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Immigrant Songs

by Wolf Loescher

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David E Schipper
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David E Schipper Oh my I love this curated playlist, it was reviewed in Dave's Basement Tracks Edition No. 252 Favorite track: '39.
tayceltic
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tayceltic I love your new album, I love listening to it on repeat! Currently listening on the way to work!
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1.
The landlords came to the peasant trials To the sacrifice of men Through the past, and that quite darkly The present once again In the name of capital, establishment Improvers, it’s a name The hidden truths, the hidden lies That once nailed you to the pain Chorus Of a dance called America They danced it round And waited at the turns For America They danced their ladies round To the candles of enlightenment Once lit, they say don’t burn To turn the darkest room of suffering To a greater state of pain Don’t tell me that’s behind you now, don’t greet me Don’t meet your dying blind It’s our very last stand together So let’s sever, no regrets There were days that once held confidence Strength of will and mind The camouflage that once washed your fathers Your sons and daughters time Another tongue, my love, my island You’ve gone international With all the praying men of God Who stood and watched it all go on
2.
Mariano 04:13
The man outside he works for me, his name is Mariano He cuts and trims the grass for me he makes the flowers bloom He says that he comes from a place not far from Guanajuato That’s two days on a bus from here, a lifetime from this room I fix his meals and talk to him in my old broken spanish He points at things and tells me names of things I can’t recall Sometimes I just can’t but help but wonder who this man is And if when he is gone will he’ll remember me at all I watch him close he works just like a piston in an engine He only stops to take a drink and smoke a cigarette When the day is ended, I look outside my window There on the horizon, Mariano’s silhouette He sits upon a stone in a south-easterly direction In my heart I know that he is thinking of his home I’ve never been the sort to say I’m in to intuition But I swear I see the faces of the ones he calls his own Their skin is brown as potters clay, their eyes void of expression Their hair is black as widow’s dreams, their dreams are all but gone They’re ancient as a vision of a sacrificial virgin Innocent as crying from a baby being born They hover around a dying flame and pray for his protection Their prayers are all but answered by his letters in the mail He sends them colored figures that he cuts from strips of paper And all his weekly wages, saving nothing for himself It’s been a while since I have seen the face of Mariano The border guards they came one day and took him far away I hope that he is safe down there at home in Guanajuato I worry though, I read there’s revolution every day
3.
In the year of forty-seven A new tradition came home From necessity came a brand new name For the hunger that stalked their bones They got their affairs in order And gathered their friends around What was left of the food and the whiskey too Was rounded up from this town Well, they listened to the lies and the stories A last chance to look them in the eye Like a walking corpse behind the horse And you didn’t even get to die Chorus An American Wake was all they had They never went back to their native land They left to find a place to stand With everything they could take But first they had to face their American Wake Well, the Brits all said it was written The famine was willed by God The Tory crimes of the London Times Sent many to die in the fog Some gave gifts for the journey Some only had tears and a prayer An eleven week ride when they caught the tide If they even lived halfway there Then a jig was danced, a one last chance For the father to face the son As the keener wailed they could count the sails In the rising of the sun There were blessings and toasts, they buried old ghosts And they drank to the now and then As the minutes passed by they tried to deny They would never see Ireland again
4.
Livin’ in a city of immigrants I don’t need to go travelin’ Open my door and the world walks in Livin’ in a city of immigrants Livin’ in a city that never sleeps My heart keepin’ time to a thousand beats Singin’ in languages I don’t speak Livin’ in a city of immigrants City of black, city of white City of light, city of innocents City of sweat, city of tears City of prayers, city of immigrants Livin’ in a city where the dreams of men Reach up to touch the sky and then Tumble back down to earth again Livin’ in a city that never quits Livin’ in a city where the streets are paved With good intentions and a people’s faith In the sacred promise a statue made Livin’ in a city of immigrants City of stone, city of steel City of wheels, constantly spinnin’ City of bone, city of skin City of pain, city of immigrants All of us are immigrants Every daughter, every son Everyone is everyone All of us are immigrants Livin’ in a city of immigrants The river flows out and the sea rolls in Washin’ away nearly all of my sins Livin’ in a city of immigrants City of black, city of white City of light, I’m livin’ in a city of immigrants City of sweat, city of tears City of prayers, livin’ in a city of immigrants City of stone, city of steel City of wheels, constantly spinnin’ City of bone, city of skin City of pain, livin’ in a city of immigrants
