Si Kahn We’re Still Here

o measure the success of a folk e’re Still Here is a tribute to Tsongwriter, the usual pop yardsticks are useless, like using a level to measure Wthe persistence and resistance a river. Count Si Kahn’s career in Grammies, Billboard bullets, MTV of working people everywhere. videos, or wardrobe malfunctions, and you miss him entirely. Flying overhead is the spirit of the But by the unique, timeless, grassrootsy measures with which great folk songs great labor radical Mother Jones, have always been judged, it can be born Mary Harris in County Cork, argued that he is the most successful folk songwriter of his generation. This Ireland about 1836. is all the more remarkable, given that he is also among the most unrepentantly The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell radical political songwriters of his age. exposed working and living conditions in English mining villages in the 1930s. “Colliery” is British His songs have been recorded by over English for coal mine. The cable that lowers the 100 artists, including some of the most miners’ cage down into the shaft is powered by the respected voices in folk music today: “colliery wheel.” “Davey Lamps” are early miners’ June Tabor and the Oyster Band, Robin safety lamps. Coxey’s Army of unemployed workers, and Linda Williams, Dick Gaughan, having marched to Washington, DC from around John McCutcheon, Laurie Lewis, Irish the country, gathered on Capitol Hill on May singing legend Dolores Keane, and Day, 1894 to demand public works jobs. Celtic groups Planxty, the Fureys, and Patrick Street. In 1947, after Pete Seeger had finished a concert for the International Workers’ Order near Pittsburgh, But the real impact his songs have Andrew Kovaly sang him He Lies in the American had since he started writing them Land, which he had written in Slovak. Seeger created around 1970 is impossible to estimate, the English version. The Hebrew of the last verse, because they have had such vibrant which I added, comes from the opening of the lives beyond his or the music industry’s Kaddish, the Jewish prayer which among other view. His best songs, such as Aragon uses is chanted to remember and honor the dead.

Hard Times (E=D/2) Traveler (C=D tuned down two steps) for Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich It’s hard times in Washington Hard times in Tennessee The flowers on the mountainside Hard times for everyone Have spread their purple stain Hard times for you and me The wind comes from the borderlands It’s hard times in the public places And brings the evening rain Hard times in the factories Oh traveler won’t you rest a while Hard times on the corporate farms Lay down lay down your load Hard times on the company seas The longer that the journey takes Hard times The further down the road It’s hard times Come rest yourself by springs that lie It’s hard to watch it all go down Among the trees and ferns Drowning like the setting sun For sure the road is hard to climb Hard to watch our freedoms taken With bends and twists and turns Hard to lose what we had won What dangers lie beyond the hills It’s hard to watch the towers tumble There’s none of us may know Hard to watch the struggling town The longer that the journey takes Hard to watch the bastards smile The further down the road While they tear the Constitution down Hard times But you have given the finest gift It’s hard times That traveler ever found To see the road you’re traveling on But it’s hardly time to take a seat And know where you are bound Hardly time to lose your voice Come meet me at the turning place Hardly fair to just complain Together we will go As if we never had a choice The longer that the journey takes For we are born to work and choose The further down the road We are born to rip and mend We are born to win and lose The Flume We are born to lose…and win (E=D/2) Hard times Momma remembered It’s hard times When she was young Hard times How her Daddy’d get up It’s our time ‘Fore the rising sun

