Last year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day we had a discussion about songs and performers who spoke to the cause of civil rights. I posted a video of a Mavis Staples song and some well-known names like Nina Simone, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were mentioned.

Near the end of the string, Barbara in Robbinsdale came up with this unexpected one – Shawn Phillips, and a folk song I had never heard before – Hey Nelly, Nelly. BiR was kind enough to give us the words, also.

Hey Nelly Nelly, come to the window
Hey Nelly Nelly look at what I see
He’s riding into town on a sway back mule
Got a tall black hat and he looks like a fool
He sure is talkin’ like he’s been to school
And it’s 1853

Hey Nelly Nelly, listen what he’s sayin’
Hey Nelly Nelly, he says it’s gettin’ late
And he says them black folks should all be free
To walk around the same as you and me
He’s talkin’ ’bout a thing he calls democracy
And it’s 1858

Hey Nelly Nelly hear the band a playing
Hey Nelly Nelly, hand me down my gun
“Cause the men are cheerin’ and the boys are too
They’re all puttin’ on their coats of blue
I can’t sit around here and talk to you
“Cause it’s 1861

Hey Nelly Nelly, Come to the window
Hey Nelly Nelly, I’ve come back alive
My coat of blue is stained with red
And the man in the tall black hat is dead
We sure will remember all the things he said
In 1865

Hey Nelly Nelly, come to the window
Hey Nelly Nelly, look at what I see
I see white folks and colored walkin’ side by side
They’re walkin’ in a column that’s a century wide
It’s still a long and a hard and a bloody ride
In 1963

I was a fan of this song before it even started because half the writing credit goes to Shel Silverstein. You can see that sly, bald devil at work as the lyrics set in context the long, long process of moving towards justice. And he gets Abe Lincoln into the starring role without ever mentioning his name. Ah, the power of a hat.

There are few things less fashionable today than earnest folk songs about changing the world, and there are even fewer songs that mention historic dates in a way that would be meaningful to anybody. “Hey Nelly Nelly” manages to do both, and it would be completely unknown today if not for a handful of recordings by Judy Collins. Still, you have to admire Silverstein and co-writer Jim Friedman for giving it a try.

What song do you know that almost no one else remembers?

Today’s entry comes from our perennial sophomore at Wendell Wilkie High School, the one and only Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.,

I’m wondering if we can get some labor unrest stirred up here in Minnesota just like they have it in Wisconsin. I’d really like my teachers to go AWOL for a few protest days at the state capitol.

What a great deal for those students next door – they’ve already had two days off with the promise of more to come! PLUS, after a day of playing video games in your PJ’s you can turn on the TV news to see your English teacher freezing on the steps of a state office building, waving a hand lettered sign and screaming for the Governor’s head. I’ll bet when that teacher gets back to the classroom she’ll be too hoarse to do anything but have hours and hours of quiet reading time – which is my favorite kind of in-class assignment. I love opening a big, soft book and then putting my head right down on it so the words can soak into my brain.

And speaking of going AWOL, how about those Wisconsin democrats who got to go on a road trip to Illinois? They’re hiding in a hotel somewhere, but nobody knows which one. And now Wisconsin’s State Troopers are looking for them! If I were on the lam in northern Illinois, I’d pick a hotel with a water park and hot waffle machines in the breakfast bar. I had no idea being a member of the state legislature was so cool! I thought it was just boring meetings all day long – kind of like going to class, but with voting.

What a great learning experience. I demand equal treatment with the students in Wisconsin! Please, make it happen here!

In our Life Choices class on Friday, I told Mr. Boozenporn that I would have really, really respected him more if he had gone to Wisconsin to show solidarity with the public employees there. It looked like he was actually considering it for a moment, but then he switched the lesson plan and spent the whole hour talking about labor history and he made us watch videos of Pete Seeger! And he says he’ll bring in his Weavers records on Tuesday!

Not what I had in mind.

