| Josh Ritter – Harrisburg Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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@[YaleChik85:29014] An excellent, well thought out interpretation of this song. I won't try to improve it. I am struck by the STARK difference between Harrisburg and another folk classic - Canadian Railroad Trilogy by Gordon Lightfoot. Lightfoot was commissioned by the Canadaian Broadcast Company to make a tune to mark Canada's centennial. Though he remarks on the hardships of the "navvies", who built the railroad, he is extolling the Industrial Revolution when he sings: "But time has no beginnings and hist'ry has no bounds As to this verdant country they came from all around They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall Built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all" Back to Josh Ritter: Harrisburg reminds me of Jim Jarmusch's 'Dead Man', as William Blake's voyage by train, complete with buffalo slaughter, portend the death of the Country's spirit due to modernization. |
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