John McCutcheon
Supper’s On The Table...
Everybody Come In!

Liner Notes:

It is easy to miss what a profoundly influential and important folk artist John McCutcheon has been over the past three decades. He is, in fact, several of the most influential folk musicians of our time; and the giant shadows cast by the trees of his many talents can obscure the forest of his total impact on the modern folk world.

No less an authority than Pete Seeger unhesitatingly called McCutcheon “one of the best musicians in the U.S.A.” But he then went on to say something that probably matters a good deal more to both men: “Not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.”

Since emerging in the troubled folk scene of the early 1970s—a scene badly stalled in the decaying backwash of the ’60s revival—McCutcheon has been one of the principal builders of the acoustic music subculture now thriving through grassroots venues, independent record labels and fan-driven support structures. In those early years, when few folk artists could fill cellar coffeehouses, McCutcheon handily packed concert halls and college auditoriums, inviting uninitiated thousands into the vast and vibrant genre of folk music. Always, he lent his star-power to struggling venues; his stage to budding new musicians; his charisma and artistic talent to the progressive causes in which he believes; his prolific business and organizational skills to helping both the “folk biz” and grassroots political organizations.

McCutcheon is almost unique in his ability to straddle the many branches of the modern folk tree. He is regarded among the preeminent exponents of traditional Appalachian music, and no artist has done more to popularize the ancient and very American sounds of the hammer dulcimer. He is equally esteemed as a topical songwriter; his vivid ballads of real-life triumphs and travails are as much a template to political songwriters of his generation as the songs of Woody Guthrie or Phil Ochs were to theirs.

McCutcheon also helped revolutionize the moribund and often hackneyed children’s music market, almost militantly bringing a state-of-the-art production and compositional sophistication to the acclaimed family recordings that have earned him five Grammy nominations. He was a pioneer in carving out a new niche of music aimed not just at kids, but at entire families; incisive portrayals of real family issues that both parents and children could relate to—and use to explore their lives together.

Phyllis Barney, executive director of the Folk Alliance, a national support organization for folk music, is a longtime McCutcheon fan and friend. “John sees the job of folk singer as a calling, almost in a religious sense,” she said. “He understands that he fits into a particular place in the folk world, because he has name recognition, and that he has a pulpit from which to talk about things. It’s just fortunate for all of us that the things he wants to talk about are caring for people, being upright and steadfast with people.”

Although this CD appears on Rounder’s prestigious Heritage Series of past and present folk music masters, it is by no means a definitive McCutcheon collection.  Many of his classic compositions…most notably the much-covered “Christmas in the Trenches”, christened “one of the most powerful anti-war songs ever written” (Washington Post)…are notable in their absence. Rather, this is a compendium of original songs from the ’90s, by far McCutcheon’s most productive decade. From 1990–99, he released a whopping 13 recordings. Still, glimpses of the traditional instrumentalist, the family performer, topical troubadour and superb entertainer are all displayed here.

The hammer dulcimer master is heard on McCutcheon’s rollicking Celtic-esque romp “The Perseid,” with renowned Irish flutist Seamus Egan of the band Solas. In another original instrumental, “Leviathan,” McCutcheon’s arrangement lays down a swirling, sophisticated aural sea through which his hammer dulcimer elegantly glides.

His populist passions are always present in his writing, but toll like glory bells in the anthemic, previously unrecorded “Immigrant.” His remarkable ability to communicate his politics without rhetoric or speechifying shimmers in “Closing the Bookstore,” a quiet hometown story in which the grander themes are left for the listener to provide.

His delightfully intimate family songs sprinkle the collection, including one selection from each of his celebrated John McCutcheon’s Four Seasons collection of songs co-written by renowned political songwriter Si Kahn, McCutcheon’s best friend.

McCutcheon also displays his knack for penning heart-wise naturalistic landscapes in the reflective “Mending the Fences” and “Memory of Old Jack,” inspired by the Wendell Berry novel. Again and again in his easy, open-windowed imagery, we peek in on his memories and find our own.

The place all John McCutcheon’s talents meet to form one powerful artistic voice and vision is the concert stage, and he has grown to relish the challenge of having such a disparate fan base.

“I find it more and more,” he said, “that people come to my live shows thinking, ‘this is the hammer dulcimer guy’ or ‘this is the guy who plays old-time music’ or ‘this is the family music guy’ or ‘this is the guy who writes all those political songs’ or ‘the guy who writes all those songs about farming.’ They’d have this single point of contact when they came to my shows, and the fun part is stitching all those audiences together in live performance. You’re essentially introducing your audience to one another.”

It is virtually impossible to overstate McCutcheon’s importance as a live performer. He has always considered himself, first, last and always, an entertainer; and his rivetingly personal stage style has helped define modern folk performance for both contemporary songwriters and traditional musicians.

Dave Siglin has been artistic director of the fabled Ark Coffeehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan, since 1968, and proudly counts himself among John’s first and firmest fans.

“John has an ability few performers do to pull the audience in and hold them back at the same time,” Siglin said. “You don’t feel like it’s a performance; you feel like he’s talking directly to you. Yet the tempo is there, the pacing; his timing is perfect. It is a performance, but he transcends that so that he draws you in. He is that very rare artist who can make his performances feel like a conversation, while at the same time maintaining the excitement of a concert.”

For McCutcheon, each concert begins long before he steps on the stage. He is mindful of arranging his instruments around the stage in a way that creates a cozy, welcoming environment, and he burns his own CDs of songs by his favorite artists to play while people are being seated.

“I think, ‘this is my little community for the next two hours, what can I do to make it sound and look and feel great and safe and inviting?’” He said. “That starts before the people come in, with how the stage looks, the sound, the lights and the music that plays before the show and during intermission. I want to create an environment.”

