American Folk Songwriters' Circle

I don't ever consider songs finished.

I've changed the lyrics of songs 10 or 15 years after

I committed them to record.

A long time ago, Guy Clark, one of my teachers,

a great songwriter, told me

-songs aren't finished until you play 'em for people.

-You start verse one,

-I'll do two with the trespassing sign, and your verse is going to be...

-Roamed and rambled.

# This land is your land

# This land is my land. #

The collaborative effort is interesting as well,

because there's minimum rehearsal we've done playing songs together tonight,

so you're not just seeing and hearing music

being made, you're seeing it being made up,

you know, from the ground up.

I'm still not entirely clear on some of the chord progressions so I'll be improvising.

ALL: # This land is made

# For you and me. #

-There's the element of the energy that happens in that context.

-Exactly.

But also the element of the live audience, and then the, sort of, perceived,

whoever is going to be watching.

That whole thing becomes a big ball of energy you're never going to hear in a recording.

# This land is made For you and me. #

When I first met Steve I was somewhat of a neophyte to the genre of folk music.

I just started playing a couple of years before.

I saw his very first show.

And we've toured many, many, countless benefit shows

-and demonstrations and tours.

-Been tear-gassed together.

Yes, been tear-gassed together. That's a musical brotherhood forged.

ALL: # This land was made For you and me. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Nice joint!

LAUGHTER

This is probably...

I'm positive this is the first song I ever played in this country.

# Hey pretty baby are you ready for me

# It's your good rockin' daddy down from Tennessee

# I'm just out of Austin bound for San Antone

# With the radio blastin' and the bird dog on

# There's a speed trap up ahead in Selma Town

# But no local yokel gonna shut me down

# Cos me and my boys got this rig unwound

# And we've come a thousand miles from a guitar town

# Nothin' ever happened 'round my hometown

# And I ain't the kind to just hang around

# But I heard someone callin' my name one day

# And I followed that voice down the lost highway

# Everybody told me you can't get far

# On thirty-seven dollars and a jap guitar watch

# Now I'm smokin' into Texas with the hammer down

# Rockin' little combo from the guitar town

# Hey pretty baby Don't you know it ain't my fault

# I love to hear the steel belts hummin' on the asphalt

# Wake up in the middle of the night in a truck stop

# Stumble in the restaurant Wonderin' why I don't stop

# Gotta keep rockin' while I still can

# Gotta two pack habit and a motel tan

# But when my boots hit the boards I'm a brand new man

# Back to the riser I make my stand

# And hey pretty baby won't you hold me tight

# We're loadin' up and rollin' out of here tonight

# One of these days I'm gonna settle down

# And take you back with me To the guitar town. #

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Thank you.

Thank you.

# If I had a gun

# You'd be dead

# One to the heart

# One to the head

# If I had a gun

# I'd wipe it clean

# My fingerprints

# Off on these sheets

# They'd bury you

# In the cold hard ground

# Fist full of dirt

# Would hold you down

# They'd bury you

# In the cold hard ground

# Be the first night

# I'd sleep sound

# If I had a gun

# No-one would cry

# Nobody mourn

# The day you die

# I'd leave you there

# Wearing your ring

# I'd leave your name

# Leave everything

# They'd bury you

# In the cold hard ground

# Fist full of dirt

# Would hold you down

# They'd bury you

# In the cold hard ground

# Be the first night

# I'd sleep sound

# If I had a gun

# I'd drive away

# I'd drive away

# I'd drive away. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

I'm Tom Morello. You can call me the Nightwatchman.

CHEERING

And one thing I've shied away from during my entire career,

whether with Rage Against The Machine or Nightwatchman

has been love songs. It's an area well covered by a lot of other artists

and hasn't really been my specialty. Until now.

On this latest record I really wanted to delve into my emotional depths

and bring out a romantic ballad

that would really express the way I feel

about my new guitar.

LAUGHTER

this is called Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine.

# History's not made

# By Presidents or Popes

# Or Kings or queens or generals

# Or CIA kingpins runnin' dope

# History's not made

# By nine robed men

# Or billionaires or bankers

# It's not made by them

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Might throw a little money around

# Wonderin' who could be bought

# Some might find they're cheaper

# Some stronger than they thought

# Well, I stand to fall right here in my country

# In my home

# I used to think I was alone

# Well I ain't alone no more

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine. #

Go!

