| Gordon Lightfoot – Circle of Steel Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
The roulette wheel is a metaphor for life. Gambling isn't mentioned anywhere else -- just the life consequences of bad luck. So perhaps we are the ball in the wheel. Whatever else it is, this is an anti-Christmas carol. The juxtapositioning of invisible grief and public joy is purely intentional. |
|
| The Byrds – Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
(1) This is a Pete Seeger song. The Byrds simply had the best-known cover of it. It's been covered by most folk singers. Judy Collins has a particularly nice cover on Judith. (2) According to his biographer (David King Dunaway), Pete was not particularly religious, but his history makes it clear that good songs were where you found them. "Turn, Turn, Turn" is from Ecclesiastes (in the King James Version). Pete was not above lifting hymns: he also added (or revised) the lyrics of "How Can I Keep From Singing", a 19th C American Hymn and modified the lyric of "We Shall Overcome" and added verses to it. (3) I don't think that a conventional read of the lyric in the full context of Ecclesiastes I is supported from the context. Seeger chose the verses to use very carefully -- other verses nearby scan with the melody. If you choose to interpret the lyric in terms of irony, it's clear (to me, at least) that Pete's saying that we've had a time for most everything but peace. Isn't it about time to try that for a change? (4) This interpretation is consistent with Pete's life principles. Woody Guthrie was probably the most influential performer in Pete's early career. Pete had a sticker on the soundboard of his guitar that read, "This Machine Kills Fascists." Pete's banjo head reads, "This Machine Surrounds Hate -- And Forces It To Surrender." (5) The lyric crediting on this site is crap. This Land Is Your Land is not credited to Woody -- it is credited to Buffy Sainte Marie and Samuel Ward? What is up with that? Turn, Turn, Turn is not credited to Pete Seeger? Good grief. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.