The Malvina Reynolds Sampler

Even among my folk music enthusiast friends the name Malvina Reynolds almost never comes up.  This is rather sad because in the history of the American Folk Music Revival, a popular genre during the 1940s-1960s that focused on social issues, she was a major voice and one of the most prominent activists.

She was also quite unique and remarkable.

Unlike most other singer-songwriters from that time, she didn't really get into music until she was in her mid 40s, but even so, she had a 30+ year active music career.  From listening to her deceptively simple songs one wouldn't suspect that Malvina held a doctorate in Romance Philology. She earned that degree a half dozen years before taking up music.  Being a Jew, a Socialist (briefly a Communist), a social activist, a woman and a mother, no university would hire her.  Working at a variety of unfulfilling jobs when she first heard folk music, she embraced it fully.  
Pete Seeger, who met her at the start of her music career, called he earliest attempts at songwriting more amateurish than promising, but he didn't reckon on her perseverance, natural talent and intelligence. Malvina became a songwriting machine who at the height of the Folk Revival movement was a leading voice. 
Her story is a compelling one. The best  telling of it that I found was published by the Orange County Weekly in 2016. I would encourage anyone even remotely interested or curious to read it there.

This posting is focusing on her music. Malvina would readily admit she wasn't the best singer or the best guitarist, but, unapologetically, she said she did her best with what she had.  As mentioned, her songs are superficially simple, often funny and always clever whether attacking some social injustice or just exposing some human foible.  Many of her songs were more successful when covered by other artists.  The sampler below shows some performed by Malvina, some performed by others.

The maiden issue of Broadside,  a magazine intended to expose the readers to the current topical lyrics as well as social concerns, featured Bob Dylan's "John Birch Talkin' Blues" as well as Malvina Reynolds "Come Clean Blues." (unfortunately, I couldn't find an online performance of this tune.)

Just for the fact that it's interesting to me, Broadside #6 also featured lyrics from Bob Dylan and Malvina Reynolds. The songs were "Blowing in the Wind" and "Leave My Van Allen Belt Alone."  Readers can guess who wrote which. 

I had never heard of the Van Allen Belts before I learned this song.  Malvina was using these radiation belts (whose existence at the time was thought to be potentially hazardous to space missions with serious suggestions on the table about clearing them using nuclear explosions) to warn us of the danger and unintended consequences of tampering with nature. This is another song of which I could find no online performance.

Broadside #20 again feature Dylan ("Masters of War") and Malvina Reynold with what may be her most well-known song, "Little Boxes."

Here is Pete Seeger singing "Little Boxes"






Another somewhat well-known song by Reynolds is "Turn Around."  Unlike most her songs, this one is bittersweet and personal.

I've known the following song, "It Isn't Nice" most of my life but since I learned it from Judy Collins, that's the rendition I've put below. 

"What Have They Done to the Rain" is considered by some to be Malvina's best effort:

"I Don't Mind Failing"

"Little Red Hen"

The Magic Penny:

"The Little Mouse"

"We Don't Need the Men"


P.S:
This appeared in Broadside #1 :

Their "twice a month" aspirations turned into "once a month" by issue #2 (I found it interesting that their own definition of Folk Songs seemed fairly narrow compared to later definitions).

"The Little Red Hen" reminds me of the "Ant and the Grasshopper" or other things from "Aesop's Fables."  She might have been a socialist, and briefly a communist, but she did enough real work in her time, or had family members that did, that reality and labor unions weren't lost on her.  The 60s and 70s are halfway a mixed bag of contradictions.  I grew up poor and angry at those that took advantage of others for a couple decades; and then realized the pile at the bottom wasn't any better.  People suck is the fact of the matter.  There are countless species of animals whose integrity and legitimacy makes that of our own pale in comparison.  Species other than our own have very little respect for things not of nature.  Our species has become the exact opposite.  Communism and many religions are rooted in little but contempt for reality and nature.  "I don't mind failing" when the lunatics are running the asylum.  

Utterly adore her, and I don't mind failing either. 

Failing is my middle name  :-D

Malvina wrote children songs. "Little Ren Hen" is one of them,  based on the children's story. Paul Simon wrote a song called "Sparrow" in 1964 also based on that story.   Her daughter, Nancy Schimmel, became a singer/songwriter/storyteller/author and also wrote for children.
Malvina herself was the daughter of Russian immigrants and a victim of social injustice. I'm sure her life experiences forged her personality and her lifelong fight against all injustices wherever she perceived them.  

Thanks for reading with interest.

A rather disturbing song

In the Rainbow Quest clip above, she sings "No Hole in My Head"

Everybody thinks my head's full of nothin,
Wants to put his special stuff in,
Fill the space with candy wrappers,
Keep out sex and revolution,
But there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

They call me a dupe of this and the other,
Call me a puppet on a string, they,
They don't know my head's full of me
And that I have my own special thing,
And there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

I have lived since early childhood
Figuring out what's going on, I,
I know what hurts, I know what's easy,
When to stand and when to run,
And there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

So please stop shouting in my ear, there's
Something I want to listen to, there's
A kind of birdsong up somewhere, there's
Feet walking the way I mean to go,
And there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

Everybody thinks my head's full of nothin,
Wants to put his special stuff in,
Fill the space with candy wrappers,
Keep out sex and revolution,
But there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

BTW, the first guest is Ramblin' Jack Elliot.

Reynolds's song "Napalm" was written seven years before Americans saw 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phúc burned nearly to death by the air force of the U.S. puppet government in South Vietnam.  Such atrocities were far from the consciousness of most Americans in 1965.

Thanks. I didn't know the timeline. Malvina was a topical oximeter.

One of my three favourite Rainbow Quest episodes.😁👍

Little Boxes is a great song. I have heard many versions but never knew where it came from.

Which are the other two?

Most people don't. Malvina's memory pretty much faded with time.

Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee, and the great Gary Davis. Like the Clancy one as well.

I just re-watched the Terry/McGhee and watched the Gary Davis one for the first time.
Brownie on guitar, Sonny on harmonica with Seeger on banjo. It's hard not to like them individually or together.  It's funny how Terry and McGhee seem to bring out Seeger's soulful side. 
The episode with Rev. Gary Davis also had Donovan singing "Yellow is the Color of My True Love's Hair."  I love Donovan.   Gary Davis I know mostly from "If I Had My Way." He can get really down on that flattop guitar of his.  It was interesting to watch Shawn Phillips showing Rev. Davis (who, of course is blind) his sitar.

Thanks.

I love the text style, pica typestyle now known as courier text