WA2K Radio is now on the air

i'm kind of an idiot savant of music information, mention a topic and chances are i've heard a song that relates to it, i google the lyrics but every song i post i've either heard somewhere or i own or have owned

Ah, folks. I was thinking about my mom who used to say that she looked like the wreck of the hesperus when she was not properly dressed....so:












The Wreck of the Hesperus
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe

I recall when I first read that poem, I cried for that child.

Idiot savant, dj? I don't think so. Hmmmm. Perhaps a photographic memory. That's not really the term for it, and I need to check that out.

Weigh the anchor a bit, folks. Letty will be back later to get her feet wet. <smile>

hauntingly beautiful poem

it's nautical night on WA2K

The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee'
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.
That big ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wire made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T'was the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
At Seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the big ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when their lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
They may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call 'Gitche Gumee'.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early!

i would play, friggin' in the riggin' by the sex pistols, but i'm pretty sure the fcc would revoke our lisence

if you've not heard the song and are curious here's a link

quite funny, but rather risque, actually quite vulgar

friggin' in the riggin'

veiw at your own risk
the management takes no responsibilty for any offensive material
keep your head and arms inside at all times
no user serviceable parts inside

I hope I am not too late or repetitive, but "The Last Farewell" seems to slip in nicely here:

Roger Whittaker

There's a ship lies rigged and ready in the harbour
Tomorrow for old England she sails
Far away from your land of endless sunshine
To my land full of rainy skies and gales
And I shall be on board that ship tomorrow
Though my heart is full of tears at this farewell
For you are beautiful und I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful und I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell.

I heard there's a wicked war ablazing
And the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag araising
Their guns on fire as we sailed into hell
I have no fear of death it brings no sorrow
But how bitter will be this last farewell
For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly .

Though death and darkness gather all about me
And my ship be torn apart upon the sea
I shall smell again the fragrance of these islands
In the heaving waves that brought me once to thee
And should I return safe home again to England
I shall watch the English mist roll through the dell
For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly .

Ah, dj. That is a lonesome song by Gordon Lightfoot, and if you remember the perfect storm, you know how that is so like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Yes, it's nautical night, folks. I think it must be the recent thread of hurricanes.

Not to worry about the riggin' song. That was part of Hawaii by Michner and attributed to the missionaries who came to clothe the islanders. Hee Hee.

good choice, and welcome aboard

Thousands Are Sailing
Pogues

The island it is silent now
But the ghosts still haunt the waves
And the torch lights up a famished man
Who fortune could not save

Did you work upon the railroad
Did you rid the streets of crime
Were your dollars from the white house
Were they from the five and dime

Did the old songs taunt or cheer you
And did they still make you cry
Did you count the months and years
Or did your teardrops quickly dry

Ah, no, says he, 'twas not to be
On a coffin ship I came here
And I never even got so far
That they could change my name

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean
Their bellies full
Their spirits free
They'll break the chains of poverty
And they'll dance

In Manhattan's desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon

And "The Blackbird" broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan's footsteps
I danced up and down the street

Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohen
Dear old Times Square's favorite bard

Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried

Thousands are sailing
Again across the ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Postcards we're mailing
Of sky-blue skies and oceans
From rooms the daylight never sees
Where lights don't glow on Christmas trees
And we danced to the music
And we dance

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Where e'er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of Priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies
And we danced to the music
And we dance

Well, my goodness, listeners. That black cat padded in like the fog and played Whittaker. Great bermbits.

dj, The pogues are an interesting musical group, my friend, and that song sent a message of dire import.

Now I must say good night, and I'm thinking rocking in the cradle of the deep. Hmmmm, a water bed perhaps.

Goodnight to all of you wonderful people here on WA2K radio.

Guide me safely through the night,
Wake me with the morning light.