He said he always tries to read a local newspaper before the show, meets and visits with the tech crew and concert producers, so he can insert lots of local or topical references in his show. He wants his fans to know he is performing this show just for them; that he knows exactly where he is and who they are.

“The worst thing I can imagine is someone going away saying, ‘This is the second time I’ve seen John McCutcheon, and it was exactly the same show.’ I want the audience to feel like they’re part of this, that it’s not just about this guy up on stage showing off. One of the reasons I went to using wireless mikes was so I could walk off the stage at the end of the night with them still singing. So at the end, it’s them doing it. It’s not about me, it’s about us; it’s ‘look what we did.’”

McCutcheon does not favor the familiar definition of concert as a performance given by musical artists, but wraps his style around the word’s other meaning, of people acting in concert, unity achieved by mutual communication. The secret to his remarkable three-decade success as international touring artist is that concert is not to him a singular word, but a plural; something he does with his audience, not to them.

“What John does as a performer is create a temporary community,” said Si Kahn, who has watched him grow as a performer since meeting somewhere in Appalachia - neither remembers exactly where - in the early 70s. “He creates a sense that we’re at a family reunion, a neighborhood celebration; that even if we’ve never met, we know each other, we’ve been friends forever. And the common denominator is his music. He weaves a web that is familiar, warm, friendly, open, that brings people in and lets them think, ‘Hey, I’m part of this; I belong to this.’”

That communal instinct is what drew McCutcheon to folk music in the first place. He grew up in a comfortable, working-class home in Wisconsin, and still vividly remembers the moment American folk music took hold of him.

It was 1963, and he bolted into the living room to tell his mother he was off to Little League practice. She was glued to the TV and motioned him over: “I’ll write you a note; sit down, you’ve got to see this.”

Together, they watched the civil rights march on Washington, D.C., and Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech. But what entranced John most of all was the music.

“There was obviously something big happening,” he said. “The issues of right and wrong seemed really clear to me as an 11 year-old. Plus there was all this amazing singing going on, singing like I’d never heard before and songs that really said something.”

It was also singing that everyone was doing together, songs that turned all their little voices into one big voice. He wanted to know more about music that could do that.

“Of course, that was the ‘60s,” he said, “when folk music was on the television and the radio. But then, it was less about what it is now - which is amazing performance - and more about, ‘C’mon, you can do this - join in!’ I got swept up by that invitational attitude and, like tens of thousands of other kids, started playing guitar.”

He was immediately drawn to the more authentic-sounding songs of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Though he could not trace it clearly, he knew there was a line connecting them. It finally became visible to him while attending St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

“It was obvious to me that Dylan learned form Woody, but also that Woody learned from some repository of stuff he grew up with. What was it? I was fascinated by that, so when our college library started getting in Folkways records of traditional musicians like Clarence Ashley, I devoured them. The first time I heard Mountain Music from Eastern Kentucky with Roscoe Holcomb, I remember thinking, ‘That’s so real it hurts.’ And I just knew I had to go where that music was.”

He planned a summer jaunt to the southern mountains, but never really returned and now makes his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. He did live in the Midwest for a few years while beginning his performing career; but after that first trip, his heart belonged to Appalachia and its musical traditions.

He found that carrying a banjo on his back was a ticket to ride. Cars would pull over and offer him rides, the driver soon asking, “So, can you play that thing?” He learned to say politely, “A little,” and to know that this was an invitation to play a few tunes. Invariably, the driver would say, “Oh, you like the old style; you play like ol’ so-and-so.” McCutcheon would ask where he might find “ol’ so-and-so,” and soon find himself among a hive of local traditional musicians.

Though he thought he had just gone south to learn to play the banjo, he became even more influenced by the place music occupied in these people’s lives.

“Music was a function of community, not a byproduct of it,” he said. “It was instrumental, rather than ornamental, to life there.”

Just as the closeness of the music to people’s lives was an epiphany for him, so was the way politics fit into their world. His mother worked as a social worker and was always involved in local issues and community causes, but he had never seen politics such an everyday, practical force in people’s lives.

“In college,” he said, “I had been debating things like the war and the environment within the comfortable environs of an academic setting. Out in the coalfields, in the mill towns and farm areas, these were people who came to their politics through the dirt under their fingernails. You formed your ideas based on your history and what you saw around you, not on any ideological theory or book that you read. It was, ‘I can’t drink from my spring anymore,’ or, ‘My father’s grave is now under a hundred tons of slag that came down the mountain,’ or ‘I can’t grow corn anymore because of the flooding.’ It was visceral, immediate, dynamic.’”

This integration of music and politics in community life profoundly shaped McCutcheon’s artistic vision.

“Somewhere early on in my career,” he said, “I began to question the whole connection we tend to have with artists in our culture, seeing them either as the elite or the insignificant, without much middle ground. I always felt I was firmly in that middle ground, where what I was doing was important work. My neighborhood needed me just as much as they needed their mailman; and my job was to interpret community life, whether through my own songs or traditional music. I took that job quite seriously - but I didn’t see myself as part of an arts elite, as separate from that neighborhood, that community, in any way.”

Around this time, McCutcheon met Si Kahn, another transplanted northerner who had come to love the working-class people and musical culture of the south. Among the many things the folk world can thank McCutcheon for is introducing them to the brilliantly homespun political songs Kahn writes in his work as a grassroots organizer in the south. Just as Pete Seeger carried the songs of Woody Guthrie to the world, and Rosalie Sorrels did the same for Utah Phillips, McCutcheon’s stage and early recordings were the first place most people heard Kahn’s songs.

