Tom Paxton's tunes have been covered by just about every folk artist in the industry, and many of his songs are classics. Last night Tom invited me, along with Denver folk icon, Harry Tuft and an old friend of Tom's from the Village days, to join him for his encore tunes. We did "Last Thing On My Mind," "My Ramblin' Boy" and a new song he just wrote. What an honor!
During the course of his show, Tom played a song called "George W. Told The Nation", a witty yet scathing commentary on the war in Iraq. (Go to the link below and you can hear it and read the lyrics.) As I was listening (and laughing!) it struck me that I was hearing something exactly in the same vein as "Can You Get Me In," "Pizza For Pesos" or any of the other songs for which I've been chastised by humorless liberals. Last night the liberal audience at Swallow Hill lapped up Tom's every word and cheered heartily at the end of this song. Just, I might add, as my little crowd of 30 people had cheered for my songs at The Atlanta Bread Company.
It got me wondering - what if there were just one Bush loving die-hard conservative in that crowd who objected to Tom's song? What if this person wrote to Swallow Hill complaining that he'd been offended? Would his complaint be considered? NO!!! He'd be scoffed at and decried as a...conservative.
The polls on most topics seem to indicate that that there are more conservatively-oriented people in this country, and yet the liberals are louder and they are RIGHT - no matter what. Wait a minute - how can the LEFT be RIGHT?!!!! Left is right and right is wrong, and that's the way of the world, it seems. As I've been saying for some time now, being a Conservative Folksinger is an oxymoron!
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