A Most Unusual Protest Song

8 thoughts on “A Most Unusual Protest Song”

1. Thanks David – though you’ve sent me down a lot of rabbit holes since I’d never heard of him. By the way, I do feel my children are more grateful than we were in the late sixties, but this song seems different from his others – and powerful.

2. Ginny…”I do feel my children are more grateful than we were in the late sixties”

   Speaking of Gratitude and lack thereof, Sarah Hoyt has a post on the common belief that “the older generation made a mess of the world”

   https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/06/05/we-were-never-the-scintilla/#comments

3. This guy wrote Eve of Destruction.

   Sounds like there is a very interesting story that could be told about his life:
   http://www.kausfiles.com/2015/11/18/r-i-p-p-f-sloan/
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_W9HLWZfOo

4. Regarding the part about sending trainloads of wheat back in 1932, maybe he was thinking of ’42? I doubt any food was allowed to get through during the worst part of the famine to “keep your millions alive”. It would be interesting if he had some inkling of something resembling the Holodomor catastrophe had occurred, what with the state of information behind the Iron Curtain. Or am I reading too much into that line?

5. Grurray…there was significant US food aid to Russia in 1921-23:

   https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2011/pr-famine-040411.html

   …I can’t find any reference to food aid in 1932, with a cursory search.

   Maybe Sloan confused the dates, or maybe he just thought “1932” rhymed better.

   I’m impressed that he even knew about it, though.

6. More about the famine and the US aid:

   https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/marchapril/feature/the-politics-food

7. Wow. Nice song. Never heard it before.

8. https://youtu.be/bfiDvWh0uMU

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