PLAYS HARMONICA

# Hollow box

# Steel string

# Union maid

# Let freedom ring!

# Me and my people are hungry

# Me and my people are through

# Me and my people are ready

# Me and my people, we're just about due

# I'm a massive air strike on a beautiful night

# Yeah, it's my song I'm singin'

# Somebody better start countin'

# We're comin' out, we're comin' out swingin'

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine

# Black Spartacus heart attack machine, go!

PLAYS HARMONICA

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

I've had the honour and privilege for the last couple of years

of being involved in a television programme called Treme.

What Treme, the TV show, is about

is what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina,

which was not a natural disaster, it was a crime.

And...

There's still 100,000 less people than there were before the storm,

there's no working hospital,

and David Simon pulled me off the set one night

and asked if I could write a song that my character,

who's a street singer from New Orleans in the show,

would have written in 2005. I should have written this song in 2005.

# This city won't wash away

# This city will never drown

# Blood in the water and hell to pay

# Sky tear open and pain rain down

# Doesn't matter cos come what may

# I ain't ever gon' leave this town

# This city won't wash away

# This city will never drown

# Ain't the river or the wind to blame

# Everybody around here knows

# Nothin' holdin' back Ponchartrain

# 'cept for a prayer and a promise's ghost

# We just carry on diggin' our graves

# In solid marble above the ground

# Maybe our bones'll wash away

# But this city will never drown

# This city will never die

# Just as long as her heart beats strong

# Like a second line steppin' high

# Raisin' hell as we roll along

# Gentilly to the Vieux Carre

# Lower Nine, Central City, Uptown

# Singin' Jacamo fee-nah-nay

# BOTH: This city will never drown

# Doesn't matter cos there ain't no way

# I'm ever gon' leave this town

# This city won't wash away

# This city will never drown

APPLAUSE

Thanks.

I love that song.

I've had that song in my head all day.

From the late 1800s all the way into the 1970s,

it was legal in America for Native American children to be rounded up

and put into settlement schools.

The idea was to make them more American.

They changed their names and took away their religion.

My grandfather lived in the Smoky Mountains his whole life.

He was part Cherokee, and he never told anyone

because he was afraid his five daughters might be taken.

It wasn't until the '80s and into the '90s that he told us.

I wrote this with him in mind.

He was always the person who I kind of held in my heart.

# When they signed the papers

# They didn't think I knew

# Didn't know I understood

# What they were told to do

# By some white man that came by

# The reservation one night

# I've been in the state school

# For ten years or so

# The teachers do their rounds

# And they're mostly kind, you know

# But the language ain't the same

# They cut my hair and changed my name

# My daddy

# Called me Pony

# He loved me, I know

# We went riding in the snow

# Po-ony

# Winter in Dakota

# The hills are cold and white

# I can close my eyes and fix them plainly in my sight

# And I see them in my sleep

# Through the window of my dreams

# My daddy

# Called me Pony

# He loved me, I know

# We went riding in the snow

# Po-ony

# Pony

# When the dorm is dark and still

# If I listen with my heart

# I can almost hear that name

# Hear it echo on the plain

# Hear him whisper

# We can leave this world behind

# Hmm-mm-mm-mm

# Hmm-mm-mm-mm

# I heard about the moonshine

# How it cut him down

# When Mama came to visit

# She said that's why he don't come around

# Some things I know for sure

# Like it's 1924

# My daddy

# Called me Pony

# He loved me, I know

# We went riding in the snow

# Po-ony

# Po-o-ony

# Po-ony

# Pony

# Hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai

# Hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

We recently had the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

There were a lot of very moving tributes and memorials

that brought me back to that day

and how I felt, like, that could have been me

or it could have been my mother or father or brother or sister,

and the tremendous amount of empathy we felt as a country

was kind of amplified once again, ten years later.

And at the time, it reminded me that

the American people, if we were able to see the victims of our aggression

through those same empathetic eyes, we would never go to war again,

if we were able to see the victims of our aggression.

APPLAUSE

In the aftermath of 9/11 and in the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq,

I kept waiting for somebody to write a song about it

and nobody did, so I had to write it myself. This is called No-one Left.