Mill, Gone, Gonna Rise Again, and Wild Up in the wagon Rose of the Mountain, have been sung Off he’d go in Dutch and Welsh and Swedish, con- Chasing the sunrise verted to suit local circumstances to such Down that water road an extent that they are now believed to Lord, Lord, down the road be part of local traditional repertoires. Lord, Lord, down the road Lord, Lord, down the road The far vistas of his work’s reach can Lord, Lord, down the road be glimpsed in echoes that come back from places his songs have traveled. Up Reddies River There’s trees so tall Such a prolific populist songwriter No company on earth might be expected to have earned Could ever cut ‘em all some of the plaudits Kahn has, from Straight heart poplar Pete Seeger, Sing Out! magazine, the By the wagon load New York Times, Boston Globe, and To float down to town Washington Post. But when your press On that water road kit also includes praise from Jesse Long about midnight Jackson, Studs Terkel, Nat Hentoff, The sun gone down and the late senator Paul Wellstone, They’d load up the flume there’s something else going on. For the run to town Step on a board Folk songs are prized today, as they Grab a steady hold always have been, for their authenticity. Riding on home But that does not just mean adherence Down that water road to traditional styles of playing and The sawmills, the axes singing. In the busy fields of the con- The oxen teams temporary songwriter, a new meaning Iron boilers building up of authentic has emerged. Is the song A head of steam true to the lives it depicts; does it come Wagons and drivers pure and unfiltered from real people’s Who’d have ever known experience? In short, is it honest? They would all wash away Down that water road

Mother Jones’ Farewell to Ireland (Bb=G/3) We’re Still Here (E=D/2) My mother’s life led from the house to the church Evening hangs like smoke To pray and to raise up a family On this mill town that I love But here in this country I worked on my own My thoughts they roll and tumble For I had left Ireland behind me Through the years Yes, I had left Ireland behind me My heart drifts through the haze Back to Youngstown’s better days One night after work at the union hall dance The mills have gone away I noticed a man from the foundry But we’re still here A fiery young rebel no priest would approve But I had left Ireland behind me We’re still here Yes, I had left Ireland behind me We’re still here The mills have gone away He turned in his seat But we’re still here And he gave me a glance With our neighbors and our kin Saying, “Sure, Mary Harris Right here where we’ve always been You’ll give us a dance” The mills have gone away I looked at him once But we’re still here And I never looked back Looking down the street As we waltzed away down the river To the days when I was young Through that long night I never once thought I can see my friends and neighbors Of the mother who raised me so gently Strong and clear For the heat of the foundry burned deep in his eyes People came from far away And I had left Ireland behind me Lived their lives from day to day Yes, I had left Ireland behind me Through the good times and the hard times We’re still here Dreaming down the days ‘Til time circles home When our children face The future’s hope and fear Nothing went the way it should But we did the best we could When the whistle blows for courage We’re still here

Kahn has never worked as a full time Silk and Satin (F=G tuned down two steps) musician. His songs are so credible No school this morning because he knows and works with the The whistle’s blowing very people who people his songs. Children by two’s and three’s He has worked as a grassroots organizer Tumble down the hill Out of their childhood in the South since the 1960s. Since Into the world for good 1980, he has been executive director of Out of the schoolyard Grassroots Leadership, a multiracial Into the mill team of activists who do civil rights, Silk and satin labor, and community organizing. No time for dreaming “I have the working life of an organizer,” The dawn is breaking he says. “I spend my life with people, The 12-hour shift starts soon in meetings, developing strategy, and Ribbon and lace Go take your place trying to figure out how to make that Within the shadows of this spinning room strategy move. What do organizers do? We listen to people, we ask questions, we Dressed in her mother’s shirt talk with people; those are the requisite Too small to reach her work Worn as the wooden box skills. And they’re also the requisite skills On which she stands of a songwriter.” Torn from her books and games The visceral realism that makes Kahn’s She stares at her spinning frame political songs so convincing is every- The threads of childish laughter Break in her hands where on this CD. He never knew labor legend Mother Jones, of course, Seasons don’t shift in here but he knows the bittersweet heart Smog doesn’t lift in here of the lifelong activist, the mingling Snow doesn’t drift in here When the nights turn cold memories of victory and loss, of moving Wind doesn’t blow in here people’s lives forward but never seeing Rivers don’t flow in here even the horizon of struggle’s end. Children don’t grow in here They just get old