From Letty with love

one last adventure on the seas, and then to bed for me

they can't all be classics

Come Sail Away
Styx

I'm sailing away, set an open course for the virgin sea
I've got to be free, free to face the life that's ahead of me
On board, I'm the captain, so climb aboard
We'll search for tomorrow on every shore
And I'll try, oh lord, I'll try to carry on

I look to the sea, reflections in the waves spark my memory
Some happy, some sad
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had
We live happily forever, so the story goes
But somehow we missed out on that pot of gold
But we'll try best that we can to carry on

A gathering of angels appeared above my head
They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said
They said come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me

I thought that they were angels, but to my surprise
They climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies
Singing come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me

Sailing
Christopher Cross


Well, it's not far down to paradise
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right
You can sail away and find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

It's not far to never-never land
No reason to pretend
And if the wind is right
You can find the joy of innocence again
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Yust you wait and see
Believe me

Sailing takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

Fantasy, it gets the best of me
When I'm sailing
All caught up in the reverie
Every word is a symphony
Won't you believe me

Sailing takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

[Instrumental Interlude]

Well it's not far back to sanity
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right
you can sail away and find serenity
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

Sailing takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

That's the only hit he's ever had Tico (Christopher Cross)

Do you know Ted Kooser? He's a contemporary poet
from the heartland, just like you.

Here is an unusual poem of his:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Don't know Kooser. But I confess I'm not big into poetry.

-----

But, I do know CC had another hit with his theme song to the movie, Arthur:

Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)
Christopher Cross


Once in your life you find her
Someone that turns your heart around
And next thing you know you're closing down the town
Wake up and it's still with you
Even though you left her way across town
Wondering to yourself, "Hey, what've I found?"

When you get caught between the Moon and New York City
I know it's crazy, but it's true
If you get caught between the Moon and New York City
The best that you can do ......
The best that you can do is fall in love

Arthur he does as he pleases
All of his life, he's mastered choice
Deep in his heart, he's just, he's just a boy
Living his life one day at a time
And showing himself a really good time
Laughing about the way they want him to be

When you get caught between the Moon and New York City
I know it's crazy, but it's true
If you get caught between the Moon and New York City
The best that you can do .....
The best that you can do is fall in love

When you get caught between the Moon and New York City
I know it's crazy, but it's true
If you get caught between the Moon and New York City
The best that you can do .....
The best that you can do is fall in love

Woody Guthrie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (July 14, 1912 - October 3, 1967), known almost universally as "Woody", was a folk singer and raconteur who wrote some of America's best-loved songs. He is best known for "This Land is Your Land" (MP3 clip).

Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1912, the year his namesake Woodrow Wilson was elected President. At age 19 he left home for Texas, where he met and married his first wife, Mary Jennings, with whom he had three children. He left Texas (and his family) with the Dust Bowl, following the Okies to California. The poverty he saw on these early trips affected him greatly, and many of his songs are concerned with the inequities faced by America's working men and women. A lifelong socialist and trade unionist, he also contributed a regular article, "Woody Sez," to the Daily Worker.

In 1935 or 1937 he achieved fame in California as a radio performer of both traditional folk music and his protest songs.

In 1939 or 1940, Guthrie moved to New York City and was embraced by its leftist and folk music community. He also made perhaps his first real recordings: several hours of conversation and songs, recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress, as well as an album, Dust Bowl Ballads, for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey. He began writing his autobiography, Bound for Glory, which was completed and published in 1943.

In 1940, Guthrie wrote his most famous song, "This Land is Your Land", which was inspired in part by his experiences during a cross-country trip, and in part by his distaste for the Irving Berlin anthem "God Bless America", which he considered unrealistic and complacent (he was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio). In the original version of "This Land is Your Land" Guthrie protested class inequality with the verse,

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me.

and protested the institution of private ownership of land with the verse,

As I went walking, I saw a sign there;
And on the sign there, It said, 'NO TRESPASSING.'
But on the other side, It didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In another version, the sign reads "Private Property." These verses were left out of subsequent recordings (even by Guthrie himself), turning what was a protest song into one more along the lines of then current style of patriotic songs.

The melody Guthrie used for "This Land is Your Land" is the melody for the old gospel song, "When the World's on Fire". This song is probably best known as recorded by the country/bluegrass legends, The Carter Family around 1930.