5.
Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken And many times confused Yes, and often felt forsaken And certainly misused But I’m all right, I’m all right I’m just weary to my bones Still, you don’t expect to be Bright and bon vivant So far away from home So far away from home And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered I don’t have a friend who feels at ease I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees But it’s all right, it’s all right We’ve lived so well so long Still, when I think of the road we’re traveling on I wonder what went wrong I can’t help it, I wonder what went wrong And I dreamed I was dying And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly And looking back down at me Smiled reassuringly And I dreamed I was flying And high up above my eyes could clearly see The Statue of Liberty Sailing away to sea And I dreamed I was flying We come on the ship they call the Mayflower We come on the ship that sailed the moon We come in the age’s most uncertain hour And sing an American tune But it’s all right, it’s all right You can’t be forever blessed Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day And I’m trying to get some rest That’s all I’m trying to get some rest
6.
Across the Atlantic I did fly Left old Scotland, I know not why Never dreamt that I’d say goodbye Didn’t plan to be an Exile I landed in Amerikay For just a year or so to stay But I’m still living here today Happy among the Exiles Chorus My only homeland is six foot high For its independence I will die No matter where my feet my fly I’ll be at home with the Exiles Between two places your self can get torn The place you live and the place that you were born For one you knew, and one seems so foreign When first you became an Exile So many trips there I’ve have made back To enjoy the music and the craic But each time my bags I repack And gone on home to the Exiles Mi amigo from the Andes high A samba or a guica can bring tears to his eye But his team, and his wife, and his son who’ll grow high Will keep him happy as an Exile And the fiddler mannie frae Aberdeen Make his living on an IBM machine But he never forgot the Bordies where he’d been Before he became an Exile For there’s good thing here, and there’s good thing there There’s love, food, and music everywhere And there’s always friends with these things to share If you enjoy your life as an Exile For narrow national pride is for a mind that’s small I’m only too happy to have these friends all And find the true meaning of International Everyone is an Exile
7.
My name’s John McKenzie, I’m a master-at-arms And I carry my sword and my shield on my shoulder I’ve fought every fight frae the Don tae Danube None braver, none better, none bolder I’ve stood wi’ Montrose and against him I’ve battled with Swedes and with Danes And I’ve carried the standard of many’s the army Through many’s the bloody campaign But now as I sit in the firelight it seems There’s a distant horizon tae the sword buckle’s gleam Till a pull at the wine brings an old soldier’s dream from afar For the Rovin’ dies hard I’m Callum McLean, I’m a trapper to trade And its forty long years since I saw Tobermory Through Canada’s forests I’ve carried ma plaid And her pine trees can tell you my story But my wandering days they are over And I’m thankful to still be alive For I’ve many’s the kinsman who died in the hulks At the end of the bold Forty-Five I’ve an Indian lass now I’ll never deceive her But there’s nights when I’d up wi’ my gun and I’d leave her For the land where the bear, and the fox, and the beaver are lord For the rovin’ dies hard My name’s Robert Johnston, I’m a man of the cloth And I’ll carry my Bible as long as I’m breathing I’ve preached the Lord’s Gospel from Shanghai to Glasgow Where’er He saw fit to make heathens But now the Kirk’s calling me homewards It’s the manse and the elders for me But the sins of the Session will no’ be so far From the sins of the South China Sea And perhaps it’s the voice of the Devil I’ve heard For it speaks of the clipper ships flyin’ like birds Till a man’s only comfort is Scripture and the word of the Lord For the rovin’ dies hard My names Willie Campbell I’m a ship’s engineer And I know every berth between Lisbon and Largo I’ve sweated mare diesel in thirty-five year Than a big tanker takes for a cargo O’ the good times I’ve always had plenty Where the whisky and the woman were wild And there’s manys the wean wi’ the red locks o’ the Campbells That’s ne’er seen the coast o’ Argyll But now as the freighters unload on the quay The sound o’ the engines is calling tae me And it sings me a song of the sun and the sea and the stars For the rovin’ dies hard I’ve tuned up my fiddle, I’ve rosined my bow I’ve sung of the clans, and the clear crystal fountains I can tell you the road and the miles tae Dundee Tae the back of Alaska’s wild mountains And when all of my wandering is over And the next o’ the rovers will come And he’ll take all the songs and he’’ll sing them again Tae the beat of a different drum And whenever I’m asked why the Scots are beguiled I’ll lift up my glass in a health and I’ll smile And I’ll tell them that fortune dealt Scotland the wildest of cards For the rovin’ dies hard
8.
