Yes, we're all dodgin'

Yes, the candidate's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the candidate's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll meet you and treat you and ask you for your vote
But look out boys: he's a dodgin' for a note, 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world 

Yes, the preacher he's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the preacher he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll preach you a gospel and tell you of your crimes 

But look out boys: he's a dodgin' for your dimes 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world 

Yes, the lover he's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the lover he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride 

But look out girls: he's a tellin' you a lie. 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin' 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world

This isn't actually about the internet at all. Except that it is. This is one of Aaron Copland's beloved Old American Songs. These are loosely based on old folk songs that are thought to be anonymous (or written by that well-known composer, Arthur Unknown). To me, a lot of them sound suspiciously like Stephen Foster, especially the one that always moves me to tears, Long Time Ago. To hear William Warfield sing that delicate bit of musical incandescence is to truly be transported to another time and place, when people were different.

Or were they? 

This song seems to have been written as a sort of brash but good-natured political satire, a protest against the corruption that seems to have been around forever, trickling down from government to the most intimate areas of our lives  I don't need to tell you what "dodgin'" is, though today we might say scamming, spamming, trolling - all the different names for fraud.

The song is about insincerity as a way of life, and how ubiquitous it is. It's pretty cynical as it moves from political candidates (whom we all know are crooked) to preachers "dodgin' for your dimes" (has  anything changed here?), to -  the worst of all, the most painful - the lover: "He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride/But look out girls: he's a-tellin' you a lie." 

The only thing that saves this song from cutting sarcasm is the shrugging insistence that "we're all dodgin', out away through the world." Arthur Unknown seems to be saying we all have something of the scam artist in us, a necessary survival mechanism that often seems to work a lot better, and cost us a lot less, than honesty and sincerity. But then, displaying those qualities requires a mixture of foolishness and courage that most people just aren't up to, these days.

Instead, we see what we can get away with. Everyone's doing it, aren't they? Myself, I have paid far more dearly for my honesty than for my occasions of dishonesty. Often, a lie is what people would rather hear. All this proliferates on the internet like seething bacteria in a polluted sea. It's the ideal medium for dishonesty, and just look at how well it has done! As usual, its shining initial promise has pretty much collapsed into mediocrity and outright danger. It's just not safe to trust any more.

Integrity struggles, surfaces like a dolphin, goes down again. I don't know what the end of this is. I can't even end this post!  But I know it's a good song, and I'm going to go listen to the rest of them now.

ADDENDA. The roots of the song:

"The Dodger Song" is a 19th-century American folk song. Aaron Copland wrote an arrangement for it as part of Old American Songs, a collection of arrangements of folk songs. "The Dodger" was apparently used as a campaign song to belittle Republican James G. Blaine in the 1884 Presidential election between Blaine and Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate. Cleveland had won the support of progressives by his fight against Tammany Hall in New York. The version known today is based on a Library of Congress recording by Mrs. Emma Dusenberry of Mena, Arkansas, who learned it in the 1880s. It was transcribed and first published by Charles Seeger in a little Resettlement Administration songbook.

SPECIAL BONUS VERSES! There's more to this song than you think.

Oh, the candidate's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the candidate's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too.
He'll meet you and treat you and ask you for your vote,
But look out, boys, he's a-dodgin' for your vote.
We're all a-dodgin',
Dodgin', dodgin', dodgin',
Oh, we're all a-dodgin' out the way through the world.

Oh, the lawyer, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the lawyer, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll plead your case and claim you for a friend,
But look out, boys, he's easy for to bend.

Oh, the preacher, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the preacher, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll preach the gospel and tell you of your crimes,
But look out, boys, he's dodgin' for your dimes.

Oh, the merchant, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger
Oh, the merchant, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll sell you goods at double the price,
But when you go to pay him you'll have to pay him twice.

Oh, the farmer, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the farmer, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll plow his cotton, he'll plow his corn,
But he won't make a livin' as sure as you're born.

Oh, the sheriff, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the sheriff, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll act like a friend and a mighty fine man,
But look out, boys, he'll put you in the can.

Oh, the general, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh the general, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll march you up and he'll march you down,
But look out, boys, he'll put you under ground.

Oh, the lover is a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the lover is a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride
But look out, girls, he's telling you a lie.

What the FXXX is the "Organ of Cecilia"?