“John may not come out of the musical tradition, but he came out of the culture that produced the traditional musicians,” Kahn said. “He’s a working-class kid who grew up with a sense of community, family and tradition, though not necessarily musical tradition. So he identifies in many ways with who the traditional musicians were and are, the place they occupy in their communities. It’s no accident that he is the president of his union local; that kind of involvement is in his blood.”

It is crucial to understanding both McCutcheon’s artistic vision and showmanship to see that he emerged onto a folk music scene in a severe depression - many thought it was dying - at the end of the ’60s commercial revival.

“When I started playing professionally around 1972,” he said, “it was during an amazing ebb in the viability and marketability of folk music. There were no major-label contracts and the independent record industry was just getting going. Public radio was just getting going. When I looked ahead into the future, there was no gold ring to pursue. It was just, ‘Can I do this and not have to do anything else?’ So my whole career has seemed like a gift.”

It was clear to McCutcheon that his career would be cut entirely on stage, that he would build his fan base one fan at a time, one show at a time, finding audiences wherever he could, be that in school lyceums, college coffeehouses, political rallies, folk festivals or concert stages.

His audience was as varied as his venues. One day, he would be playing for children at their school or seniors at a community center, that evening for folk aficionados at a coffeehouse, political activists at a rally, or a mainstream audience at a community concert series. Whenever he stepped on a stage, he believed, he had to be able to reach out to all of them.

Asked what made McCutcheon so effective as a political songwriter, Kahn said, “That it don’t show. John is savvy enough as a political songwriter to rarely do a song that is directly in your face. He either tells you a story and leaves it to you to draw the moral, or he uses humor with a rapier-edged point, so that we’re laughing before we realize how serious it is. Those are the classic tools of the great political songwriters.”

Listen to the moral quagmire of “Dead Man Walking,” McCutcheon’s grim portrait of capital punishment. By refusing in any way to romanticize the killer on his way to execution, he turns the question away from what sort of man he is, to what sort of people we are; not should he die, but should we kill? It is, in the end, a song about us.

"I think a lot of people come to my concerts and don't peg me as a political songwriter," he said, "And in fact, I foster that misconception. I believe you just say, 'This is the situation, this is how it filtered through my lens;' then you try to make that as powerful an experience as possible. By creating an investment by a listener into another person's story, it makes it more human, more seductive - and politics is the art of persuasion. I don't want to be only preaching to the choir; I want to be expanding the choir."      

In 1983, McCutcheon released his first album of children’s song, Howjadoo. He saw it as a one-off, a collection of songs he wrote after his first son, Will, was born. But Howjadoo helped transform the then-budding children’s music market—and opened up a vibrant new career for McCutcheon.

“I listened to some kids’ records to get some idea how to do one,” he recalled. “There weren’t many of them out at the time - it was before Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer and Tom Chapin started making them. There was that whole Canadian children’s music scene doing great stuff, but I didn’t know they existed, and I didn’t like hardly any of the other records I heard. I found them to be unmusical, and either disconnected from what I thought kids would be interested in or downright condescending. I just made one rule for myself, that Howjadoo would be an album that I could stand to listen to. I wanted an album both children and parents could enjoy, that was capable of solving the family argument on trips about what to listen to. That has been my guiding light for every subsequent family album. I use real musicians, not emulators or sound effects. I don’t do funny voices or caricatures. In fact, I don’t do children’s music; I do family music.”

“John has unquestionably set a standard for both music and production values that have enhanced the children’s music arena,” said Cathy Fink, among the country’s most respected performers of children’s and family music. “Howjadoo and Mail Myself to You were among the early crop of beautifully produced albums for kids that adults really like to listen to. Then he started doing theme projects, such as Bigger than Yourself, which I think is simply a brilliant recording of songs about empowering kids and helping them understand how they can empower themselves.”

Just as it is on his concert stage, the emphasis of his family albums is on creating community. In his superb, Grammy-nominated John McCutcheon’s Four Seasons series, he and co-writer Kahn sought to restore a sense of ritual to family life. They wrote simple songs which families could use to mark the passing year together, just as seasonal songs and carols did for ancient people: “Waiting for Snow,” “Soup,” and the always helpful “Tommy Don’t Lick That Pipe” from Wintersongs; “Spring Fever,” “Fishin’” and the wistful younger-sibling ballad “Going to the Prom” from Springsongs; “Swimming Hole,” “Mud” and “Meteors” from Summersongs; “New Kid in School,” “World Series” and the anthemic “Labor Day” from Autumnsongs.

Listen to his family songs alongside his adult ones here, and you will not hear a whit of inflection change between them. Always, his singing is confidential and conversational, not as from a star to fan, not as adult to child. Always, it is from friend to friend, peer to peer.

“John is one of those artists who really respects kids and never talks down to them,” said Fink. “That’s why kids buy into it the second they hear it. He has done a great job of finding that place in the middle where kids and their parents equally enjoy the experience, and in the process he’s done an excellent job of creating context to music in our daily lives. That’s part of what the whole Four Seasons cycle is all about; it honors this cycle we all live through by creating songs and anthems that help us honor it, too. I feel like he has done that thing a lot of people try to do and not everybody succeeds at: to combine the entertainment factor and the nutrition factor into this great musical package.”

“I’m a utilitarian songwriter,” McCutcheon said, “not really an art-for-art’s sake guy. I write songs to be performed and sung and shared. I tend to think cinematically; I’m a very visual writer. There are times when it feels as though the outer layer of my skin is off, and everything I come in contact with I feel. It’s almost a tactile experience. There are times when I can’t read an article in the newspaper or overhear a conversation without visualizing a song. A lot of my songs happen like that, from a story somebody told me, or something that happened in my family or community.”