The Gap ($8,825 an Hour) (D) You cut 500 jobs And you say that you’re being a leader Here I am spending my life Me and my friends on the floor Down among the kielbasa Think it’s old-fashioned greed Making your lunch meat We can do the right thing Hot spicy sausage and dogs And hire them all back tomorrow You can count what I make If we get cut back on you That’s the reason they call it production We’ll have all the payroll we need So how come it’s you That’s living so high on the hog We Roll the Steel (D) Sometimes I wonder From the fields of Lithuania What CEOs do in an hour To the high Italian hills When I see your picture We have sailed across the rolling sea You’re talking away on the phone To work these rolling mills Shaking some hand We have left our farms and villages Or jetting away to a meeting Our cities and our towns You’re sure not down here To roll the steel On the floor with the gristle and bone That makes the world roll ‘round You make eight thousand eight hundred We hold a hundred histories Twenty five dollars an hour We speak a dozen tongues Seventy thousand and six hundred dollars a day In our hearts the friends we left behind That’s more than ten million a year Have stayed forever young I just can’t see it from here We are children men and women We are black and white and brown What let’s you deserve to be We roll the steel Making a killing this way That makes the world roll ‘round Sometimes I dream We have dreamed about the slavery ships I’m sitting up there in your office That anchored by the shore You’re working here on the floor Come to steal our souls from Africa For the rest of your life For the mills of Baltimore It’s real work down here Strangers in a distant field But I know in my heart you can do it Our feet on foreign ground The way you cut jobs We roll the steel You’ve got to be good with a knife That makes the world roll ‘round

So he takes heart from the struggle From Fridays at O’Connor’s Bar itself. In a wise, mature love song To the fights at Finnish Hall to his partner, feminist philosopher We have struggled for this union Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, he sings All for one and one for all of their shared activism: “The longer Like a bridge that’s made of steel that the journey takes/ The further down No storm should tear it down the road.” We roll the steel That makes the world roll ‘round As an organizer, he also knows how much more powerful a tool hope is Cam Ranh Bay (F=G tuned down two steps) than anger. He laments our country’s Walking through the grass growing economic inequality in Night too dark to travel Hard Times, but his anger morphs Rifle in my hands into something else as the recurring Following the track phrase “hard times” suddenly becomes 17 years old the more active “hardly time:” “But it’s Scared to death of dying hardly time to take a seat/ Hardly time But there ain’t, but there ain’t to lose your voice.” No turning back “When I am painting a world I’d like Going down the road to see,” Kahn says, “it’s rooted in the Road too dark to travel world we have. When you organize, Down that road again No matter what they say you learn not to offer anything to Going down that road people that they think is out of reach. Straight into the darkness That’s why I want my heroes to be Going back, going back human, to be accessible. I want them To Cam Ranh Bay to be people about whom other people say, ‘Actually, I could do that.’” Another way Kahn wears the mantle of a classic folk songwriter is how he chronicles the lives and times of those who came before him. He says, just as

Sergeant back at Bragg Wigan Pier (G) Clapped us on the shoulder “You’re leaving here as boys The mines are closed in the northwest country Coming home men” Time like the colliery wheel stands still Body made it back Children at play where the work once called us Soul got left behind me The work is gone but we’re still here She won’t come, she won’t come Living on the road to Wigan Pier To me again Memory settles like early evening Friends all say my son Light like the Davey Lamps all gone down Looks just like his father Colliery theme parks and miners’ statues Rifle in his hands Are all the proof that we were here Swelled up with pride Living on the road to Wigan Pier Say he’ll be like me Who will stand and who remember Too lucky to get wounded Who still hears that whistle blow But the wounds, but the wounds Who will wait beside the window Are all inside For the black-faced miner Lying in the grass Coming down the road Night too dark to travel Time marches on just like Coxey’s Army Sky lights up Were those the bad or the good old days? It’s the 4th of July We live in fear of the dream that failed us Lying on my back The dream is done but we’re still here Listening to the rockets Living on the road to Wigan Pier I break down, I break down And start to cry Woody Guthrie did, that he regards The Hunters (E=D/2) himself as a journalist and historian When the fields of November turn yellow and gold as much as musician. And the mountain lakes shine in the sun He wrote The Flume from a news- Fond memories return with the change of the year paper article about a 1915 flood, using Once again we’re in love – with our guns key words in the story to give the ballad Yes, the great white American hunters are back With their rifles all red white and blue a local authenticity. He was asked by They’ve been shooting each other for many long years the deputy sheriff where the flood But this year they’ll be shooting at you happened if he would sing it at an employee appreciation day. That’s Oh Senator Joe tell us where did you go what a real folk Grammy looks like. Take us back to the days of real men With their hand guns in hand “My songs are a history of a time, a place, Out stalking the land a set of struggles, perceptions, ideas,” he They’re going witch hunting again says. “I think you could take my body of Just like wolves on the prowl they travel in packs work, and within it find something of In their camouflage Brooks Brothers suits a documentary of the South over the last If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck 100 years: a chronicle of an extended but It’s probably legal to shoot very real community.” I used to go rambling all painted in red So I wouldn’t get shot for a deer Nowhere is his rare meld of realism But if you go wandering out in the woods and humanism more on display than You’re safer in pin stripes this year in the way he writes about the ravages A Time for Us All (G/5) of war, in which everyone is a casualty. for Stewart Acuff and Mary Denham on their wedding Without commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the wars, he offers a There’s snow in the mountains hard-eyed confessional about a Vietnam Winter’s coming hard But there’s supper on the table veteran anguishing over what he knows And dogs in the yard his young son will experience going The season is keeping off to his own war in Iraq. Its refusal Its reason and rhyme to moralize makes the song even It’s all in the timing more powerful. And all in the time