# Each one had a father

# There's no-one left

# A name and a mother

# No-one left

# Each one had a dream

# A prayer on their breath

# The world's gone black

# No-one left

# On the streets of Manhattan

# A dusty wind blows

# Letters and wishes

# A girl with a rose

# On the streets of Baghdad

# A dusty wind blows

# Letters and wishes

# A girl with a rose

# Each one had a father

# There's no-one left

# A name and a mother

# No-one left

# Each one had a dream

# A prayer on their breath

# The world's gone black

# No-one left

# Fire and vengeance

# In the New York sky above

# Stole my angel

# Stole my true love

# Fire and vengeance

# In the Baghdad sky above

# Stole his angel

# Stole his true love

# Each one had a father

# There's no-one left

# A name and a mother

# No-one left

# Each one had a dream

# A prayer on their breath

# The world's gone black

# No-one left

# I stand out on my front porch

# I look up at the sky

# Will my world go black

# In the blink of an eye?

# He stands out in the desert

# He looks up at the sky

# Will his world go black

# In the blink of an eye?

PLAYS HARMONICA

# Each one had a father

# There's no-one left

# A name and a mother

# No-one left

# Each one had a dream

# A prayer on their breath

# The world's gone black

# No-one left

# Each one had a wish

# Each one had a home

# Each one had a name

# A name and a rose. #

PLAYS HARMONICA

APPLAUSE

I made a record in, um...

..1998 or 1999 with The Del McCoury Band,

called The Mountain,

and what I wanted to do was write a whole record of new bluegrass songs,

it was a songwriting project, and then record them

with the best bluegrass band in the world.

This song is called The Mountain.

APPLAUSE

# I was born on this mountain

# A long time ago

# Before they knocked down the timber

# And they strip-mined the coal

# When you rose in the mornin'

# Before it was light

# Went down in that dark hole

# Come back up at night

# I was born on this mountain

# This mountain's my home

# And she holds me and keeps me

# From worry and woe

# Well, they took everything that she gave, now they're gone

# But I'll die on this mountain

# This mountain's my home

# I was young on this mountain

# But now I'm old

# And I knew every holler

# Every cool swimmin' hole

# Till one night I lay down

# And woke up to find

# That my childhood was over

# I went down in the mine

# I was born on this mountain

# This mountain's my home

# And she holds me and keeps me

# From worry and woe

# Well, they took everything that she gave, now they're gone

# But I'll die on this mountain

# This mountain's my home

# There's a hole in this mountain

# It's dark and it's deep

# God only knows

# All the secrets it keeps

# There's a chill in the air

# Only miners can feel

# Ghosts in the tunnels

# That the company sealed

# I was born on this mountain

# This mountain's my home

# And she holds me and keeps me

# From worry and woe

# Well, they took everything that she gave, now they're gone

# But I'll die on this mountain

# This mountain's my home. #

You got a boss, you need a union.

I always like to play that song when Tom is around.

-Can I talk about this?

-Yes, you can.

Um... This is how I became aware of Diana.

I produced a record on Joan Baez a few years ago

and Joan came to me with eight songs and this was one of them

and it completely and totally blew my mind.

That last song is me creating a fictitious character

to talk about that part of the country

but this came from a very real story,

which, I think Diana should take it from there.

Henry Russell was a man that came over in the early 1900s

from Stirling, Scotland, to Everettville, West Virginia,

and he came over and left his wife, Mary, behind for a time

and then she joined him and they had three children

and he worked in the Everettville mine until 1927.

When they were parted, he wrote Mary beautiful love letters

and I was lucky enough to meet his daughter, Marguerite,

who let me read the letters that her father wrote to her mother.

In 1927, there was an explosion in the Everettville mine

which closed the mine forever

and Henry was one of the men that died that day.

But he spent his last three hours in a room,

writing his last letter to Mary.

He ripped a piece of cement bag off and wrote the letter in coal.

When I was sitting in Marguerite his daughter's parlour,

the last letter she handed me was the actual letter, the last letter

that Henry wrote to Mary, so these are Henry Russell's last words.

-Would you join me?

-Yeah.

# Still alive But the air is getting bad

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# I have made my peace with God

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# You did not ask why I go down in the mine

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# It was for the children

# It was for better times

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Stay in America

# Give the kids a home

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Marry another You should not be alone

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# We are weakening Our hearts are beating fast

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# We think about our families

# And we do not feel bad

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# They will lay me in a pauper's grave

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Tell my father my soul is saved

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Meet me in heaven

# I'll wait for you there

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Oh, how I love you, Mary

# Oh, how I love you. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Most of my songs are about the certainty of struggle

and the certainty of social justice and...certainty.