By now, his fans know that about him. Watch the throngs around him after a concert some night, and it is clear how well they feel they know him. They wait not just for an autograph, to offer a compliment or get a snapshot, but to tell him about their own lives, their families and neighborhoods. They often have stories to tell him, stories that mean so much they would like to hear them in song. And he is the one they come to. They see him not just as a favorite star, but as their minstrel, the keeper of the songs of their lives.

“Performers are on a pedestal,” said the Ark’s Dave Siglin. “They can do anything they want. Some do one thing, some do others. I place John on a straight line with the great folk performers Pete Seeger and Michael Cooney, who all teach you while they perform. They feel a responsibility a lot of performers do not feel to raise their audience’s consciousness about the music. In his shows, John connects the past to the present, and makes you understand you’re part of something bigger than yourself.”

Kahn said, “John is a consummate professional. He obviously believes that every audience, every time he performs, deserves the absolute best he can give them. I have never seen him slack off, never seen him not work his ass off. He cares passionately that people go home feeling fulfilled. I don’t think you can fake it.”

That may be, in the end, the real key to understanding McCutcheon’s remarkable success and longevity: that he has never faked it. The real life that pulses through his music is not an artful effect. When he feels the demands of career tug at his roots, pulling him away from family and community, he tugs back. And always, always, family wins, community wins. McCutcheon’s songs sound real for the simplest and best reason of all. They are.

“I don’t think people know the half of what John does as a human being,” said Kahn. “He is always the one who’s thinking about somebody who’s sick, somebody who needs help. He’s extremely active in his own community; that’s one of the things I really admire about him. He really lives in Charlottesville; he’s out there involved in local politics, raising money for local causes, helping the schools, volunteering. He is an extraordinary husband and parent, amazingly involved with his kids. People don’t see that side of him at all, but it’s enormously important. I mean it as a high compliment when I say that, in addition to all the things for which is known, John lives an ordinary life. A very generous and giving one.”

One senses that McCutcheon knows a greater degree of mainstream stardom was available to him if he bent his convictions and his music a bit more into the fickle winds of the music industry. That does not express itself in him as disappointment, however, but in an even firmer resolve to continue proving there is a viable market for folk music, for music that matters and that can be a real and healing part of our everyday lives.

The rewards he has received for this commitment are considerable: a lifetime career as a highly successful concert and recording artist in an era when most pop stars are dumped into oldies bin by the time they are 25; a loyal, loving fan base that has literally grown up with his music, that will never abandon him and never ask anything of him but his best.

“What this life offers is an amazing amount of camaraderie,” he said, “and I can’t imagine a better field to have comrades; to be able to work side by side with some of the great movers, shakers and thinkers of popular culture, from Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton to Utah Phillips and Si Kahn and Bernice Johnson Reagon. To have people like that be my peers as well as my mentors, and to feel that generosity across the board, is more fulfilling than I can say.

“I feel like I’ve just hit my creative stride; here I am at 48, writing more, coming up with more ideas, than ever; and I have a terrific amount of energy for all the things I’m doing, whether it’s writing songs, doing the shows, recording projects, my union work or mentoring younger performers. But there’s always a place in me where I’m still that 20-year-old, gangly Midwestern kid saying, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I get to do this for a living.’”

Scott Alarik, 2001

Here's what John says about Supper’s on the Table...Everybody Come In...

Formats

Compact Disk: Rounder CD:

Lyrics

Immigrant
Words & music by John McCutcheon

John: guitar & vocal
Jon Carroll: piano, organ & harmony vocals
JT Brown: bass & harmony vocals
Pete Kennedy: 6 & 12 string electric guitars
Robert “Jos” Jospé: drums
Bob Dawson: percussion
Maura Kennedy: harmony vocals

The chorus is based on the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

I am an immigrant
I am a stranger in this place
Here both for the grace of God
Go I
I am an immigrant
I have left everything I own
To everything I've known
I say goodbye

Chorus

She said, “Give me your tired”
Lord, you know I’m weary
When she said “Give me your poor”
She’s talking to me
One of your huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free
And I never have lost sight of
What this journey has been for
See how she lifts her lamp
Beside that golden door

I am an Irishman
The famine put us to the test
Away into the West
Like wild birds flying
We put our backs to the wheel
With a heart that always yearned for home
We made this place our own
And about died trying

Chorus

I am Chinese
I worked your mills, your yards, your mines
Laid your railroad lines
With my two good hands
I am a Chicano
In your orchards and your fields
I have gathered in the yields
For this hungry land

Chorus

I am Nigerian
I am Iranian, a Jew
From Laos, Katmandu
I am your story
I am a long, long line
One you have forgotten that is true
I am everything you knew
I am your glory

She said, “Give me your tired”
Lord, you know we're weary
When she said, “Give me your poor”
She’s talking to you and me
We are the huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free
And we never will lose sight of
What this journey has been for
As we lift her lamp
Beside the golden door

©1999 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Stonington, ME, August 1999
Produced by John McCutcheon & Bob Dawson
Engineered by Bob Dawson at Bias Studios, Springfield, VA
Mastered by Charlie Pilzer at Air Show, Springfield, VA
Previously unreleased

Who’ll Rock the Cradle
words & music by John McCutcheon
John: vocal and banjo (dADAB)
TJ Johnson: mandolin
Tim & Mollie O’Brien: harmony vocals

Written as an anniversary gift for my wife, Parthy.

There’s a star I the east
In the still of the night
There’s 200 miles on this old road
Before the morning light
There’s a hole in this heart of mine
And I don’t know what to do
But I swear that I would drive all night
Just to wake up next to you

Chorus

Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone, my darling?
Who’ll rub your tired feet? Who’ll sing the song?
Tell me, who’s gonna rock the cradle when I’m gone?
Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone?

