rest on the bottom of Lake Superior. For those of us that often sail the Lake it was devastating. For the Mayor of Bayfield, WI, it was something he would always talk about..having worked at Fraser Steel Yard near Duluth refitting the Fritz and telling me they pushed her too hard (expanded the amount of Taconite she could carry to Cleveland) My maritime friends who still work the Great Lakes still treat the anniversary of the sinking of the Fitz with extreme respect and the following day (11/11-Veterans Days) is often overlooked. Gordon Lightfoot’s Ballad helps maintain the memories, but I believe the anniversary would still be as important as ever, if the song was not written. As for Pearl Harbor, JFK’s assassination, and 9/11 – it seems that ballads are too overwhelming to hear or to even write. Below urls of some well known Ship Wreck Songs:
Ballad of the Edmund Fitzgerald Gordon Lightfoot -singer/songwriter Great Lakes sailor
The Sinking of the Reuben James – performed by the Kingston Trio
The Golden Vanity sung by Burl Ives
Back to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, since their music has had such a powerful impact on many of us!
A recording of Joan Baez sing Donna Donna – a song that was a favorite campfire song in the 1960, and well before that- in different parts of the world and for different reason. It is more that her beautiful voice, but the message of people needing “to be swallows, not calves” in order to survive in the yrs ahead
DavidBransfordMD Blog 