Sunday, December 12, 2010

Richie Havens - Woodstock '69

Richie Havens is one of the long lost folk heroes of the 60s and 70s. After performing a 3 hour set at the Woodstock Music Festival when most of the performers were delayed in getting to the festival, Haven's popularity boomed and Havens had a moderately successful career going into the 70s. Reason for the large delay was that New York Highway 17 was completely closed down during the festival due to the large volume of people and cars coming to Yasgur's Farm in Bethel, New York. Here is the first song performed at the Woodstock Music Festival, "Handsome Johnny".




Hey, look yonder, tell me what's that you see
Marching to the fields of Concord?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a musket in his hand,
Marching to the Concord war, hey marching to the Concord war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Gettysburg?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a flintlock in his hand,
Marching to the Gettysburg war, hey marching to the Gettysburg war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what's that you see
Marching to the fields of Dunkirk?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a carbine in his hand,
Marching to the Dunkirk war, hey marching to the Dunkirk war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Korea?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with an M1 in his hand,
Marching to the Korean war, hey marching to the Korean war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Vietnam?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with an M15,
Marching to the Vietnam war, hey marching to the Vietnam war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Birmingham?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with his hand rolled in a fist,
Marching to the Birmingham war, hey marching to the Birmingham war.

Hey, it's a long hard road, it's a long hard road,
It's a long hard road, before we'll be free.

Hey, what's the use of singing this song, some of you are not even listening.
Tell me what it is we've got to do: wait for our fields to start glistening,
Wait for the bullets to start whistling.
Here comes a hydrogen bomb, here comes a guided missile,
Here comes a hydrogen bomb: I can almost hear its whistle.

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