There’s a point on the horizon
I never seem to find
There’s a vision in my rear view mirror
I just can’t leave behind
There’s ain’t no way to change
No word that I might say
I try to hide it deep in inside
It just won’t go away

Chorus

I hear the highway humming
I can feel the diesel roll
I’m southern bound for the higher ground
And there’s a headlight in my soul
It shines there like a beacon
Amidst this steel and chrome
A slender thread it beams ahead
And points the way back home

Chorus

The wind blows through this valley
It trembles in the trees
It can thrill you with its gentleness
Or bring you to your knees
And love is like a wellspring
That feeds the hungry heart
It can satisfy your longing
Or can tear you clean apart

Chorus

©1996 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA, 1996.
From Sprout Wings & Fly (RR0406)

Mending Fences
words & music by John McCutcheon

John: vocal & acoustic guitar
Michael Aharon: piano & synthesizer
Pete Kennedy: electric guitar
Bobby King: bass
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums & percussion
Bobby Read: soprano sax
John D'earth: trumpet

Mending fences once again
Where posts stand frail and rotten
I walk the wire, hammer-handed
Lest they be forgotten
All alone along the rim
Of all I know as mine
From those without, for those within
I stretch this borderline

The simple order of these days
The fields that know their places
The work that takes me to their sides
In steady, measured paces
The hand of time has touched it all
And the seasons' angry blow
All the labor of past years
Is to ruin and rust laid low

I saw the picture from the moon:
It was the earth in beauty risin'
No fencelines marked her face
Only endless, blue horizon

I'm thinking as I head back in,
My collar cocked and high,
That fences end where they begin
Balanced 'tween the earth and sky
All that keeps me where I am
That stirs this blood and bone
Is tethered by these three thin lines
That trace the fields of home

©1994 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA. 1992.
From Between the Eclipse (RR0336)

Calling All the Children Home
words & music by John McCutcheon

John: guitar & vocal
Tom Chapin: guitar & vocal

This was a Christmas present for my family based on my Mother’s singing.

"John, Mary Claire, Lulu, Jeanie
Kevin, Jeff, Patty, Nancy, Rob"

Shadows growing longer, light is growing dim
Supper's on the table everybody come in
Been playing at the river and I'm tired to the bone
She's calling all the children home

Chorus

Home to the table and the big, black pot
Everybody's got enough, 'though we ain't got a lot
No one is forgotten, no one is alone
When she's calling all the children home

Everybody's sittin' in everybody's place
With their fresh-scrubbed fingers and their fresh-scrubbed face
It's quiet just a minute while sister says a grace
Like she's calling all the children home

Chorus

Bridge:

I could hear her voice in the middle of a crowd
It was never too late and it was never too loud
Smelled just like home by the time we hit the door
There was always just enough but there was always room for more

So, out in the desert, down by the sea
Hear the voice calling "Allee, allee in free!"
From the city to the forest where the wild beasts roam
We are calling all the children home

Last Chorus:

Home to the table, home to the feast
Where the last are first and the greatest are the least
Where the rich will envy what the poor have got
Everybody's got enough, 'though we ain't got a lot
No one is forgotten, no one is alone
When we're calling all the children home
Gathered 'round the table and the big, black pot
Everybody's got enough, 'though we ain't got a lot
No one is forgotten, no one is alone
From the sacks in Soweto to the ice of Nome
From Baghdad City to the streets of Rome
When we're calling all the children home

"Moishe, Isabelle, Sipho, Kim
Mohammed, Mikael, Red Hawk, Tim"

©1990 by John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP).
Charlottesville, VA 1990.
From Live at Wolf Trap (RR0283)

Labor Day
words & music by John McCutcheon & Si Kahn

John: vocal
Michael Aharon: piano & organ
Pete Kennedy: electric guitar
JT Brown: vocal & bass
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums & percussion
Jon Carroll: vocal & accordion
Mike Cotter, Demetra Katson, Mary Ann Redmond: harmony vocals

The original celebration of Labor was May 1st, commemorating those workers killed in Chicago’s Haymarket demonstrations for the 8-hour day on May 1, 1886. Most countries around the world still celebrate Labor Day on May 1st.

In school we learn the well-known names
The ones whose money was their fame
Who ran the railroads, bought the West
Today we mention all the rest
Who blazed the trail that brought us here
Whose family names we’ll never hear
Who laid the track and dug the coal
The brain and muscle, heart and soul

Chorus

Labor Day, Labor Day
September or the first of May
To all who work this world we say
Happy Labor Day

The ones who work behind the plow
The ones who stand and will not bow
The ones who care for home and child
The ones who labor meek and mild
The ones who work a thousand ways
That we might celebrate this day
The ones who raise our cities tall
For those who labor, one and all

Chorus

In history books I often find
That children worked in mill and mine
No time to play, to learn, or grow
Just send ‘em in or down below
Today too many have forgot
The goals for which our parents fought
When I grow up I hope to be
As strong as those who fought for me

Chorus

©1997 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) and Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA 1996
From Autumnsongs (RR8037)

Dead Man Walking
words and music by John McCutcheon

John: vocal and slide guitar
Tom Chapin: electric guitar
Bobby Read: synthesizer
Michael Mark: bass

Written after reading the book of the same title by Sr. Helen Prejean.

Warden comes in with his hands all a-sweatin’
But there’s steel in his eyes and beer on his breath
Priest stands by with his prayer book open
Preaching ‘bout forgiveness in the language of death
You get one last meal, one last cigarette
One last phone call if there’s someone who’ll talk
Any last words and you better think fast
Because eternity’s a-waiting at the end of the walk

Quiet on the tier
There’s a dead man walking
I said, “Quiet on the tier
There’s a dead man walking!”