On the first day of January Eighteen ninety-two They opened Ellis Island And they let the people through And the first to cross the threshold Of that Isle of hope and tears Was Annie Moore from Ireland Who was only fifteen years Chorus Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears Isle of Freedom, Isle of Fears But it’s not the Isle you left behind That Isle of Hunger, Isle of Pain Isle you’ll never see again But the Isle of home is always on your mind In a little bag she carried All her past and history And her dreams for the future In the Land of Liberty And courage is the passport When your old world disappears But there’s no future in the past When you’re fifteen years When they closed down Ellis Island In Nineteen Forty-Three Seventeen million people Had come there for Sanctuary And in springtime when I came here And I stepped onto it’s piers I thought of how it must have been When you’re fifteen years
9.
In the Spring of Forty-seven So the story it is told Old John Sutter went to the mill site Found a piece of shining gold Well, he took it to the city Where the word like wildfire spread And old John Sutter soon came to wish he’d Left that stone in the river bed For they came like hordes of locusts Every woman, child and man In their lumbering Conestogas They left their tracks upon the land Chorus Some would fail and some would prosper Some would die and some would kill Some would thank the Lord for their deliverance And some would curse John Sutter’s Mill Well, they came from New York City And they came from Alabam’ With their dreams of finding fortunes In this wild unsettled land Well, some fell prey to hostile arrows As they tried to cross the plains And some were lost in the Rocky Mountains With their hands froze to the rein Well, some pushed on to California And others stopped to take their rest And by the Spring of Eighteen-sixty They had opened up the west And then the railroad came behind them And the land was plowed and tamed When Old John Sutter went to meet his maker He’d not one penny to his name
10.
Drink from the cool Red River And tie back your hair Jump up from behind the tall grass Give me a scare Always on my mind Pictures from the mountainside Rolling through the hills of Killedmond Remember when we built that little tree house Without hammers or nails And as soon as the heavens opened The little trail house fell Always on my mind Memories from the mountainside Rolling through the hills of Killedmond It took me a while, but now I can see The people around made a difference in me You gave me life, and you watched me grow You taught me the things I needed to know Now I’m sailing away, away to be free The place where I’m from still lives within me I just needed some time to be by myself Stop following dreams meant for somebody else When this hard life starts to take its toll Then I know the place where I wanna go When I find the one to have and to hold When I’m settling down, I wanna go home To the hills of Killedmond Always on my mind Pictures from the mountainside Rolling through the hills of Killedmond
11.
'39 03:15
In the year of ’39 assembled here the volunteers In the days when lands were few Here the ship sailed out Into the blue and sunny morn The sweetest sight ever seen And the night followed day And the story tellers say That the score brave souls inside For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas Ne’er looked back, never feared, never cried Don’t you hear my call Though you’re many years away Don’t you hear me calling you Write your letters in the sand For the day I take your hand In the land that our grandchildren knew In the year of ’39 came a ship in from the blue The volunteers came home that day And they bring good news Of a world so newly born Though their hearts so heavily weigh For the earth is old and gray Little darling, we’ll away But my love this cannot be For so many years have gone Though I’m older but a year Your mother’s eyes, from your eyes, cry to me Don’t you hear my call Though you’re many years away Don’t you hear me calling you All your letters in the sand Cannot heal me like your hand For my life, still ahead, pity me
12.
Give us your tired and weak And we will make them strong Bring us your foreign songs And we will sing along Leave us your broken dreams We’ll give them time to mend There’s still a lot of love Living in the Promiseland Chorus Living in the Promiseland Our dreams are made of steel The prayer of every man Is to know how freedom feels There is a winding road Across the shifting sand And room for everyone Living in the Promiseland So they came from a distant isle Nameless woman, faceless child Like a bad dream Until there was no room at all No place to run And no place to fall Give us our daily bread We have no shoes to wear No place to call our home Only this cross to bear We are the multitudes Lend us a helping hand Is there no love anymore Living in the Promiseland

about

A solo album featuring songs about the American immigrant experience from a variety of perspectives.

credits

released September 29, 2023

© 2023 Off Hand Productions
Produced by Wolf Loescher and Scooter Muse
Engineered, mixed, and mastered by Scooter Muse at Saddell Abbey Studio (Tuscubmia, AL)
Additional recording and engineering by Rich Brotherton at ACE Recording (Austin, TX)
Additional recording by Wolf Loescher at the Rocky Mountain Beach House (Longmont, CO)
Graphic design by Tony Horning
Portrait photo by Rob Randall

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Wolf Loescher Longmont, Colorado

Wolf Loescher is a singer / storyteller based in Longmont, Colorado. He sings songs and tells stories from the Old World and the New, accompanying himself on his custom 8-string Irish bouzouki, tenor guitar, bodhran, and foot percussion. He is often joined by fabulous musicians from around the country in his backing band “The Growlers.” ... more

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