#82: A-pinin' to be human

Cañas de Pescar (Costanera Norte, Buenos Aires)

I’m glad to see one of my songs has made it onto a list over at the Guardian: Raw, romantic and radical: Joan Baez’s 20 greatest songs - ranked! Fishing came in at #18, between Gulf Winds and Barbara Allen. The latter takes me back to my first experience in front of a real audience in a real theater. It was a college performance of Dark of the Moon, by Howard Richardson and William Berney. I was the “balladeer” who between acts would go out alone to the edge of the stage to sing Barbara Allen, with the play’s version of the lyrics.

				            a witch boy from the mountain came
				            a-pinin’ to be human
				            for he had seen the fairest gal
				            a gal named Barbara Allen

A few years later, that verse provided the jumping off point for my first original song.

As for Gulf Winds, it shouldn’t need to be stated that the “gulf” in question is the Gulf of Mexico and not the Gulf of America. Except, amazingly, it does. And Denali is Denali. Fishing is, unfortunately, more relevant than ever. It’s written mostly from the point of view of an INS agent (ICE did not exist back then) as he tries to extract information from a Central American man held in detention. The official keeps digressing casually into observations about their respective biographies. The agent’s father used to take him fishing (for sport) in Ontario, while the human being on the opposite side of the table had worked as a commercial fisherman back in his home country. This is not chumminess on the part of the INS agent. It’s a cruel exercize of institutional power. Along the way there’s a threat to round up family members if he doesn’t talk. We don’t know what happens to him in the end, just as we have no idea what will happen to Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who is still languishing in a prison in El Salvador and whose deportation was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. The vote was 9-0.

Here’s Joan’s take on Fishing. As far as I’m concerned it’s definitive. I’m immensely grateful Joan chose to sing it.

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“Fishing”, from Gone From Danger (Joan Baez, 1997)

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