Gypsies living on the South Side of Chicago: photo by Russell Lee, April 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Take off, take off your buckskin gloves
Made of Spanish leather;
Give to me your lily-white hand
And we'll ride home together
We'll ride home again.
No, I won't take off my buckskin gloves,
They're made of Spanish leather.
I'll go my way from day to day
And sing with the Gypsy Davy
That song of the Gypsy Davy.
from The Ballad of Gypsy Davy (traditional, as performed by Woody Guthrie, 1942)
Statement of Permission, releasing the Guthrie version of the traditional Scots ballad song "Gypsy Davy" into public domain, from Woody Guthrie to Library of Congress, 9 March 1942 (Archive of American Folksong, Music Division, Library of Congress)
A group of Gypsy children, on U.S. 13, five miles south of Salisbury, Maryland: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Gypsy girl, five miles south of Salisbury, Maryland: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
New York, New York. Gypsy woman entertaining on New Years' Eve in an Italian restaurant on Mulberry Street. New York, New York: photo by Marjory Collins, December 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Gypsy girl, on U.S. 13, five miles south of Salisbury, Maryland: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Gypsy children, on U.S. 13, five miles south of Salisbury, Maryland: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Father of a Gypsy family, living on U.S. 13, five miles south of Salisbury, Maryland. He works as a boiler man in town: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Woody Guthrie: The Ballad of Gypsy Davy (traditional Scots Border ballad, c. 1720), performed 1942
ReplyDeleteSandy Denny (with Fotheringay, 1970): Gypsy Davy
The Gypsy Davy: Childs Ballads #200, performed by eugeneukulele
Tom,
ReplyDeleteGreat to catch up here (been up to the mountains again w/ Johnny), saw those rail cut tracks up over Donner Pass (what a history there), the slow freight pulling up how many cars up to the summit, white of snow on peaks.
As Woody says, "Take it easy, but take it."
"Beat the axis"
Meanwhile, for a Dylan version of Gypsy Davey -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQhO-8kXrjU
2.20
grey whiteness of fog against invisible
top of ridge, sparrow standing on fence
in foreground, sound of wave in channel
tallest at left to shortest
at right, two objects
will appear, less dependent
on, nothing less than
grey white clouds reflected in channel,
shadowed green pine on tip of sandspit
Many thanks to Stephen for Bobby Zimmerman's cover of the timeless Gypsy ballad, which probably can be followed back into the mid-17th c. in such variant versions as "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy", "Black Jack Davy", etc.
ReplyDeleteIt seems there were many an absentee Lord and wooable lady, and for that matter more than enough Gypsies in the landscape, to take care of the wooing....
And speaking of variations upon the theme, many thanks to John Tranter for sending along his own terrific Down-Under version of Baudelaire's Gypsies:
Gypsies (after Baudelaire)
Late last night, a crowd of young people
milled around the nightclub door, smoking,
chattering, adjusting their clothes, then
spilled out into the neighbouring streets
and alleys, the girls arm in arm, sharing
obscure and youthful secrets, young men
laughing at some crude joke,
testing and nudging each other.
The constellations crank forward
a little, night moves on, clouds hurry by,
as they disperse among the shadows of the buildings
that remind you of the endless blocks of flats
in Singapore, or the mise en scène for «Alphaville»:
silent skyscrapers, foggy street lights,
someone reading a book of poetry.
Dawn finds them slowly coming together
again, on the edge of the suburbs where
the roads grow narrower and less interesting,
and funnel into one highway, a thrash of traffic,
leading out into the countryside: that
astonishing tract of weeds and polluted creek-beds,
riverbanks strewn with paper and plastic waste,
scrub and scratchy branches, and no animals.
Over the hills they find a farm or two
deep in bone-breaking debt, a quarry
where a truck half full of gravel
rusts by a pool of water. A rabbit
watches them pass from his burrow,
crows look down on them hungrily,
a pale moon rides the distant ridge,
and night, once more, begins to darken the land.
For all of these -- photos, words, music -- thank you. Curtis
ReplyDeleteCurtis,
ReplyDeleteThere's a wonderful Tony Gatlif film that features great Gypsy music. It's a must-see.
The French actor Romain Duris plays an outside-world observer of Romany World, here -- he's excellent too.
Some samples:
Gadja Dilo: Tutti Frutti
Gadja Dilo: graveyard scene