I am ready, I am ready Rabbit Jim (Eb=C/3) There’s a time for us all I am ready, I am ready In the Pennsylvania mountains, near the Centre There’s a time for us all County line Was the place where I grew up to be a man You can shout out for justice Of all the friends I knew the one I remember best Stand all alone Was the strangest man that’s ever been my friend But the power is greatest He lived by himself in a shack on the edge of town When you stand with your own And the “good folks” turned their noses up at him For there’s strength to sustain us But he could outrun any hound dog in those In all that we do Pennsylvania hills When we raise our expectations I guess that’s why we called him Rabbit Jim To the power of two Poppa said, “He ain’t your kind of people” You can work every issue But I knew that he was gentle and so kind Take every stand Do you still race the hounds along the mountain But morning is brighter Rabbit Jim, you good old friend of mine When you live hand in hand He wasn’t educated, never been to school You can make every meeting I guess he couldn’t even sign his name Speak every part But he could read the woods the way you’d read But evening is sweeter the county news When you walk heart to heart Or sniff the wind and smell the coming rain So read through the contract He taught me everything that he’d learned so long ago Sign on the line When he was young and traveling far and wide For this is the season He never had no money, never had a job And now is the time Just did the things that kept him satisfied To join in this union It’s 40 years ago since I crossed that county line Though the numbers are small Looking for a place to call my own When love’s on the table But when the wind is cold and blowing from the north It’s the finest of all I think of all the good friends I have known Some folks go to college, some folks go to war Some folks don’t go any place but home Rabbit Jim just kept walking the trails along the ridge ‘Til time had turned his footsteps into stone

Another classic measure for folk songs He Lies in the American Land is how well they travel, not just on CDs (Andrew Kovaly/Pete Seeger) but on people’s lips and in their lives. Ah, my God! What is this land of America? By this measure, it is hard to think of So many people traveling there a modern folk songwriter who can I will go too, for I am still young match Kahn. People who have never God, the Lord will grant me good luck there heard the name Si Kahn not only You, my wife, stay here ‘til you hear from me sing his songs, but feel that they own When you get my letter, put everything in order them as much as they own their own Mount a raven-black steed, a horse like the wind family history. Fly across the ocean to join me here As Kahn puts it with a chuckle, “I guess Ah, but when she arrived in this strange land the highest compliment for any folk song- Here in McKeesport, this valley of fire writer is when you have to get your Only his grave, his blood, his blood did she find publishing company to tell people your Over it bitterly she cried songs are not in the public domain.” Ah, ah, ah, my husband, what have you done to this family of yours? He got a call once from a young blue- What can you say to these children, these grass musician asking nervously if he children you’ve orphaned? had ever written a song called Weave Tell them, my wife, not to wait, not to wait, and Spin. When Kahn said he was not to wait for me probably referring to Aragon Mill, Tell them I lie here, in the American land the young bluegrasser glumly confessed his band had learned the song at a festival picking party and recorded it, believing it to be traditional. Was he going to sue them? No, said Si, but he sure would love to hear it, and see his name on the next pressing. He’s used to this, and takes it as the compliment it really is.