I ain’t asking for favors, for handouts or pity
I got no right to ask for forgiveness at all
But “Vengeance is mine!” said the Lord in the Bible
I bet he don’t know a thing about that room down the hall
Twelve good men and woman, all calm and collected,
Said, “Your sorry-ass soul has got to burn for your crime.”
It’s an easier road to revenge than to mercy
But an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

Quiet on the tier
There’s a dead man walking
I said, “Quiet on the tier
There’s a dead man walking!”
One hand on the trigger and the other on the switch
If one of ‘em is innocent I can’t say which

Last night I dreamed I seen my Mother
She was standing in the kitchen staring out at the yard
She had her hands on her hips and her eyes on the garden
Like it’d sprout me a pardon if she prayed real hard
It was a July morning, church bells a-ringing
Hard oak pews and my Sunday best
Now I’m sitting here waiting on the angel band
In my last suit of clothes with a strap across my chest

Quiet on the tier
There’s a dead man walking
I said, “Quiet on the tier
There’s a dead man walking!”
From their very first step to the last of their lives
They’ll pay more to kill him than to see he survives

©1994 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Calgary, AB 1993
From Doing Our Job (RR0411)

Leviathan
music by John McCutcheon
arrangement by Bob Read

John: hammer dulcimer
Bobby Read: clarinets & synthesizers

My friends, Cliff & Chere Periera took me on a whale watch a few years back out on the Oregon coast. This piece came out of that afternoon.

©1987 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP).
Newport to Portland, OR 1986.
From What It’s Like (RR0271)

The Principle
words & music by John McCutcheon & Si Kahn

John: vocal and guitar
Bobby Read: clarinet
Pete Kennedy: mandolin
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums
JT Brown: bass

We wanted to have us a school fair
The kind that they have almost anywhere
I was elected to talk to the principal
To see what she would say
"That's a fine idea, but please understand
"It takes experience and people and a good plan
"I just don't see how we can manage now
"Thanks for visiting have a nice day"

I went back to the class and I let 'em know
That the principal had quite politely told us no
So Jesse and I gave it one more try
And decided we'd go see her as a pair
When we got to the office she said, "Fine
"I'll meet with each of you, one at a time"
I looked at Jesse with a grin, he looked at me I looked at him
And then together we decided what was fair

Chorus

We said, "Thank you, no
"We don't think so
"We came here together as a team"
And what one can't do
We'll try as two
Then we're not quite as lonely as we seem

Well, she still said no and when we got back
The whole class decided on a different track
We talked to all the rooms and grade, all the teachers and the aides
All the cooks and janitors were on our side
So when the whole school gathered on the front lawn
And the principal saw what was going on
She said, "I will agree to meet a group of three
"To discuss this matter, now, please, come inside

We said, "Thank you, no
"We don't think so
"We came here together as a team"
And what one can't do
We'll try as two
And when two can't score
We'll try again with more
Then we're not quite as lonely as we seem

Then she said, "Oh, oh
"I just didn't know
"We'll have the best school fair you've ever seen!"
And what one can't do
We'll try as two
And when two can't score
We'll try again with more
And if we all act as one
You'd be surprised what can be done
Then we're not quite as lonely as we seem

©1993 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) and Joe Hill Music (ASCAP).
Charlottesville, VA 1993
From Bigger Than Yourself (RR8044)

The Room at the Top of the Stair
Words & music by John McCutcheon

John: vocal
Jon Carroll: piano

For Will

There’s a room in our house
At the top of the stair
It was empty at first
But we knew you’d be there
The dog got excited
The day that you came
I guess he thought you smelled weird
And I thought the same
But the cries and the changing
That came every night
Were changing me too
‘Til I thought that I might
Just stand in the doorway
For hours and stare
In that room at the top of the stair

There’s a room in our house
At the top of the stair
It was all yours for years
Then you had to share
Your calm world was burst
By this loud, little kid
Who mimicked and learned
Everything that you did
The games and adventures
The books and the plays
The hours of fantasy
Went on for days
And I watched in amazement
This most unlikely pair
In that room at the top of the stair

There’s a room in our house
At the top of the stair
One night it was empty
We called everywhere
All those demons and dangers
That lurk in your hearts
Slipped in through the door
And tore us apart
‘Til we found you at last
In another boy’s home
Safe and asleep
And forgetting to phone
And I lay awake lost
In a pure, grateful prayer
In that room at the top of the stair

There’s a room in our house
At the top of the stair
Where the door is shut tight
And the stereo blares
Your mother is worried
About your young ears
No one has seen
Your carpet in years
And the hole in the wall
That you made with your fist
When the anger of aging
Was too hard to resist
But the long light of love
Cast its shadow in there
In the room at the top of the stair

There’s a room in our house
At the top of the stair
Now the bed has clean sheets
And the floors are all bare
A presentable place
When folks come to stay
Your brother and you
Boxed and moved you away
To a duplex apartment
Just across town
Now I sit on the bed
As the memories rain down
There’s a hole in my heart
Where you’ll always be there
In that room at the top of the stair

(Additional Verse)

There's a room in our house
At the top of the stair
I came home one day
And you'd moved back in there
The company you work for
Went right down the tank
And it seems that you have
No more cash in the bank
You asked if you could
And I said, "That'd be great!"
You said, "Just for two months"
But I'll bet that it's eight
Now the icebox is empty
And your crap's everywhere
In that room at the top of the stair

©2001 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA January 2001
Produced by John McCutcheon & Bob Dawson
Engineered by Bob Dawson at Bias Studios, Springfield, VA
Mastered by Charlie Pilzer at Air Show, Springfield, VA

Jericho
words & music by John McCutcheon

John: guitar, didgeridoo and vocal
JT Brown: bass
TJ Johnson: mandolin
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums and percussion

