<\/p>\n
In the 1950’s & 1960’s a boom of Folk-Singers and protest music began to dominate the psyche of an America.
\nThe U.S. began to drift away from the social norms of the prior decades with changing views on what was considered politically correct.
\nFrom the ashes of what singers such as Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger came many great singers that got some due in their lifetime.
\nThe obvious being Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Janis Ian, Leonard Cohen, & Phil Ochs being a few examples.
\nHowever, the most out of left-field example of a surge in political change came a woman already in her elder years.
\nShe was born in 1900 to Jewish Immigrants that preached Socialism throughout her life. Malvina Reynolds.
\nMalvina, may have not many hits, or even close to it, but she sung about Vietnam, she sung about answers to political heresies, she sung about assassinations, and she sung about feminism.
\nShe began seriously writing in her late 40’s, and soon began performing around the world and writing until her death in her late 70’s in 1978 (when she still had concert dates upcoming)
\nFor her politically charged lyrics I fully suggest someone to go to www.MalvinaReynolds.com and explore her lyrics & poetry, and read about the life of this remarkable woman. Listen to her songs such as “Little Boxes” “What’s Going on Down Here” and “What Have They Done to the Rain?” being some of my favorites, and more known songs.
\nHere is a poem I wrote about Malvina (loosely based):<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Malvina<\/strong><\/p>\n All of the gypsies danced in the graveyards, Your White hair has lived many seasons, To a street you sing to the homeless, to the sad May the blessed be in this pine box of feathers. We are all digging in the dirt, Watch the snow pepper down, Let’s wash out this internal sepsis. The hum We discovered each raindrop could be your own.<\/p>\n Malvina, we failed your years. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 1950’s & 1960’s a boom of Folk-Singers and protest music began to dominate the psyche of an America. The U.S. began to drift away from the social norms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Malvina: A Pioneer for Change from David O'Nan, Regular Contributor\n\n\"you sing sweetly to a hobo's heart.\"\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[177,162,213],"tags":[271,272,270,273,198,57,275,274],"class_list":["post-3438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanity-of-it-all","category-immigration","category-poetry","tag-folk-singer","tag-history","tag-malvina-reynolds","tag-never-give-up","tag-poetry","tag-protest","tag-truth","tag-writer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/arnaud-gillard-_wxBn-TWC3Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=1707%2C2560&ssl=1","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3512,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions\/3512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand sung protest songs to the daisies.
\nThe petals chanting Malvina
\n“Revolt in Folk, Malvina”<\/p>\n
\na woman of many wars, seen many deaths
\nLike the Winter warning the evils of March.<\/p>\n
\nYou run out the ruin of brainwash propaganda
\nsend the pimps crying over their lost moneys
\nyou sing sweetly to a hobo’s heart.
\nto all the broken spirits drowning in the strangers of night.
\nin infected light.<\/p>\n
\nIn these cyanide apples we reach for you, Malvina.
\nTell us which trenches we can hide, to crawl away from the soot.
\nIn the dynasty of coalmines.
\nOur clothes of rosy mud with breath of the crawdaddies,
\nwhispering in army camouflage.
\nThey love their kisses of the bullet winds,
\nthat blow through this Vietnam.<\/p>\n
\nand can’t wash the death from our fingernails.
\nClouds that grow inside of them,
\nand sing one of your famous canary hymns.
\nmmmm…mmmm\u2026.mmmm…Malvina<\/p>\n
\nand burn at our tear ducts
\nOur clarity whips and watch –
\nthese devils preside in the caves
\nAnd they talk like a symphonic Nazi
\nDragging freedom on the skin of his calloused feet.
\nIn the cocaine webs pricking at the veins in his eyes.
\nthey will hemorrhage at the stroke of your violin.<\/p>\n
\nThese war crime Valentine’s days.
\nWatching hippies falling to the sun.
\nOur heroes are the songs in your voice.
\nWashed out our glory…
\nThey washed out our glory.
\nCan we grow as humans while crackling in the campfires?<\/p>\n
\nthe hums of your wonder
\nthe hums of the caged birds
\nMany years sitting in depression’s wings
\nYou finally learned to fly,
\nas you taught the progressions of Eve.<\/p>\n
\nYou were misplaced in a world that needed your transitions.<\/p>\nPhoto by Arnaud Gillard on Unsplash<\/h6>\n