In May 1941, he was commissioned by the Department of the Interior and its Bonneville Power Administration to write songs about the Columbia River and the building of the federal dams; the best known of these are "Roll On, Columbia" and "Grand Coulee Dam." Around the same time, he met Pete Seeger and joined the legendary Almanac Singers, with whom he toured the country and moved into the cooperative Almanac House in Greenwich Village.

Guthrie originally wrote and sang anti-war songs with the Almanac Singers, but eventually he and they, along with the Communist milieu with which they were associated, joined the anti-fascist cause -- Guthrie famously wrote the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar. He joined the Merchant Marine, where he served with fellow folk singer Cisco Houston, and then the Army.

In 1944, Woody met Moses "Moe" Asch of Folkways Records, for whom he first recorded "This Land is Your Land," along with hundreds of others over the next few years.

He began courting Marjorie Mazza in 1942 and married her in 1945 while on furlough from the Army. They moved into a house on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, and together had four children, including Cathy, who died at age four in a house fire, sending him into serious depression, and Arlo, who became a famous singer-songwriter in his own right. It was during this period that he wrote and recorded Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child, a collection of children's music.

Meanwhile, he was still writing topical songs, as well. The 1948 crash of a plane carrying 28 Mexican farm workers from Oakland, California, to be deported back to Mexico inspired "Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)", which has since been covered by performers such as Pete Seeger, Dolly Parton, and Woody's son Arlo Guthrie. "Pastures of Plenty", written around the same time, also sympathized with the struggle of immigrant farm workers.

By the late 1940s, Guthrie's health was worsening and his behavior becoming extremely erratic. He left his family, traveling with Ramblin' Jack Elliott to California, where he married for a third time and had another child, before eventually returning to New York. He received various diagnoses (including alcoholism and schizophrenia), before he was finally discovered to be suffering from the degenerative nervous disorder Huntington's chorea, which had killed his mother. He was hospitalized until his death on October 3, 1967. By that time his work had been discovered by a new audience, introduced to him in part through Bob Dylan, who visited Guthrie in the last years of his life and described him as "my last hero."

In 1964, Phil Ochs's debut album included the song "Bound for Glory", a tribute to Guthrie and a criticism of revisionism and ignorance among modern audiences who preferred to forget some of Guthrie's more controversial (especially socialist) lyrics.

In 1995, Woody's daughter Nora approached the British singer Billy Bragg about recording lyrics her father had composed in the later years of his life. After researching the lyrics at the Woody Guthrie Archive in New York City, Bragg worked with the band Wilco to record 40 tracks, a number of which were released on the albums Mermaid Avenue in 1998, and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000.


Quotation

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

"Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie


THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tresspassin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)

Ingmar Bergman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Ingmar Bergman (born July 14, 1918) is a Swedish film director.


Biography and style characteristics

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, to a Lutheran minister, Bergman grew up surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. Bergman attended the Stockholm University and became interested in theater, and later in cinema. His films usually deal with existential questions about mortality, loneliness, and faith; they are also usually direct and not overtly stylized. Persona, one of Bergman's most famous films, is unusual among Bergman's work for being both existentialist and avant-garde.

As a director, Bergman favors intuition over intellect, and chooses to be unaggressive in dealing with actors. Bergman sees himself as having a great responsibility toward them, whom he views as collaborators in a psychologically vulnerable position. He states that a director must be both honest and supportive to allow others their best work.

Bergman usually writes his own scripts, thinking about them for months or years before starting the actual process of writing, which he views as somewhat tedious. His earlier films are carefully structured, and are either based on plays or written with other authors, usually as a matter of convenience. Bergman states that in his later works, when his characters sometimes start wanting to do things different from what he had intended, he lets them, calling the results "disastrous" when he doesn't. Throughout his career, Bergman increasingly lets his actors improvise their dialogue. In his latest films, he has written just the ideas behind the dialogue, keeping in mind the general direction he thinks it should take.