Momma Was a Union Woman (Bb=G/3) The Whiskey Ring and the Railroad Trust (E minor) Wake up, Sally, don’t you sleep so late If living was a thing that money could buy Don’t you sleep so long The rich would live and the poor would die Daddy just went off to work Ashes to ashes and dust to dust Momma soon be home With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust Don’t you see that old sun shining Let the rich man live and the poor man bust Climbing up the hill With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust Can’t you hear that whistle whining Home from the mill Are you loyal to the Constitution Are you looking for a contribution Momma was a union woman Here’s a little present from the boys in the back Tried to raise us right From the river of whiskey and the solid gold track Momma was a union woman Hoot owl shift each night Let’s have a hand for the railroad track Momma was a union woman Let’s have a hand for the boys in back Two hard working hands Ashes to ashes and dust to dust She raised up a union woman With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust And a union man Let the rich man live and the poor man bust With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust Do you remember hard times, Sally Just before the war Are you praying for the Resurrection Seemed the world was out on strike Are you running in the next election In 1934 Here’s a little something you can use as you choose Momma on the back of a pickup truck From the solid gold engine and the river of booze Shouting to the crowd Where’d that woman get the strength Hand on your shoulder means a man you can trust Wish I had it now Hand in your pocket means the railroad trust Ashes to ashes and dust to dust Sally, what would Momma do With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust If she was here today Let the rich man live and the poor man bust By God I know she’d never stand With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust To see us done this way The way she taught us how to fight Are you of a pure and lofty nature I never will forget Do you make a bundle from the legislature She’s with us on this picket line Here’s some provisions for the campaign trail Walking with us yet From the bottles of bourbon and the silvery rail

Because the ways his songs travel strike Pickles and glue and any only thing at the most crucial measure for any folk Let’s have a hand for the whiskey ring song: Is it of any use to people? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust “The moments that mean the most to me,” Let the rich man live and the poor man bust he says, “are when somebody says they sang With the arms trade ring and the oil trust my songs when they got married, buried Let the rich man live and the poor man bust a grandparent, welcomed the birth of a With the whiskey ring and the railroad trust child, or marked some other important Note: Lines in italics are taken from traditional songs transition. That’s how I want to be used as a songwriter.” When the War Is Done (G) So many times in history “Part of how I, as an organizer, show up We’ve watched them march away in the songs is that I want people to sing Some cry out for victory them together. I study traditional folk Some just stand and pray structure for that, the simplicity of the For this father’s daughter For this mother’s son words, the repetition, the predictability What will happen to the rest of us of melody, choruses that are accessible When the war is done to everybody.” What will happen to the rest of us When the war is over A few years ago, Kahn, who is now What will happen to the rest of us 60, began to archive and catalog his When the war is done lifetime of songs. As a result, he sees Some are quick to honor them now more as a cogent body of Some are quick to blame work than a piecemeal repertoire. Few can face the truth That this all happens in our name “Through all my songs,” he says, “I see Before the first shot’s fired an almost ferocious belief that almost Our battle has begun What will happen to the rest of us everybody can do something that makes When the war is done a difference. And I do think I’ve main- Those who fight the battles tained my beliefs.” Are not those who make the laws But bravery is still bravery His voice slows as he says this, knowing Even in an unjust cause what a big thing it is for a lifelong From the hand that signs the order To the hand that fires the gun Para la libertad estamos marchando What will happen to the rest of us Estamos luchando When the war is done Estamos esperando Some lie solitary Estamos cantando.... Beneath a hero’s stone Some return to loved ones Viva, viva, viva la huelga But will always be alone Viva la huelga y la libertad Something sacred will be lost Viva, viva, viva la huelga Even when the war is won Viva la huelga y la libertad What will happen to the rest of us When the war is done Translation: We are marching, fighting, hoping, singing for freedom. Long live the strike, long live freedom. La Libertad (F=D/3) Mother Jones’ Farewell (I Was There) (G) Para la libertad estamos marchando Para la libertad, la libertad I have been a radical Para la libertad estamos marchando For fifty years and more Para la libertad, la libertad Stood against the rich and greedy Viva, viva, viva la huelga For the workers and the poor Viva la huelga y la libertad From Canada to Mexico Viva, viva, viva la huelga I traveled everywhere Viva la huelga y la libertad Wherever trouble called me Para la libertad estamos luchando I was there Para la libertad, la libertad Like stitches in a crazy quilt Para la libertad estamos luchando That women piece and sew Para la libertad, la libertad Wherever there was suffering Para la libertad estamos esperando I was bound to go Para la libertad, la libertad With angry words for cowardice Para la libertad estamos esperando Comfort for despair Para la libertad, la libertad Whenever help was needed I was there Para la libertad estamos cantando Para la libertad, la libertad I was there in the depressions Para la libertad estamos cantando When times were at their worst Para la libertad, la libertad But we had them where we wanted Like a dam about to burst