Your friend,
Bubby

I told Bubby I was impressed that he was following the news so closely, but distressed to discover that he only sees these monumental policy struggles as another possible way to skip a few days of school. I like Mr. Boozenporn’s approach. Subjecting helpless high school students to skinny banjo players doing pro-union songs is more subversive and possibly more effective than marching on the capitol.

I have it on good authority that these are two of the You Tube videos Mr. Boozenporn showed yesterday.

What’s your favorite song about work?

Some recent studies have indicated humming could be a technique to combat chronic sinusitis.

What’s the connection? Researchers found that humming apparently increases the flow of air in the sinuses. This was deduced in one study by measuring the amount of nitric oxide in air exhaled by people who had been humming. Nitric oxide is produced in the sinus cavities (who knew?) and a sharp increase in the amount coming out of those hummer noses led to the conclusion that the sinuses were getting extra ventilation when subjects engaged in some closed-lip karaoke.

What the studies DIDN’T report – the nature of the tunes being hummed. Can you force enough air into your sinuses with classical, or would the blues do a more effective job? How about heavy metal? Can you hum that?

Personally, I would go for the ventilating power of a big Broadway number like the title tune from Oklahoma. Although you’d only be humming it, you could imagine these rhino-centric words as a form of self-medicating parody.

Aunt Eller:
There’s pressure in the cavities behind my nose.

Andrew:
My face is achin’. I cain’t get a grip.

Laurey:
Might be comin’ down with somethin’, I suppose.

Curley:
Probably a case of that postnasal drip.

Company:
Nasal drip!
Nasal drip! Gonna be a trip!
Gonna give you headaches. Headaches and secretions.
Just like Alexander
Gave to them Phoenicians.
Feelin’ like your skull is in a workbench vise,
Plenty of pressure. Ain’t so nice.
Plenty of coughing. I feels hot.
Plenty of pain and plenty of snot.

Sinusitis! Inflammation. Constant pressure. Pain!
Where the mucus flows out of my nose
And it soaks the ground like April rain!
Sinusitis! Decongestants? Go ahead and try!
Cause ya cain’t replace yer throbbin’ face.
It’s enough to make ya wanna cry.

We know this is all in our head
And it makes us all wish we wuz dead.
And when we say
Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We’re only sayin’
Leave me alone Sinusitius!
Sinusitis, go ‘way!

Do you like to sing or hum to yourself? Out loud?

The people who showed up yesterday morning to shovel snow at the University of Minnesota’s TCF stadium were willing to do some physical labor in the great tradition of John Henry – a character out of folklore who generated a variety of songs about man’s unquenchable spirit in the face of a challenge from the steam drill.

Unfortunately, some of yesterday’s shovelers waited through the morning, and left in frustration before doing any actual work.

John Henry simply beat the steam drill with brute strength, and then he laid down his hammer and he died. Tough wages. But brute strength won’t help you overcome a mismatch between available workers and piles of snow in the absence of a plan that can quickly put them together. That’s a real heartbreaker.

When John Henry heard about the Vikings,
playin’ in the winter’s cold.
Well he picked up a shovel and his parka and a hat
Said Shovel’s gonna bring some Christmas gold, Lord, Lord.
Shovel’s gonna bring some Christmas gold.

The captain said to John Henry
You can wait over there in that line.
With your shovel and your parka and your hat, Lord Lord
You can wait ‘til it’s shovelin’ time.

John Henry said to the captain
I’m freezing and I’m ready to go
Before I’ll wait and stand and get frostbite on my hand,
I would die with my shovel in the snow

Now the captain said to John Henry
Just an hour more and maybe you’ll begin,
There’s a form you gotta sign and another friggin’ line
To endure before your shovel’s suckin’ wind, Lord Lord
To endure before your shovel’s suckin’ wind.

Now the planners that did those logistics
Meant to organize the snow removin’ troops
But so many came to town, when that sun was goin’ down
Poor John Henry hadn’t turned a single scoop

Now John Henry had dug snowy mountains.
From Duluth to Saskatoon and on to Nome
But he never dug that day where the Golden Gophers play.
He just waited ‘til they told him to go home, Lord Lord.
He waited ’til they told him to go home.

When have you been victorious against the machine?