Bergman developed a personal "repertory company" of Swedish actors whom he repeatedly cast in his films, including Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, and the late Ingrid Thulin. Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann was the last to join this group (in the 1966 film Persona), and ultimately became most closely associated with Bergman, both artistically and personally.

Bergman began working with Sven Nykvist, his cinematographer, in 1953. The two of them have sufficient rapport to allow Bergman to not worry about the composition of a shot until the day before it is filmed. On the morning of the shoot, he speaks to Nykvist briefly about the mood and composition he hopes for, and then leaves him to work without interruption or comment until they discuss the next day's work.

When viewing daily rushes, Bergman stresses the importance of being critical but unemotional, claiming that he asks himself not if the work is great or terrible, but if it is sufficient or if it needs to be reshot.

Bergman encourages young directors not to direct any film that does not have a "message," but to wait until one comes along that does, yet admits himself that he is not always sure of the message of some of his films. By Bergman's own accounts, he has never had a problem with funding. He cites two reasons for it: 1, that he does not live in the United States, which he views as obsessed with box-office earnings; and 2, that his films tend to be low-budget affairs. (Cries and Whispers, for instance, was finished for about $450,000, while Scenes from a Marriage--a six-episode television feature--cost only $200,000.) Bergman left Sweden for Munich when accused of tax evasion. Though he was later cleared of the charges, he remained in Munich and did not film again in Sweden until 1982. In 1982 he directed Fanny and Alexander. Bergman stated that the film would be his last, and that afterwards he would focus on directing theater. Since then he has directed a number of television specials and written several additional scripts, though he does continue to work in theater. In 2003, Bergman, at 86 years old, directed a new film, Saraband, that many say is one of his best.

When asked about his movies, he says he holds Persona and Cries and Whispers highest in regard, though in an interview in 2004, Bergman said that he is 'depressed' by his own films and cannot watch them anymore. [1] In these films, he says, he managed to push the medium to its limit. He has denounced the critical classification of three of his films (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence) as a trilogy: he had no intention of connecting them, and cannot see any common motifs in them.

In 1970, Bergman received The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy Awards ceremony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingmar_Bergman

Storming of the Bastille
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 was an important development in, and later a symbol of, the French Revolution. Though at the time the Bastille contained only seven prisoners, its taking marked the beginning of open rebellion against the king. The anniversary of the event is still celebrated as Bastille Day, France's national holiday.


Background


During the reign of king Louis XVI, France was forced to confront a major financial crisis which had been brewing for decades. On May 5, 1789, the Estates-General of 1789 convened to deal with this issue, but was held back by archaic protocols and the conservatism of the Second Estate. On June 17, 1789, the representatives of the Third Estate reconstituted themselves as the National Assembly, a body whose purpose was the creation of a French constitution. The king initially opposed this development, but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which subsequently renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on July 9.

Paris, close to insurrection, and, in François Mignet's words, "intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm," unanimously expressed its support for the Assembly [1]. The press published the Assembly's debates; political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares and halls of the capital. The Palais Royal and its grounds became the site of a continuous meeting. The crowd, on the authority of the meeting at the Palais Royal, broke open the prisons of the Abbaye to release some grenadiers of the French guards, imprisoned for refusing to fire on the people. The Assembly recommended them to the clemency of the king; they returned to prison, and received pardon. Their regiment now leaned toward the popular cause.


Necker's dismissal

On July 11, 1789, with troops at Versailles, Sèvres, the Champ de Mars, and Saint-Denis, the king, acting under the influence of the conservative nobles of his privy council, banished his finance minister, Jacques Necker, who had been sympathetic to the Third Estate, and completely reconstructed the ministry. The marshal Victor-François, duc de Broglie, la Galissonnière, the duc de la Vauguyon, the Baron Louis de Breteuil, and the intendant Foulon, took over the posts of Puységur, Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin, La Luzerne, Saint-Priest, and Necker.

