Folk Song Cage Match: Which is the better FREEDOM song?

Peter, Paul, and Mary's "If I Had a Hammer"

or

Bobby Darin's "Simple Song of Freedom"

Inauguration Day 2009 Playlist

On "Frank, Gil, and Friends" today on WFCS 107.7 FM New Britain/Hartford, we saluted the new president with a "Sea-to-Shining Sea" musical celebration plus the "Obama Suite" medley.

Here's the state/city/region play list:

Maine John Linnell
Moonlight in Vermont Frank Sinatra
Weekend in New England Barry Manilow
Spring in Manhattan Tony Bennett
Lullaby of Broadway Bing Crosby
Delaware Perry Como
Georgia on My Mind Matt Monro
Peachtree Street Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney
Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve Cast of 1776
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Bing Crosby
You're in Kentucky Rosemary Clooney
(Back Home Again in) Indiana Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer
Stars Fell on Alabama Frank Sinatra
My Kind of Town Frank Sinatra
Moonlight Mississippi (A Whistlestop Town) Rosemary Clooney
St. Louis Blues Jo Stafford
Natchez Trace Dusty Springfield
Way Down Yonder in New Orleans Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong
Houston Dean Martin
East of the Rockies Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer
Shenandoah (Across the Wide Missouri) Bing Crosby
By the Time I Get to Phoenix Frank Sinatra
Wedding Vows in Vegas Was (not Was) with Frank Sinatra Jr.
San Fernando Valley Frank Sinatra
City of the Angels Tony Bennett
California Frank Sinatra

The Obama Suite

Yes, I Can Sammy Davis Jr
Blue Hawaii Frank Sinatra
Thin Man Boogie Pat Longo and his Big Band
Chicago Tony Bennett and Count basie
The Father of Girls Perry Como
Walking Happy Frank Sinatra Jr.
We're Gonna Change the World Matt Monro

Cold hard advice for 2009

On this New Year's Eve, after a very pretty daytime snow, it's a bitterly cold night in New England, so I figured I'd offer this sage advice from the television show, Banacek, starring George Peppard, which aired for two years beginning in September 1972:

"If a wolf is chasing your sleigh, throw him a raisin cookie, but don’t stop to bake him a cake.”

– Thomas Banacek

This faux Polish proverb, naturally, reminds me of the "Old World" vignette, as told in Willa Cather's remarkable novel My Antonia, about the sleigh, filled with a wedding party, that was attacked by wolves. After first trying to outrun the pack, the drivers realized they would survive only by literally throwing the bride and groom to the wolves. They survived, but, boy, were they were hounded by the guilt...

Speaking of the cold, I can't help but think of a song lyric -- and no, it's not "Baby, it's Cold Outside."

How about "Artificial Flowers" (as sung by Bobby Darin with the most swinging arrangement ever, although the English band The Beautiful South does a nice touching arrangement of the song, as well, on their 1996 release Blue is the Colour)?

Alone in the world was poor little Ann
As sweet a young child as you'll find
Her parents had gone to their final reward
Leaving their baby behind.

Poor little Annie was only 9 years of age
When Mother and Dad went away
So she bravely worked at the one thing she knew
To earn her few pennies a day

She made artificial flowers, artificial flowers
Flowers for ladies of high fashion to wear
She made artificial flowers, artificial flowers
Fashioned from Annie's despair

With paper and shears, with some wire and wax
She made up each tulip and mum.
As snowflakes drifted into her tenement room
Her baby little fingers grew numb

From making artificial flowers...

They found little Annie all covered with ice
Still clutching her poor frozen shears
Amidst all the blossoms she had fashioned by hand
And watered with all her young tears

There must be a heaven where little Annie can play
In heavenly gardens and bowers.
And instead of a halo she'll wear 'round her head
A garland of genuine flowers

Ah, the associations a cold night can elicit!

Happy New Year and, as Dean Martin would sing, "sleep warm"!