Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Malvina Reynolds's performing her classic Little Boxes.
CD Review
The Folk Hits: The Golden Age Of American Popular Music, Ace Records, 2008
I have reviewed in this space more folk revival of the 1960s music that one could shake a stick at. I have gone through the litany of folk artists from that period, male and female, one song Johnnies and Janies to enduring fixtures like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. I have reached down deep into the bag of tunes from earlier times (especially Harry Smith's anthological work) that formed their early play lists. I have also reached down into the Appalachian, Cajun, and Western traditions. In short, I have covered plenty of ground in the folk milieu of that period.
That said, I still adhere to a certain conception of the folk revival, at least as to my personal preferences. Those preferences weigh heavy on the side of protest songs, political songs, wanna-be political songs and songs of hard times and struggles. Oh sure, I had room for ballads and love songs, bitter and sweet, but the core of what got me interested in the first play, and drew me away for a time from 1950s-driven rock and roll was that politicized element. I was not alone.
The above is a kind of roundabout way of saying that while I heard much folk music, live in concerts and coffeehouses, on television (black and white in those days, for the most part), on the street corners and elsewhere I did not have a “big tent” conception of the folk revival. The folk compilation under review, needless to say, has just that conception behind it. Although I am no stranger to any of the songs in the compilation most of them struck me then, and still do today, as folk musak.
In that sense these songs, for the most part represented an attempt, a legitimate attempt, to reach a broader audience than those who hung around North Beach, Harvard Square and Washington Square. And the attempt might have succeeded except for the swamping of all this kind of music by the British invasion (mainly the Beatles and the Stones, but others as well) by 1964, or so. Then folk was left about where it stands today, for the aficionados. There are a few stick-outs here include a stirring (as always) rendition of We Shall Overcome (political) by Joan Baez, Johnny Cash’s cover of Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe (non-political) and Pete Seeger’s cover of Malvina Reynolds’ Little Boxes (somewhat political).
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Little Boxes
Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Malvina and her husband were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she was to sing at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Malvina, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs
---- The Malvina Reynolds Songbook
---- There's Music in the Air: Songs for the Middle-Young
CD Review
The Folk Hits: The Golden Age Of American Popular Music, Ace Records, 2008
I have reviewed in this space more folk revival of the 1960s music that one could shake a stick at. I have gone through the litany of folk artists from that period, male and female, one song Johnnies and Janies to enduring fixtures like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. I have reached down deep into the bag of tunes from earlier times (especially Harry Smith's anthological work) that formed their early play lists. I have also reached down into the Appalachian, Cajun, and Western traditions. In short, I have covered plenty of ground in the folk milieu of that period.
That said, I still adhere to a certain conception of the folk revival, at least as to my personal preferences. Those preferences weigh heavy on the side of protest songs, political songs, wanna-be political songs and songs of hard times and struggles. Oh sure, I had room for ballads and love songs, bitter and sweet, but the core of what got me interested in the first play, and drew me away for a time from 1950s-driven rock and roll was that politicized element. I was not alone.
The above is a kind of roundabout way of saying that while I heard much folk music, live in concerts and coffeehouses, on television (black and white in those days, for the most part), on the street corners and elsewhere I did not have a “big tent” conception of the folk revival. The folk compilation under review, needless to say, has just that conception behind it. Although I am no stranger to any of the songs in the compilation most of them struck me then, and still do today, as folk musak.
In that sense these songs, for the most part represented an attempt, a legitimate attempt, to reach a broader audience than those who hung around North Beach, Harvard Square and Washington Square. And the attempt might have succeeded except for the swamping of all this kind of music by the British invasion (mainly the Beatles and the Stones, but others as well) by 1964, or so. Then folk was left about where it stands today, for the aficionados. There are a few stick-outs here include a stirring (as always) rendition of We Shall Overcome (political) by Joan Baez, Johnny Cash’s cover of Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe (non-political) and Pete Seeger’s cover of Malvina Reynolds’ Little Boxes (somewhat political).
************
Little Boxes
Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Malvina and her husband were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she was to sing at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Malvina, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs
---- The Malvina Reynolds Songbook
---- There's Music in the Air: Songs for the Middle-Young