Written on the 40th Anniversary of Rosa Parks’ action

Young woman standing at a bus stop
Down on River Drive
It was the 1st day of December
1955
She steps on board hands the driver a dime
Says, “Lord, these tired feet!”
Looks the future right in the eye
And sits down in the very first seat

From Maple down to South Fourteenth
It’s the sound of tired feet
Walking one more hungry mile
Waiting just to take a seat
It’s first one step and then another
Don’t you hear that glorious sound
It feels just like the city of Jericho
And the walls come a-tumblin’ down

February came in cold in ‘37
The worst they’d seen in years
Down at Fisher No. 1
It was engine blocks and gears
They checked the foreman, they checked the clock
They checked the lock on the door
They looked each other straight in the eye
And then sat down on the floor

From Austin down to West Decatur
It’s the sound of tired feet
Walking one more hungry mile
Waiting just to take a seat
It’s first one step and then another
Don’t you hear that glorious sound
It feels just like the city of Jericho
And the walls come a-tumblin’ down

Young woman lying in the darkness
Down near the riverbed
Clouds come cover up the moon
She sees the borderline just ahead
She takes one step forward and one step back
Her body is numb with fright
Looks down at the child in her arms
And runs out into the night

From El Paso down to Tijuana
It’s the sound of tired feet
Walking one more hungry mile
Waiting just to take a seat
It’s first one step and then another
Don’t you hear that glorious sound
It feels just like the city of Jericho
And the walls come a-tumblin’ down

Young woman standing at a bus stop
The sun is sinking low
The stories lost to memory
From forty years ago
Still it’s one step forward and one step back
Those debts so dearly bought
She steps on board, hands the driver a dollar
And sits down without a thought

From Montgomery to Cape Town
It’s the sound of tired feet
Walking one more hungry mile
Waiting just to take a seat
It’s first one step and then another
Don’t you hear that glorious sound
It feels just like the city of Jericho
And the walls come a-tumblin’ down

St. Louis and Kansas City, MO, December 1995
©1999 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
from Storied Ground (RR0467)

Snow in April
words & music by John McCutcheon and Si Kahn

John: vocal
Michael Aharon: piano
Scott Ambush: bass
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums
John D’earth: trumpet

When it snows in April
Everythings turns white
Flowers poking through the snow
On a warm and moonlight night

When it snows in April
All the earth’s surprised
The lamb lays down w/the lion
Right before our eyes

Let the stars set early
Let the sun shine strong
All the flowers tremble
If the snow stays too long

Small birds fly for cover
Squirrels hover in the nest
The spring that came to us so early
Takes a midnight rest

Let the stars set early
Let the sun shine strong
All the flowers tremble
If the snow stays too long

When it snows in April
All the earth’s surprised
The lamb lays down w/the lion
Right before our eyes

©1998 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) & Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
Washington, DC, 1997.
From Springsongs (RR8039)

The Memory of Old Jack
words & music by John McCutcheon & Si Kahn

John: vocal, guitar & autoharp
Michael Aharon: piano and organ
Pete Kennedy: electric guitar
Bobby King: bass
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums
Kevin Davis: percussion
Maura Kennedy: harmony vocal
Jon Carroll & JT Brown: harmony vocals

Inspired by the novel, The Memory of Old Jack, by one of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry.

Old Jack Beachum played it close to the chest
No, he never gave away his hand
Born and worked his ninety-two
On that sorry little piece of land
Now he sits all day at the Grand Hotel
With the sun full in his face
But the memory of Old Jack
Still lives in a better place

Some stay home and they never go far
Some go out and they never come back
Some can travel wherever they are
Close their eyes and live inside
The memory of Old Jack

The year was 1917
On a wagon driving into town
On the walk in front of the millinery shop
Is where my heart came a-tumbling down
Now I was a man of hard work
But she was a woman of means
And love can never last forever
When it’s pulled between two different dreams

I saw the young men go off to war
Come home and go back again
The motor overtook the mule
Though I can’t remember when
The barn burned down in ‘34
I lost a real good team inside
But when Sally got married and moved to town
That’s when a whole great big piece of me died

The days grow short and the eyes grow dim
The what-if’s and the might-have-been’s
The steps get slow and the times get fast
I seek my comfort in the past

The neighbors and the children
The hard times and the pain
Come gather all around me
And cool me like the rain
They each can take their own sweet time
And each one has its place
They dance like dry leaves in the wind
With the sun full in my face

©1995 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) and Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA and Port William, KY.
From Nothing to Lose (RR0358)

Happy Adoption Day
words & music by John McCutcheon

John: autoharp & vocal
Bobby Read: piano & organ
Pete Kennedy: guitar
Dennis Esapantman: bass
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums
Martha Sandefer: harmony vocal

Little, Brown published Happy Adoption Day in 1997 as a children’s picture book with illustrations by Julie Paschkis.

Oh, who would have guessed, who could have seen
Who could have possibly known
All these roads we have traveled, the places we've been
Would have finally taken us home

Chorus:

So here's to you, three cheers to you
Let's shout it, "Hip, hip, hip, hooray!"
For, out of a world so tattered and torn,
You came to our house on that wonderful morn
And all of a sudden this family was born
Oh, happy Adoption Day!