activist to say. Could it be true? Could With fire in our bellies he have seen the fights he’s seen – the Revolution in the air horrible losses and fleeting victories, the For a moment we saw clearly trampling of humble lives asking only I was there for the most basic social decencies – and There were times I saw the issues still have maintained his core belief In quite a different light in justice and democracy? And old friends turned against me But I never left the fight Can anyone have spent as much time When stones were in my passway in the sour underbelly of democracy And the road was far from clear as Kahn has, and still love it as sweetly Whether I chose right or wrongly as his songs do? The wonderful answer I was there is yes, because he has come to see On a day when hope goes hungry humankind’s long march upwards in And your dreams seem bound to fall the same long and honest way the You may see me at the mill great folk songs do. Or just outside the union hall When the clouds are empty promises “Activism is a way of life for me, and it’s The sky a dark despair been a very good way of life,” he says. Like an eagle from the mountain “I am interested in ordinary acts of I’ll be there courage and resistance. I believe that And you, my brave young comrades to the extent we make activism seem When the future sounds the call extraordinary and heroic, we discourage Will you be there for the battle rather than encourage people. I believe Will you answer, one and all with all my heart that the world is When the roll is called up yonder changed by millions of daily acts of When the roll’s called anywhere resistance, things that anyone is capable Will you stand and answer proudly of doing. You don’t have to absent yourself We’re still here from society to live a life for justice. You Can you stand and answer proudly I was there can have fun, make music, have relation- ships, have a family, live a good life.”

Si Kahn: guitar and lead vocals Liz Meyer: harmony vocals Joost van Es: fiddle Scott Ainslie:National resophonic guitar on Cam Ranh Bay and When the War is Done, second guitar on Hard Times

Produced by: Jesse M. Kahn and Pieter Groenveld

This album was recorded live in Holland at the SCR Studios in Rijsenhout, on February 13, 2004; at the Van Bommel Hoeve in Vlagtwedde, on February 15, 2004; and at Het Oude Raadhuis in Hoofddorp, on February 17, 2004.

Recorded by: SCR Productions, Hoofddorp, Holland Recording engineer: Pieter Groenveld

Mastered by: Mirasound, Amersfoort, Holland Mastering engineer: Jelke Haisma

Hard Times, Cam Ranh Bay and When the War Is Done recorded and mixed by Chris Garges, Jay Howard Studios, Charlotte, North Carolina, on January 11-12, 2003. Harmony vocals recorded by SCR Productions, Hoofddorp, Holland.