News of Necker's dismissal reached Paris in the afternoon of Sunday, July 12. The Parisians generally presumed that the dismissal marked the start of a coup by conservative elements. Crowds gathered throughout the city, including more than ten thousand at the Palais Royal. Camille Desmoulins, according to Mignet, successfully rallied the crowd by "mount[ing] a table, pistol in hand, exclaiming: 'Citizens, there is no time to lose; the dismissal of Necker is the knell of a Saint Bartholomew for patriots! This very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all; one resource is left; to take arms!'" [2] (These foreign, mercenary troops were seen as especially loyal to the king, because they did not have the same ties to the general populace as ordinary French soldiers.)


Armed conflict

A growing crowd, brandishing busts of Necker and of the duke of Orleans, passed through the streets to the Place Vendôme, where they put a detachment of the Royal-allemand (the king's German soldiers) to flight by a shower of stones. At the Place Louis XV, the dragoons of the prince de Lambesc shot the bearer of one of the busts; a soldier was also killed. Lambesc and his soldiers ran rampant, attacking not only the demonstrators but anyone in their path.

The regiment of the French guard favourably disposed towards the popular cause had remained confined to its barracks. With Paris becoming a general riot, de Lambesc, not trusting the regiment to obey this order, posted sixty dragoons to station themselves before its dépôt in the Chaussée-d'Antin. Once again, a measure intended to restrain only served to provoke. The French regiment routed their guard, killing two, wounding three, and putting the rest to flight. The rebellious citizenry had acquired a trained military contingent; as word of this spread, even the foreign troops refused to fight in what looked to be a civil war with a divided military.

The rebels gathered in and around the Hôtel de Ville and sounded the tocsin. Distrust between the leading citizens gathered within the building and the masses outside was exacerbated by the failure or inability of the former to provide the latter with arms. Between political insurrection and opportunistic looting, Paris reeled in chaos. In Versailles, the Assembly stood firm, and went into continuous session so that it could not, once again, be stealthily deprived of its meeting space.

The Bastille is stormed

The insurgents invaded the Hôtel des Invalides to gather arms, and then attacked the Bastille. At this point, the jail was nearly empty, housing only seven inmates: four forgers, two "lunatics" and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages. The attackers were mainly seeking to acquire the large quantities of arms and ammunition stored there - on the 14th there were over 13,600 kg (30,000 lb) of gunpowder stored at the Bastille. The garrison, reinforced on the 7th, consisted of just 32 men of the Salis-Samade regiment together with 82 other staff and guards. The walls mounted eighteen eight-pound guns and twelve smaller pieces. The governor was Bernard-René de Launay, son of the previous governor and actually born within the Bastille.

The list of vainqueurs de la Bastille has around 600 names and the total of the crowd was probably less than a thousand. The crowd gathered outside around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the guns and the release of the arms and gunpowder. Two deputies were invited into the fortress and negotiations began, another deputy was admitted around noon with definite demands. The negotiations dragged on and the crowd grew and also became impatient.

Around 13:30 the crowd surged into the undefended outer courtyard and the chains on the drawbridge to the inner courtyard were cut - crushing one unfortunate vainqueur. About this time gunfire began, which side fired first will never be absolutely decided. The crowd seems to have felt it had been 'tricked', drawn into a trap and the fighting became more intense and attempts by deputies to organise a cease-fire were ignored by the attackers.

The firing continued and at 15:00 the attackers were reinforced by gardes françaises and other veterans carrying weapons taken from the Invalides earlier in the day, and also two cannons. With the possibility of a mutual massacre suddenly apparent Governor de Launay ordered a cease fire at 17:00. A letter offering his terms was stuck through a gap in the inner gates and acrobatically retrieved by the besiegers. The demands were refused but de Launay capitulated because he realized that his troops could not hold out much longer and opened gates to the inner courtyard and the vainqueurs swept in to liberate the fortress at 17:30.

Ninety-eight attackers had died and just one defender. De Launay was seized and dragged towards the Hôtel de Ville in a storm of abuse. Outside the Hôtel a discussion as to his fate began, following a particularly unpleasant suggestion from a man called Desnot, de Launay shouted "Enough! Let me die!" and kicked Desnot in the groin. De Launay was instantly stabbed repeatedly and fell to the street, his head was then sawn off and fixed on a pike to be carried through the streets. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville, the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery; en route to an ostensible trial at the Palais Royal, he was assassinated.

Aftermath

The citizenry of Paris, expecting a counterattack, entrenched the streets, built barricades of paving stones, and armed themselves as well as they could, especially with improvised pikes. Meanwhile, at Versailles, the Assembly remained ignorant of most of the Paris events, but eminently aware that Marshal de Broglie stood on the brink of unleashing a pro-Royalist coup to force the Assembly to adopt the order of June 23 and then to dissolve. The Viscount de Noailles apparently first brought reasonably accurate news of the Paris events to Versailles. M. Ganilh and Bancal-des-Issarts, despatched to the Hôtel de Ville, confirmed his report.

By the morning of July 15 the outcome appeared clear to the king as well, and he and his military supporters backed down, at least for the time being. Lafeyette took up command of the National Guard at Paris; Jean-Sylvain Bailly -- leader of the Third Estate and instigator of the Tennis Court Oath -- became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the commune. The king announced that he would recall Necker and return from Versailles to Paris; on July 27, in Paris, he accepted a tricolor cockade from Bailly and entered the Hôtel de Ville, as cries of "Long live the Nation" changed to "Long live the King".

Nonetheless, after this violence, nobles -- little assured by the apparent and, as it was to prove, temporary reconciliation of king and people -- started to flee the country as émigrés. Early émigrés included the comte d'Artois (the future Charles X of France) and his two sons, the prince de Condé, the prince de Conti, the Polignac family, and (slightly later) Charles Alexandre de Calonne, the former finance minister. They settled at Turin, where Calonne, as agent for the count d'Artois and the prince de Condé, began plotting civil war within the kingdom and agitating for a European coalition against France.

Necker returned from Basel to Paris in triumph (which proved short-lived). He discovered upon his arrival that the mob had cruelly murdered Foulon and Foulon's nephew, Berthier, and that the baron de Besenval (commander under de Broglie) was held prisoner. Wishing to avoid further bloodshed, he overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, voted by the assembly of electors of Paris. In demanding amnesty rather than merely a just tribunal, Necker misjudged the weight of the political forces. He overestimated the power of the ad hoc assembly, which almost immediately revoked the amnesty to save their own role, and perhaps their own skins, instituting a trial court at Châtelet. Mignet counts this as the moment when the Revolution left Necker behind.

The successful insurrection at Paris spread throughout France. People organized themselves into municipalities for purposes of self-government, and into bodies of national guards for self-defense, in accord with principles of popular sovereignty and with complete disregard for claims of royal authority. In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned title-deeds and no small number of châteaux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille

Artist: Les Miserables
Song: Beggars At The Feast
Album:
[" " CD]