This song is about moments of doubt.

This is called The Garden of Gethsemane.

# On the side of the dirt road

# An old Chevy wreck

# I climbed through the window

# I sat in the back

# I gathered my thoughts

# With my head in my hands

# My next of kin

# My list of demands

# I slipped from shadow to shadow

# I saw things I should not see

# The moon rose high

# Over the garden

# The Garden of Gethsemane

# I know who I'm for

# And who I'm against

# I pulled the shades tight

# I built me a fence

# I dug a tunnel

# A tunnel deep and wide

# I sit at the bottom

# And wait for the night

# I slipped from shadow to shadow

# I saw things I should not see

# The moon rose high

# Over the garden

# The Garden of Gethsemane

# Morning has come

# Clean clothes on the line

# There'll be no tomorrow

# I rise and I shine

# If you swallow the coin

# From the wishing well

# Your dreams'll come true

# In heaven or hell

# I slipped from shadow to shadow

# I saw things I should not see

# The moon rose high

# Over the garden

# The Garden of Gethsemane

# Take my hand

# Down we go

# Take my hand, love

# Down we go

# Take my hand

# Down we go

# Take my hand, love

# Down we go. #

Thank you.

-Whose song is that?

-Old song of mine.

But a lot of people heard this song when I first wrote it,

they said, "It's a gun control song," and I would argue with them.

We talk about gun control a lot in the United States cos,

you know, think it's a good idea for people to be able to run around

with whatever sort of ordnance they want in a lot of our states.

Could you imagine...

if everybody had a gun at a football match in this country?

LAUGHTER

It's just not a good idea.

You know, when I wrote it, I would argue with people about that,

cos when I wrote this song, I had a whole trailer full of guns.

I mean, I grew up in Texas, hunting and fishing,

and I didn't see anything incongruous

about being a peacenik with an arsenal in his house.

But, about 17 years ago, I had to sort of start my life over and...

one of the first things that happened after I got clean

and got out of jail was I was handed an out-of-control teenage boy.

My ex-wife just said, "Here. You might have met him."

LAUGHTER

The first thing Justin did when he got in my house was,

as soon as my back was turned, he went in my bedroom

and he found the pistol that I kept hid under my mattress

for home protection. My house is in the country in Tennessee.

And he hid it from me and he wouldn't tell me where it was.

And I knew he was lying. Couldn't get him to admit it,

couldn't get him to tell me where the gun was.

And you're not doing your best parenting

at four and a half, five months clean.

So the only thing I could come up with was to make sure

he was where the gun wasn't, so I called my brother

and he came over and we strip-searched him,

made sure he did not have the gun on his person

and then we loaded him in the car.

It was sort of like trying to load a live deer up, you know.

LAUGHTER

And we took him to a wilderness camp, they call it,

a place out in Hickman County, Tennessee,

where they send kids that are in trouble and make 'em sleep in tents.

I'm not proud of this, I'm pretty sure they were hiring them out

for slave labour to the state.

Now, it was January, so four o'clock the next morning,

he called and told me where the gun was.

LAUGHTER

And, for my part, what I learned

is I haven't had a gun in my house since.

So, now, when I sing this, it's a gun control song.

# About the time that Daddy left to fight the big war

# Saw my first pistol in the general store

# General store, I was 13

# Thought it was the finest thing I ever had seen

# Asked if I could have one someday when I grew up

# Mama dropped a dozen eggs She really blew up

# Really blew up Didn't understand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand

# The devil's right hand The devil's right hand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand

# Got my first pistol Was a cap and ball Colt

# Shoots as fast as lightnin' but she load a mite slow

# Load a mite slow Soon I found out

# Get you into trouble but she can't get you out

# Then I went and got myself a Colt .45

# Called a Peacemaker but I never knew why

# Never knew why Didn't understand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand

# The devil's right hand The devil's right hand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand

# The devil's right hand The devil's right hand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand

# I got into a card game in a company town

# Caught a miner cheating and I shot the dog down

# Shot the dog down Watched the man fall

# Never touched his holster Never had a chance to draw

# Trial was in the morning and they drug me out of bed

# Asked me how I pleaded "Not guilty," I said

"Not guilty," I said "Got the wrong man

# "Nothing touched the trigger but the devil's right hand"

# Devil's right hand The devil's right hand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand

# The Devil's right hand The devil's right hand

# Nothing touched the trigger but the devil's right hand

# Mama says the pistol is the devil's right hand. #

I wrote this song in England, I was just thinking about it.

I was here on a tour and I had a few days off.

And, uh, things had gotten pretty bad all around the world,

and then I just talked to a friend of mine who is a policeman in my neighbourhood,

and he was a friend of mine because of the crack house next to my house.

I saw him so many times before they tore it down.

He said people were doing just crazy things, you know,

that he'd never seen before, and so it put me in mind of all that

and I wrote a little upbeat number called Poverty.

# Poverty, poverty Empty hands and icy feet

# A bed so cold I cannot sleep

# In the arms of poverty

# Busy being born or dying

# You have left your children cryin'

# More will come to work, for sure

# Worried, tired, sick and poor

# Poverty, poverty

# You have laid a hand on me

# In a room so dark I cannot see

# Through the eyes of poverty

# Mother, you have mourned too long

# You felt your sons and daughters torn

# From your arms and from your home

# A sad and weary world around

# Poverty, poverty

# Day and night, a clever thief

# Our hearts are hard Our streets are mean

# In the throws of poverty

# We are hungry through and through

# And lonesome like we never knew

# Doing things we would not do

# If it had not been for you

# Poverty, poverty

# How much longer will it be?

# To loose the chains and set us free

# From the grip of poverty

# Poverty, poverty

# Empty hands and icy feet

# A bed so cold I cannot sleep

# In the arms of poverty. #

APPLAUSE

I'd like to say thank you to anyone in the studio audience here

and the television audience out there that helped to make

Rage Against the Machine's song Killing In The Name

the number one song at Christmas a couple of years ago.

APPLAUSE

On the one hand, it's a very fun and flippant gesture, a way to

give the finger to the X-Factor and having commercial music jammed

down your throat all the time, but on the other hand it's a microcosm.

When people stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity,

there's nothing that they can't do.

Every Goliath has a David. This song is called One Man Revolution.

# On the streets of New York

# The cabs don't stop

# On the street where I live

# They called the cops

# Found a noose in my garage

# Now how 'bout that

# So tonight I'm in the bushes with a baseball bat

# Cos I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# The time is nigh

# The day is dark

# There's only one solution

# Cos I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# On the streets of Havana

# I was hugged and kissed

# At the Playboy Mansion

# I wasn't on the list

# On the streets of Cape Town

# It's ready to blow

# I don't know how to get there

# But I'm ready to go

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# The time is nigh

# The day is dark

# There's only one solution

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# Sacrifice and neon lights

# Slaveships don't wait

# Love many, trust few

# And don't be late

# In my nightmares

# The streets are aflame

# And in my dreams

# It's much the same

# And on the streets of London Town

# They know my name

# And if you've come this far Brothers and sisters

# Maybe we're one and the same

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man

# I'm a one man revolution

# The time is right

# The day is now

# There's only one solution

# I'm a one man

I'm a one man

I'm a one man, one man, one man Revolution

# Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

-So.

-It sure has been fun.

Thank you all for your kind attention to our music,

you've been a really cool audience.

APPLAUSE

# As I went walking that ribbon of highway

# I saw above me that endless skyway

# I saw below me that golden valley

# This land was made for you and me

ALL: # This land is your land This land is my land

# From California to New York Island

# From Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me

# I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps

# To the golden sands of Her diamond deserts

# And all around me a voice was sounding

# This land was made for you and me

# This land is your land This land is my land

# From California To the New York islands

# From the Redwood Forest To the Gulf Stream waters

# This land was made for you and me

# As I went walking I saw a sign there

# And that sign said "No Trespassing."

# But on the other side it didn't say nothing,

# That side was made for you and me

# This land is your land This land is my land

# From California to the New York islands

# From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

# This land was made for you and me. #

Steve!

HARMONICA SOLO

# In the squares of the city In the shadow of a steeple

# Near the relief office I see my people

# Some are grumbling and all are wondering

# If this land's still made for you and me? Tell 'em!

# This land is your land This land is my land

# From California to the New York islands

# From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

# This land was made For you and me. #

One more time!

# This land is your land This land is my land

# From California to the New York islands

# From the Redwood Forests to the Gulf Stream waters

# This land was made for you and me! #

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much! Occupy London!

-Take it easy.

-Thank you.

-But take it!

-Thank you very much! Diana Jones! Tom Morello!

-Steve Earle!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING