A summertime side trip…

My car radio has a USB connection, and I have a couple of USB drives full of music.  Mostly they’re whole albums, but some of the albums are anthologies, so I’m never quite sure what old audio friend will show up.

Like the Ian Tyson classic Someday Soon, sung here by Suzy Bogguss:

When he comes to call
My pa ain’t got a good word to say
Guess it’s ’cause he was just as wild
In his younger days…

Or Shannon McNally’s Pale Moon (this isn’t the best audio, but it’s a live performance):

…I’m on the ground in N.Y.C.
the city of perpetual motion
the city that never sleeps
that’s all right, baby,
I wasn’t tired anyway…

Ian Tyson always reminds me of another Canadian icon.  Here’s Gordon Lightfoot singing about what was at that time the largest Great Lakes freighter.  (The video has news footage–the sideways launch of the Fitz from Great Lakes Steel, outside Detroit, on August 7, 1958. )

There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South American with one foot of water. (Wikipedia)

The dimming lights of the auto industry pain me–I grew up in Detroit (and not in a Detroit suburb).  When UAW president Walter Reuther died in a plane crash, they held the funeral in the Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium.  It was broadcast live, and included a performance of Joe Hill. This video isn’t from the funeral, but was the clearest version I could find.

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where workers strike and organize,
That’s where you’ll find Joe Hill,
it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill.