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PREFACE |
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If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman's arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, . . . thou great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne I Thou who, in all thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God!"
—from Moby Dick
At the crossings of many of the rivers on the cattle trails from Texas to M.ontana, there are little wind-blown graveyards—the resting place of cowboys drowned while swimming longhom cattle across swollen streams. Scratched on one leaning headstone is: "He done his damdest" |
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The function of this book is to let American folk singers have their say with the readers. Most of these singers are poor people, farmers, laborers, convicts, old-age pensioners, relief workers, housewives, wandering guitar pickers. These are the people who still sing the work songs, the cowboy songs, the sea songs, the lumberjack songs, the bad-man ballads, and other songs that have no occupation or special group to keep them alive. These are the people who are making new songs today. These are the people who go courting with their guitars, who make the music for their own dances, who make their own songs for their own religion. These are the story-tellers, because they are the people who are watching when things happen. These are the great laughers and the great liars, because they
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