Found a great rendition of “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya,” an old
Irish Folk Song sung by British Opera Singer Benjamin Luxon and accompanied on
Banjo by American Folk Singer Bill Crofut.
The piece plays out exactly how you would imagine a man of the theatre
and a seasoned folk artist would sound together: dramatic, powerful, and
heartfelt. Here’s the video.
The way he articulates that one line, “Where is… the leg… in
which you run…” gives me chills down my spine every time I hear it. It has a
sense of despair that really depicts the horror that families have to
experience when their loved ones are sent out to foreign lands to fight people
they have no quarrel with, and then come back home. As you hear the last reprise, as he ties it
all together with one last solemn chorus, it leaves you with the impression
that Johnny has changed for the worse.
This performance really gave me the feels because it deals
directly with subjects that I hold dear to my heart. It was one of my goals as a music major to
study compositions like this, songs of protest. To study the anthems that the
poor, disenfranchised, and the working class devised to comment on the times was
my ambition. I do believe art is a reflection of the times, and good art is something
that inspires people to make the world a better place. To document and analyze
the music theory behind it would combine two passions of mine (Leftist politics
and Music Theory). Here’s another example of a song that I would like to
dissect. “Pie in the Sky,” an old labor tune 1st sung by the
traveling man Joe Hill but performed by Utah Phillips.
It’s ironic that “Johnny
I Hardly I Knew Ya” was an Irish anti-war song (A late 18th century
response to the British involvement in Sri Lanka) that soon became an American
pro-war song (“When Johnny Comes Marching Home”), but many folk songs were the
opposite and are essentially “parodies” of popular church hymns. “Pie in the
Sky” carries the same tune as “In the Sweet By and By.” This was done for a few
reasons, one being a popular tune that people can recognize so they can pay
attention to the lyrics, and secondly the song itself was criticizing religion,
and all the empty promises it makes for in the next world. So it is only
appropriate to still have those Christian overtones as it help sells the
parody.
My original inspiration to do this was just the fact that
Politics and Music have such a conservative background together. Out of all the
arts, Traditional Western Music, which I studied at UOG, is full of Patrons of
Churches and Kings, music was a voice for the wealthy. Folk music was still important,
but the Romantic ideas that fueled many visual and literary artists were less
inspirational for the giants of music. There are a select few that stand out as more liberal in Music History, Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, and Britten to name a few, but as a whole, they were definitely part of the establishment. To help shed light on people who wanted to use music to improve the world, that is what I wanted to do. And all of these folk songs that these people wrote, their messages are so powerful and timely. They are incredibly important in the People’s History of Music.
