General Introduction8911-Cone-Stone-City-Landscape-640x512
– Listener feedback
– Tarantino and meaning
– Harper Lee, the great American novelist?
– More fake papers for us
– The mascot of the CHU
– The Nobel Prize

Personal Experiences
– Encountering at a distance
– Billy Bragg (and/or Wilco)
– Growing up with it
– Cultural anthropology of mid-‘80s Indiana
– Kindergarten listening

Defining Folk Music
– Material conditions of distribution
– Written to be sung along with
– Cheap etymology with Nathan Gilmour
– Pointing to a tradition, or a myth
– A virtue of simplicity
– Folk music and the city

Woody Guthrie
– The mythology and the symbol
– This Machine Kills Fascists
– Guthrie’s moment and the Christian Communist
– His conscience and his character
– Influence on Bob Dylan
– Guthrie and Judaism
– The Voice of America and American lives
– A book idea for you listeners

Pete Seeger
– An incredible span and a soundtrack for America
– Teaching the songs to the audience
– Vietnam and environmentalism
– Seeger preparing us for Walter Brueggemann
– Transcending folk music
– A cautionary tale
– Seeger’s background

Dylan and the Conservatism of Folk
– Inventing the self
–  Is there a true Bob Dylan?
– Mass popularity of the style
– The patriotic strand of folk music
– The strictness of the boundaries and the demand for authenticity
– The ’65 Newport Folk Festival
– Seeger and Dylan

Folk-Rock
– Tagging your iTunes files
– Multiple genres and multiple folders
– A case for unsophistication
– Billy Bragg at Newport

Recommendations
– Back to Mermaid Avenue
– Some Midwestern icons
– Anti-theodicy

Track Listing
– James Blackshaw, “Spiraling Skeleton Memorial”
– Billy Bragg, “The Milkman of Human Kindness”
– Woody Guthrie, “This Land Is Your Land”
– Woody Guthrie, “Jesus Christ”
– Billy Bragg and Wilco, “Christ for President”
– The Klezmatics, “Come When I Call”
– Pete Seeger, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”
– Bruce Springsteen, “Mrs. McGrath”
– Bob Dylan, “Talkin’ New York Blues”
– Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
– Billy Bragg and Wilco, “California Stars”
– Steve Goodman, “City of New Orleans”
– John Prine, “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian”
– John Prine, “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore”
– Josh Ritter, “Thin Blue Flame”

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