Savage Folk Songs

By Nina Leitenberg

I asked my fellow zillennial (right on the line between millennial and Gen Z) friends to tell me some adjectives that immediately came to mind when they thought of folk music. Here’s a condensed list of what they came up with:

Chill

Kitschy

Quaint

Old

Dusty

White

I think these all fall on a spectrum between You Clearly Have Never Listened to Folk, and Fair Enough.

But these lukewarm perceptions of folk music don't begin to cover the full range of the genre. If you pulled some of the biggest folk names of the 60s out of a hat, chances are, the name in your hand belongs to one of the most savage American musicians to ever pick up a guitar. Unlike that other typically savage genre punk rock, they may not have screamed, or moshed, or ripped feedback through cheap amps cranked up to 10. But if you listen past the trilling bird melodies and lackadaisical lyrics, you will find that folk singers could be as conscious as the Clash, as satirical as the Dead Kennedys, as anti-institution as the Sex Pistols, and as brutally honest as Bikini Kill. In a word, they were savage.

It makes sense if you think about it. Contrary to what the bubblegum image of the Beatles might suggest, they had plenty of things to rail about: The world on the brink of nuclear holocaust, brought ever closer by the bipartisan imperial invasion of Vietnam; an honest-to-god series of political assassinations, including but not limited to MLK, Kennedy 1, Kennedy 2, Malcolm X, Medgar Evars, and Fred Hampton; the full force of American law and violence employed to suffocate Civil Rights out of efficacy; two decades of late capitalism having rendered the souls of American adults numb, and the futures of American children depressing. These are the sad times of the 60s.

Thankfully, before Reagan, there existed a healthy American left to fight the good fight — and a few musicians among them. Reach out your hand from our tragic era to theirs, and take the joint they’re passing around. Born of rage and humor, here are some of the most savage folk songs.

1. “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” - Phil Ochs

Savagery Highlights:

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen,

My faith in the system restored.

I'm glad that the Commies were thrown out

Of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board.

And I love Puerto Ricans and Negros

As long as they don't move next door.

So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal!

I open with this song because it represents precisely what I mean when I say savage — unapologetic leftist politics, lyrics as weaponry, and a fun sing-along melody that makes for a musical dogpile.

“Love Me, I’m a Liberal” eviscerates the lukewarm centrist WASP, all too happy to virtue signal his love of civil rights, as he greases the heavy gears of the American war machine and bottom-feeds off the crumbs the Democratic party throws at him.

The most savage part of this song, however, is when Ochs turns the joke on his own audience. You can hear it in the only version of the song that exists online, which is a live concert recording. Ochs has his happy concert-goers hooked from the first verse, as they laugh along with him at the Kennedy-loving, Malcolm X-hating patriotic Democrat. They begin to applaud again when he mentions Pete Seeger — anyone who listened to Ochs would’ve also listened to Seeger — but the applause quickly evaporates when they realize they have become the song’s next hapless target. Singing Pete Seeger songs (or Phil Ochs songs, for that matter) a revolutionary does not make.

Obama supporters, this one’s for you.

(Also, check out the updated-for-the-90s version by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon. And any of the spot-on updated-for-the-2010s versions by Ben Grosscup. Unfortunately, the neoliberals have had a stupifiying six decades in power and counting.)

2. “Casey Jones (The Union Scab)” - Pete Seeger

Savagery Highlights:

They got together, and they said it wasn't fair

For Casey Jones to go around a'scabbing everywhere.

The Angels' Union No. 23, they sure were there,

And they promptly fired Casey down the Golden Stairs.

Speaking of Pete Seeger.

“Casey Jones (The Union Scab)” parodies the legendary story of an American railroad engineer eulogized for his heroic efforts to save train passengers from a catastrophic crash. This darkly funny retelling imagines Casey Jones as a strikebreaker whose tragic ending is merely the price for his moral spaghetti-spine. Originally written by union organizer Joe Hill in 1911 during a real 40,000-strong railroad worker strike, Seeger recorded the song word-for-word from the Wobblies’ Little Red Songbook.

The socialist origins of the song show. Seeger sings with what I can only describe as schadenfreude as Casey Jones, after scabbing on the railroad line, literally breaks his spine and gets sent to heaven where he then proceeds to scab on the angels’ strike as well. For his double crime, he is banished to hell where the devil forces him to work — a fitting punishment for a scab.

I often lament the lack of meaningful education we get in American high schools about the labor movement. But you can begin to remedy this propaganda-by-omission with a couple of good Pete Seeger union folk revivals, and enjoy some upbeat acoustic savagery as a bonus. Unlike Seeger, you probably won’t get blacklisted!

3. “We Don’t Need the Men” - Malvina Reynolds

Savagery Highlights:

They can come to see us

When they're feeling pleasant and agreeable,

Otherwise they can stay at home

And holler at the T.V. programs.

We don't care about them,

We can do without them,

They'll look cute in a bathing suit

On a billboard in Madagascar.

This entire list could be populated by Malvina Reynolds songs. She is a savage. “We Don’t Need the Men” is one perfect example of Reynolds’ ability to roast her enemies with humor and a devil-may-care attitude.