This is just another one of those strange things. A while ago I wrote about buying an old hard-cover copy of Colleen McCullough's novel The Thorn Birds from Amazon, and discovering that between its browned pages were sprays of flowers which had been pressed and dried, their colors still faintly apparent even after God-knows-how-many years. It made me wonder who cut these slips from their garden, and where (Australia?), and what possessed them to place them in a volume, a beloved novel I assume, and leave them there, forgotten. For that matter, why was the book sold? Had the owner passed on, faded away along with the mysterious flowers? My questions just multiplied.

But then I dug out this book - and I swear to you, I do not remember when I bought it, where I bought it, and it's just possible I got it from Amazon, meaning it was used when I got it. Maybe. But it seems to me I've had it longer than that. It's a rather dull tome which I thought I'd read again to help me get to sleep at night. Written by the controversial journalist Joan Peyser, it was considered a stick of dynamite in the music world because Peyser dared to state that Bernstein was gay. There erupted a firestorm of  vehement denials, shock, horror, dread, etc., while no one even stopped to think how homophobic that particular reaction made them appear. Oh, no! they seemed to be saying. We just don't want HIM to be gay.

And speaking of. Peyser also wrote  a controversial book about George Gershwin, suggesting he was at very least bisexual and certainly in no hurry to marry any woman he knew. The book was thundered at and railed at and denounced, as was Peyser, who now seemed to be a scarlet woman of musical biography. She'd have her comeuppance decades later, when a dry, scholarly tome which claimed to be The Ultimate Gershwin Biography actually quoted her book, somehow rendering her academically acceptable. (Peyser was also the first writer to posit the veracity of Alan Gershwin's claim that he was George Gershwin's illegitimate son.)

But that's not what this is all about. Neither is this clean copy of the gorgeous cover photo Peyser used, in which Gershwin's elegant narcissism is on full display. The slightly sneering "fuck-me" mouth is particularly disarming, not to mention provocative.

NO! It's about THIS.

THIS, which tumbled out of the Bernstein book as I began to flip through it in preparation for reading it (trying to find, in vain, the sexy or salacious parts).

THIS, of which I have no knowledge, no idea of its provenance. WHAT THE HELL IS IT DOING HERE? Who cut this out of the New York Times on Sunday, November 10, 1985 and taped it to a piece of green plastic with multiple pieces of Scotch tape? And why? I had no access to the New York Times then. I don't know why, if someone DID clip this out, they chose one of Lenny's more pretentious little acrostics or whatever they're called. (Like a monkey, he had a mind for puzzles.) Like the gay Copland, the gay Bernstein (who later came out as flamboyantly as one might expect) might be trying to establish his place in the pantheon of greatness by sucking up to the boss. Could that explain the enigmatic reference to "Organ of Cecilia"?

I keep finding things I don't understand! They keep falling out of books, found objects. I wondered just fleetingly if it was something my dead sister did, though why she would do something so strange, I don't know. Certainly if I had done it and given it to her, she would have called me completely insane. But she is dead now, so I don't need to worry.

But it would be nice to now what the hell this is and where it comes from. Who knows what will tumble from the next old book I open? Undiscovered Gershwin scores? Condoms? Pressed and dessicated after-dinner mints?

ADDENDA. St. Cecilia, virgin, martyr, and patron saint of music, which is why she is holding a weird sort of violin or cello. This kind of explains it, but for a virgin saint, she sure shows a lot of cleavage.

Tenderly her blue eyes glistened. . .

Until a few minutes ago, I would not listen to anyone's interpretation of this melancholy little gem except William Warfield's. I still love his version, but this was a real find. 

I blush to admit I'm not very familiar with Thomas Allen (in fact, it's also the name of a publisher I've been trying to ding for years!). Now I do a little probing, and find he's one of the world's finest baritones: and no wonder! His restraint in this piece is amazing, his tone lucid and full of rippling, iridescent overtones. 

I do hear hints of Warfield in his interpretation, but that's not a bad thing, is it? The accompaniment is ravishing and seems to be in love with the music. I wish I had more info on this video. (Originally I was looking for My Soul is a Witness sung by Paul Robeson, couldn't find it, found several other spirituals, then stumbled on to this. The Robeson search came from, strangely enough, the Hound of Heaven quote: "I shook the pillaring hours/And pulled my life upon me", which got me thinking about Samson (presumably, the source of the poetic image), which got me thinking about my favorite verse from Witness:

You read in the Bible and you understand
Samson was the strongest man
Samson went out at-a one time
And he killed about a thousand of the Philistine
Delilah fooled Samson, this-a we know
For the Holy Bible tells us so
She shaved off his head just as clean as your hand
And his strength became the same as any natural man

O, Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord
Samson was a witness for my Lord

(Oh yeahhhhhhhh!)