Monday Music: A Great Depression Protest Song for the Ages
Another Song for the #AgeofTrump Anti-Fascist Playlist
Part of my regular updating of the #ageofTrump playlist.
Blind Alfred Reed was born around 1880, son of a Confederate soldier and blind from birth. As Ted Olson writes on Music of Our Mountains, he “displayed a prodigious gift for music when quite young, mastering the fiddle, yet also playing the banjo, the guitar, the mandolin, and the organ.” He “developed a singular vocal approach marked by precision of enunciation and tonal clarity; his singing, unlike in the vocal styles of many Appalachian singers of his generation, exhibited little overt nasality.”
Reed was very much a southerner — born in Virginia, but living most of his adult life in West Virginia — and his songwriting themes reflect a deep religiosity and mistrust of government and materialism. He focused on religious themes, but also wrote music consistent with the rural populism that defined anti-capitalist politics at the end of the 19th century and that fueled the campaigns and popularity of William Jennings Bryan.
The song I’m most interested — “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” — was written after the stock market crash in 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. The song captured themes of poverty and despair, but with a son-of-confederacy sensibility — and it has spawned dozens of covers, including a few that feature new and updated verses that reconfigure the song in contemporary time. (I’m grateful ro this list over versions.)
I knew of the song, but not much about its history or Reed’s life until this weekend. I’d heard the Bruce Springsteen version (more in a few) and Ry Cooder’s various covers, but the song has been played and remade not just by rock and folk bands, but punk and reggae bands, as well.
UB40, for instance, does a country-tinged reggae version that focuses on Great Britain and the world economic crash of 2008-2009 — which updates and opens a song that Olson says “should not be interpreted strictly as a Depression Era song; indeed, the song’s continued popularity into the 21st Century is a testament to its universality.”
“How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live” was among the more socially conscious records released during the Great Depression. That the song was not immediately embraced as an anthem during that era says less about the record’s merits and more about the distractions and desperations that people were confronting at the time of its release. The song’s exposé of social inequality reinforced by a rigged economic system was likely simply too true for many people to hear and bear.
The bands that have chosen to record versions of Reed’s song share much of his populist social vision. And the tradition of updating the lyrics is consistent with the folk and blues tradition (though not always with proper credit). Springsteen is very clear, for instance, that the song is Reed’s, but elsewhere you can find the song described as a traditional folk song. (My updating of the lyrics can be found at the end.)
The New Lost City Ramblers’ version is traditional, if better recorded, and feels like something out of a lost time (released in 1959). It is one of two Reed songs on Songs from the Depression (https://folkways.si.edu/the-new-lost-city-ramblers/songs-from-the-depression/american-folk-historical-song-old-time-struggle-protest/music/album/smithsonian), both duly credited. The band was an important part of the Fold Revival movement, and an influence on Bob Dylan, among others.
One of my favorites is from Ry Cooder, the California-born musician, musicologist, collector of styles, and consummate guitar player — who also is a left-populist rabble-rouser, a singer of protest songs that call out the oligarchs and petty tyrants that rule the roots.
He includes “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” on his debut and numerous live records, mostly relying on Reed’s lyrics, often abbreviating them.
Springsteen’s version, which he trotted out during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2006, features a near complete rewrite of the lyrics to savage then-President George W. Bush and his administration’s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina.
Other versions may keep the original lyrics, but alter the playing and arrangements. Boxcar Satan
punks it up, while the Del-Lords turn it into a rave-up.
Eric Burdon offers this version live (shortening the title and altering the lyrics a tad):
*
They tell us there once was a time when all was cheap, But prices been rising even as we sleep. When we pay our grocery bill, We just feel like making our will And all the promises about eggs and gas and wheat Ain’t worth more than a pile of sheet With these tariffs we pay more and more Maybe get a shirt that another man wore. Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live? Well, the doctor comes around with a face all bright, And he says in a little while you'll be all right. All he gives is a humbug pill, A dose of dope and a great big bill. Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live? Complain if you want, maybe they’ll send you away lock you in Delaney Hall or maybe Guantanamo Bay Your visa and green card ain’t worth the ink ICE can snatch you off the street in a blink Leave behind a baby child and wife, Just shut your trap and live a quiet life We’ll make America great If it’s not too late Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live? This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net We need law and order, they say it’s the way, But they’ll shoot a man even as he runs away, No gun or knife No regard for human life Officers kill without a cause, They complain about funny laws. Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live? Most all preachers preach for gold and not for souls, That's what keeps a poor man always in a hole. Tell a poor teacher what to teach Tell the immigrant she’s just a leech, Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live? This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net We can hardly get our breath, Even as we send so many to their death. Pay for Israeli arms and guns As they bomb Gaza till the blood runs Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live? And the president, he thinks he’s king But he don’t know a thing About what it’s like to live and die Even as we just try to get by He’s cruel and vicious as he can be He’s got a peculiar definition of what it means to be free We’ll be lucky to get through this You know what I’m saying sis How can a poor man stand such times and live?