Besides the content, which I’ll get to, the song doesn’t really rhyme in any logical pattern. This might have felt jarring from a lesser lyricist, but Reynolds gets away with it effortlessly. When she rhymes, it seems as though it is purely for her own pleasure and amusement. And when she doesn’t rhyme, it’s to surprise you with a punchline. The result is an unconventional song infused with fun and whimsy, that also feels just kind of spiky.

As if it needs any spikes. The song takes “women’s liberation” literally. It is 3.5 minutes of making fun of men and celebrating women’s independence from their superfluous presence. Women are relaxed, happy world-travelers. Men are aesthetic. Their interests are silly, their angst is a drag. Who needs equality when you can just have separatism?

And the best part: The original copyright on this song dates to 1959. That’s four years before Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique — four years before second wave feminism got off the ground and popularized women’s liberation.

Malvina Reynolds: breaking the curve on savagery.

4. “The Pause of Mr. Claus” - Arlo Guthrie

Savagery Highlights:

It's hard to be an FBI man. I mean, first

of all, being an FBI man, you have to be over 40 years old.

And the reason is that it takes at least 25 years with the

organization to be that much of a bastard. It's true. You just

can't join, you know. It needs an atmosphere where your

natural bastardness can grow and develop and take a

meaningful shape in today's complex society.

You might know Arlo Guthrie from his 20-minute-long absurdist talking blues song, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” which isn’t really about Alice’s restaurant at all and which somehow became an American Thanksgiving tradition. Or you might know him simply as Woody Guthrie’s quirky drugged out son.

In fact, Arlo Guthrie contains multitudes. He’s got another song that talks, and seems only slightly less drugged out on it. “The Pause of Mr. Claus” is its name, and it must be understood in its full historical context:

Once upon a time in San Francisco, there was a theater troupe called the Diggers who were engaged in a war of guerilla communication. Whether naked or clothed, you could count on the Diggers to disturb polite, monied society with an invasion of satirical performance art that had the power to tranquilize the twin tyrannies of productivity and logical thinking for the whole day. Think of Dada, now think of Improv Everywhere, now think of anarchy, and you will start to get it. Well, the Yippies brought Diggers-style tactical shenanigans to the east coast. Arlo Guthrie grew up on the east coast. Do you see what I’m saying?

“The Pause of Mr. Claus” is a subtle demonstration of guerilla communication. Arlo does not need to take out the FBI by telling his audience how evil they are. That’s common knowledge to this crowd. Instead he tells an absurd story, uncritically, about his idea of what an FBI agent does all day, including the logistical troubles of accidentally taking the seat on the plane of the counterculture rascal he’s following for urgent reasons of national conformity — I mean, security. The story is silly, tangential, and hilarious, and then abruptly gives way to a little ditty about the most nefarious communist of all, Santa Claus.

Ok, so he’s taking the piss. You can easily picture a narc’s head exploding. That’s how you know it’s savage.

5. “Masters of War” - Odetta (covering Bob Dylan)

Savagery Highlights:

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll,

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul.

Well that’s the worst fear

That can ever be hurled.

As we saw with Pete Seeger, singing other people’s songs is a folk staple. The contemporary folk musicians covered each other, as well as the old folk tunes passed down orally through the generations, all the time. But Odetta was one of the first to sing Dylan — and my god, did she sing Dylan.

Odetta, in her own right, inspired many of the contemporary folk musicians in the first place with her masterful blend of blues, traditional folk, and African American spirituals. Her Bob Dylan cover album shows that he never had a hope in hell of beating her at her own game. After hearing her breathtaking arrangement of “Masters of War,” it is a mystery to me why the man ever sang any of his own songs again.

Deviating from Dylan’s jangly drawl and unchanging strum pattern, Odetta gives the song momentum — a place to go different from where it begins. She builds towards its spiritual condemnation with utterly precise control. A second guitar introduces an intricate, steady picking that gives the anti-war classic a haunted edge. The instruments of her voice — from her deep vibrato to her smoothly pulsating dynamic range — conjure a one-woman symphony. The wrath of God is in this song. You can feel it. Odetta makes you feel it.

Dylan’s lyrics bark, but it is Odetta who makes them bite.

Honorable Mentions of Folk Savagery:

“Little Boxes” - Malvina Reynolds

“The Judge Said” - Malvina Reynolds

“It Isn’t Nice” - Malvina Reynolds

“Boraxo” - Malvina Reynolds. I was not kidding about Malvina Reynolds.

“You Never Had It So Good” - Barry McGuire

“What Did You Learn in School?” - Pete Seeger

“This Land Is Your Land” - Pete Seeger (covering Woody Guthrie)

“Man Smart (Woman Smarter)” - Harry Belafonte

“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” - Arlo Guthrie

“Give a Damn” - Odetta

“Maggie’s Farm” - Bob Dylan

“Here’s to the State of Mississippi” - Phil Ochs

“The Preacher and the Slave” - Utah Phillips

“Hallelujah, I’m a Bum” - Utah Phillips