Thenardier
Ain't it a laugh?
Ain't it a treat?
Hob-nobbin' here
Among the elite?
Here comes a prince
There goes a Jew.
This one's a queer
But what can you do?
Paris at my feet
Paris in the dust
And here I'm breaking bread
With the upper crust!
Beggar at the feast!
Master of the dance!
Life is easy pickings
If you grab your chance.
Everywhere you go
Law-abiding folk
Doing what is decent
But they're mostly broke!
Singing to the Lord on Sundays
Praying for the gifts He'll send.
M. and Mme. Thenardier
But we're the ones who take it
We're the ones who make it in the end!
Watch the buggers dance
Watch 'em till they drop
Keep your wits about you
And you stand on top!
Masters of the land
Always get our share
Clear away the barricades
And we're still there!
We know where the wind is blowing
Money is the stuff we smell
And when we're rich as Croesus
Jesus! Won't we see you all in hell!
[Valjean is alone in the shadows, with a bare wooden
cross for company.]
Valjean
Alone I wait in the shadows
I count the hours till I can sleep
I dreamed a dream Cosette stood by
It made her weep to know I die.
Alone at the end of the day
Upon this wedding night I pray
Take these children, my Lord, to thy embrace
And show them grace.
God on high
Hear my prayer
Take me now
To thy care
Where You are
Let me be
Take me now
Take me there
Bring me home
Bring me home.
[Fantine's spirit appears to Valjean.]
Fantine Valjean (interjecting)
M'sieur, I bless your name I am ready, Fantine
M'sieur, lay down your burden At the end of my days
You raised my child in love She's the best of my life.
And you will be with god.
[Marius and Cosette rush into the room, but they do not
see Fantine.]
Cosette
Papa, papa, I do not understand!
Are you alright? They said you'd gone away.
Valjean
Cosette, my child, am I forgiven now?
Thank God, thank God, I've lived to see this day.
Marius
It's you who must forgive a thoughtless fool
It's you who must forgive a thankless man
It's thanks to you that I am living
And again I lay down my life at your feet.
Cosette, your father is a saint.
When they wounded me
He took me from the barricade
Carried like a babe
And brought me home to you!
Valjean (to Cosette)
Now you are here
Again beside me
Now I can die in peace
For now my life is blessed
Cosette
You will live, Papa, you're going to live
It's too soon, too soon to say goodbye.
Valjean
Yes, Cosette, forbid me now to die
I'll obey
I will try
On this page
I write my last confession
Read it well
When I at last am sleeping.
It's a story
Of those who always loved you
Your mother gave her life for you
Then gave you to my keeping.
[The other spirits appear.]
Fantine
Come with me
Where chains will never bind you
All your grief
At last, at last behind you.
Lord in Heaven
Look down on him in mercy.
Valjean
Forgive me all my trespasses
And take me to your glory.
Valjean, Fantine, and Eponine
Take my hand
And lead me to salvation
Take my love
For love is everlasting.
And remember
The truth that once was spoken
To love another person
Is to see the face of God!



Artist: Les Miserables
Song: Valjeans Confession
Album:
[" " CD]

Valjean
Not another word my son,
There's something now that must be done
You've spoken from the heart
And I must do the same
There is a story, sir
Of slavery and shame
That you alone must know.
I never told Cosette
She had enough of tears
She's never known the truth
Of the story you must hear
Of years ago.
There lived a man named Jean Valjean
He stole some bread to save his sister's son
For nineteen winters served his time
In sweat he washed away his crime
Years ago
He broke parole and lived a life apart
How could he tell Cosette and break her heart?
It's for Cosette that this must be faced
If he is caught she is disgraced
The time is come to journey on
And from this day he must be gone
Who am I?
Who am I?
Marius
You're Jean Valjean!
What can I do
That will turn you from this?
Monsieur, you cannot leave
Whatever I tell my beloved Cosette
She will never believe!
Valjean
Make her believe
I have gone on a journey
A long way away
Tell her my heart was too full for farewells
It is better this way
Promise me, M'sieur, Cosette will never know.
Marius
I give my word.
Valjean
... what I have spoken, why I must go.
Marius
For the sake of Cosette, it must be so.

JULY IS NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. He recognized ice cream as a fun and nutritious food that is enjoyed by a full 90% of the nation's population. In the proclamation, President Reagan called for all people of the United States to observe these events with "appropriate ceremonies and activities."

The man did something good!

I Love Ice Cream, and everyday is ice cream day for me!!! Whats your favorite flavors?

Have a nice Day/Evening everyone!

Pastures of plenty


Its a mighty hard road that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled one hot, dusty road
Out of your dust bowl and westward we roll
And your deserts was hot and your mountains was cold



I have worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I've slept on the ground in the light of your moon
On the edge of the city, you will see us and then
We came with the dust and we go with the wind



California, Arizona, we make all your crops
Then its up north to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, pick the grapes from your vine
To place on your table, your light sparkling wine



Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in this union, us migrants has been
We come with the dust, and we're gone with the wind



Well its always we ramble this river and I
All your green valleys I'll work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life need it be
For my pastures of plenty, must always be free



Yes my pastures of plenty, must always be free