There are those who think families happen by chance
A mystery their whole life through
But we had a voice and we had a choice
We were working and waiting for you

Chorus

No matter the name and no matter the age
No matter how you came to be
No matter the skin, we are all of us kin
We are all of us one family

Chorus

©1992 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA 1991.
from Family Garden (Rounder 8026)

Soup
words & music by John McCutcheon & Si Kahn

John: vocal and guitar
Michael Aharon: organ and synthesizer
Pete Kennedy: electric guitar
Bobby King: bass
Robert “Jos” Jospe: drums
Kevin Davis: percussion
Jon Carroll & JT Brown: harmony vocals

Get off the bus and I can see my breath
Air’s so cold that you could freeze to death
I turn up my collar and the wind starts to blowing
Sky turns gray and it starts to snowing
I put down my head, it’s only two blocks more
Make it to my house and the I open the door

It smells like winter at our house
Smells like winter at our house
Smells like winter at our house
Smells like soup

When my Dad was a kid in my Grandma’s home
She taught him how to start with an old soup bone
You put the onions, carrots, celery, and water in the pot
It only takes a little of whatever you’ve got
“There ain’t no way to hurry it,” my Grandma would remind
“Anything worth waiting for is gonna take time”

All day I hear it simmering in the pot
Sneak up to the lid, be careful it’s hot
Lift up the corner and I take a little sniff
Close my eyes and take a great big whiff
Go and get a tablespoon, to steal a little taste
I got a big soup smile all over my face

Bean soup, chicken soup with macaroni
Cream of broccoli, minestrone
Potato soup, tomato soup, chowder made of clam
Miso soup, mushroom soup, split pea with ham
Bouillon, scallion, tom kha ghai with lemongrass
Matzoth ball, chilibean, cream of asparagus

So it doesn’t even matter if the cold winds blow
If the rivers freeze and there’s three feet of snow
From my Dad and my Grandma it’s what I got
The put a whole lotta love in that old black pot
In my mind I see a little boy, a distant winter day
He’s standing at the door and I can hear him say

©1995 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) & Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA 1995.
From Wintersongs (RR8038)

Closing the Bookstore Down
words & music by John McCutcheon

John: vocal
Art Wheeler: piano
JT Brown: bass

For my friends Mike and Jill Williams and for my town

I remember the night and the old wood floor
Dust on the shelves and a bell on the door
We were shoulder to shoulder, you couldn’t fit more
We held our breath as one
Her voice rang out in righteous rage
As her poetry leapt off the page
Like a herald from another age
But now those days are done

We’re taking a giant step into the future
And turning into a thousand other towns
I heard today the news that they are
Closing the bookstore down

It’s a smile and a wave and a “take your time!”
We got just one way, we got just one line
And the till can’t ring past 9.99
The time and the telling shows
We might not have everything that you want
You can’t get a latte or croissant
We’re a bookstore, not a restaurant
And we’ve got enough of them, God knows

We’re taking a giant step into the future
And turning into a thousand other towns
I heard today the news that they are
Closing the bookstore down

Some big concern comes in and yanks
Our jobs, our shops, our hometown banks
Then they expect our grateful thanks
It happens everyday
I guess I just prefer to see
Success serve our community
Not some wealthy VIP
Who lives a thousand miles away

So, take a minute and look around
There are corner shops in every town
Squeezed and pushed and hunkered down
And battered by the blows
No, they might not be shiny or bright or new
But they’re run by folks like me and you
Now, I can’t tell you want to do
But me?…I’m gonna shop in those

So give me slow food and a hometown team
Spencer’s, Bodo’s, Chap’s Ice Cream
Gleason Hardware and that corner store
With dust on the shelves and a bell on the door
I swear I’d love to hear that sound once more
Since they closed the bookstore down

©1999 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA, May 1998
from Storied Ground (RR0467)

Meteors
words & music by John McCutcheon & Si Kahn
The Perseid
music by John McCutcheon

John: vocal, guitars, & hammer dulcimers
Michael Aharon: piano
Bobby King: bass
Seamus Egan: whistle, flutes, uilleann pipes, bodhran

Written about watching the Perseid meteor shower every August.

On the night when the stars come down
We camp there in the meadow
Far away from the lights of town
Beneath the mountain's shadow

Chorus

The sky is alive on a mid-summer night
Before the moon comes rising
Stars will dance with their ribbons of light
Stretching to the far horizon

Silent in a field of grass
We lie so still for hours
The August sky is shooting past
And night comes down in showers

Chorus

Bridge

Far away the ships at sea
Plot their lonely courses
Looking homeward just like me
To heaven's star-lit forces

Once a year in the midnight dark
We watch the stars a-fallin'
We see the sky all streaked with sparks
And we hear the heavens callin'

Chorus

©1994 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) & Si Kahn/Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
Charlottesville, VA 1994.
From Summersongs (RR8036)

Starlight
words & music by John McCutcheon

John: vocal & guitar
Tom Chapin: harmony vocal & electric guitar
Bobby Read: harmony vocal & piano
Michael Mark: harmony vocal & bass

Written for my mother-in-law, Rosemary Monagan, on her 70th birthday.

When the sky was new and the night was endless
And the world and we were young
The old ones strung the stars into stories
And a tale took every tongue
“See the North Star and the Great Bear
There's Orion, the hunter, on the horizon over there
Every once in a while he lets fly an arrow
And in the darkness some lost star is hurled” And they sang...

Chorus

Starlight, star bright
First star that I see tonight
I wish I may I wish I might
Have my dreams come true (repeat)

Out on the sea, with her sails a-billow,
A ship plows a lonely line
Out on the foredeck the eye of a sailor
Searches the heavens for a sign
"If I sight true and I sail right
“Keep the Cross on my shoulder and Polaris in sight
“We'll be safe in the harbor tomorrow night!"
The moon, like a beacon, does shine

Chorus

And so, tonight, like some homesick sailor,
We too search the heavens for a sign
And, like my mother's own mother, I trace out the stories
To this young voyageur at my side
And we reach out and we dream long
We tell our tales, we sing our songs
And, like ancient stargazers, we travel along
On this midnight mystery ride

Chorus

And it's one world and one sky
We get one time we get one try
And each generation it’s the same question, "Why?"

Chorus

©1996 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)
Moscow, USSR & Bethany Beach, DE 1991-96
From Doing Our Job (RR0411)