Design & photography by: Jesse M. Kahn, jessekahncreative.com

Special thanks to: Jesse M. Kahn, David Fernandes, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Pieter Groenveld, Liz Groenveld, Liz Meyer, Joost van Es, Scott Ainslie, Rienk Janssen, Ineke Baarslag, Bert and Marjan van Strien, Chris Garges, Josh Dunson, Scott Alarik, Dave Beckwith, Stephan Nathan, Alex Nathan, Carol Greenwald, and Dore Krauss.

Perhaps he can seem so sanguine Also available on Strictly Country Records: because his songs, like his organizing, Si Kahn SCR-33 have always lifted the lives of the people In My Heart - Live in Holland for whom he meant them. And he’s Gone Gonna Rise Again known that for a very long time. Over 30 years ago, they earned him Aragon Mill the supreme folk kudo, the measure Mississippi Summer of all measures, when he watched an Farewell to Ireland old, working-class couple listen to Gentle With Me Darling his first album. What You Do With What You’ve Got Halfway through it, the old factory Last Good War worker turned to his wife. In a voice The Senator choked with emotion, eyes welling with tears, he whispered, “It’s about Brookside Strike people like us.” He said it as if such a Luray Women thing were not possible – who were Children of Poland they to have their lives remembered What Will I Leave in song? And yet there was the proof, there were Si Kahn’s songs. Cold Frosty Morning Wild Rose of the Mountain “I never forgot that,” Kahn says quietly. “I have tried to honor people and their Rock Me, Roll Me lives in my songs. I don’t even think Molly in the Mill my satires are mean. But certainly in Curtains of Old Joe’s House terms of the dispossessed - by which I People Like You mean the 90 percent of us who have to Crossing the Border go to work every day, or wish that we could - I have tried to honor them in Welcome to the World everything I’ve written.” Detroit December Scott Alarik If I Live Cambridge, MA Lady of the Harbor 2004 In My Heart

Music and lyrics by Si Kahn, except He Lies in the American Land: Original Slovak words and music by Andrew Kovaly (early 20th century), transcribed by Jacob Evanson. English lyrics by Pete Seeger (1951).

All songs copyright and published by Joe Hill Music (ASCAP), except He Lies in the American Land copyright 1983, 1993 by Fall River Music, Inc. Si Kahn’s songs and Joe Hill Music are administered by: MCS America, Inc. 1625 Broadway, 4th Floor Nashville, Tennessee 37203 615-250-4600 (phone) 615-256-4699 (fax) [email protected] (email) www.mcsonline.com Persons wishing to record or otherwise use any of these songs should contact MCS America for licenses. International representation and booking: European booking: Josh Dunson Christine Wade Real Peoples Music ADASTRA 520 South Clinton 2 Star Row Oak Park, Illinois 60304 North Dalton 708-386-1252 (phone) East Yorkshire YO259UR, England [email protected] (email) 44-1377-217662 (phone) 44-1377-217754 (fax) [email protected] (email) Si Kahn is a member of AFM Local 1000, the North American Traveling Musicians Union; a lifetime member of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA); and a lifetime member of the Folk Alliance. Si Kahn’s music for adults and children is available at www.sikahn.com Si Kahn We’re Still Here 1. Hard Times ...... 2:31 2. Traveler ...... 2:46 3. The Flume (Down the Road)...... 3:29 4. Mother Jones’ Farewell To Ireland ...... 2:43 5. We’re Still Here ...... 3:06 6. Silk and Satin...... 3:11 7. The Gap ($8,825 An Hour) ...... 3:10 8. We Roll the Steel ...... 2:48 9. Cam Ranh Bay ...... 2:59 10. Wigan Pier ...... 3:04 11. The Hunters ...... 2:00 12. A Time For Us All...... 3:32 13. Rabbit Jim...... 3:32 14. He Lies in the American Land ...... 2:39 15. When the War Is Done ...... 2:23 16. Momma Was A Union Woman ...... 2:46 17. The Whiskey Ring and the Railroad Trust ...... 2:00 18. La Libertad ...... 3:09 Produced by Jesse M. Kahn and Pieter Groenveld 19. Mother Jones’ Farewell (I Was There) ...... 2:31 © + P 2004 Strictly Country Music. SCR-57