Robert Sherman, who with his brother Richard Sherman co-wrote numerous Walt Disney classics, has passed away at the age of 86. The Sherman brothers composed music for such films as Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), The Jungle Book (1967), and other films. They also composed the oft-played, “It’s a Small World After All.” Among their many awards, the brothers received Academy Awards for the score of Mary Poppins and for the best song, which also was from that film, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”
Richard’s brother Robert has explained that among their classic songs was Walt Disney’s favorite song, “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins.
It is a beautiful song that is unusual for a children’s movie. The song is not about dancing and happy animated creatures, but instead it is about a poor (homeless?) woman taking care of birds. One commentator has argued that the scene has religious overtones about “stewardship” and “a responsibility on humanity to care for nature.” It’s an interesting argument that reflects on the pivotal role of the woman feeding the birds in contrast to the children’s capitalist father who balks at the children spending their money on bird feeding. Wikipedia recounts how when Walt Disney first heard the song, he recognized that it was the central meaning of the film about charity and caring for others.
As a child, I found the scene both scary and intriguing (the latter of which might have been from the mystery to my American ears about what Julie Andrews sang when she sang “tuppence a bag”). Speaking of caring for others, the woman who played the small part of the bird woman was Jane Darwell, who had played Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Disney coaxed her out of retirement to play the part in Mary Poppins, which was her last film and which had some similar themes to her role in The Grapes of Wrath. Not a bad message from her or the Sherman brothers. RIP. In their honor, be nice today.
Although the Washington Post had called this Bruce Springsteen song “cartoonish,” to understand it as one of Springsteen’s greatest songs, one needs to look back to origins going back through Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Woody Guthrie, and Curtis Mayfield.
In 2012, Bruce Springsteen released his album Wrecking Ball (2012) to generally good reviews. Yet, the Washington Post claimed that one of the songs on the album, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” is like a “pose” full of “[c]artoonishly austere American cliches.”
Well, the Post is wrong about the song. Most of us first heard “Land of Hope and Dreams” when it was played during the 1999 reunion tour with the E Street Band. It later appeared in a live version on 2001’s Live in New York City and 2003’s Essential Bruce Springsteen before finally appearing in a studio version on Wrecking Ball in 2012.
Why would Springsteen release a studio version of a song more than ten years after it had already appeared on an album? Besides the fact that the prolific songwriter has been known to sit on songs for decades before release, the timing is perfect for this song for three reasons discussed in more detail below.
First, the new version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” is a beautiful tribute to the late Clarence Clemons. Second, the song brings a little hope to an album about hard times. Finally, the song is not a “pose;” it is one of Springsteen’s most beautiful songs, evoking Woody Guthrie and Curtis Mayfield while turning a classic folk song on its head.
(1) A Fitting Tribute to Clarence Clemons
First, the above new gospel version of the song from the new album is one of the final songs recorded with Clemons, so one may understand that it was important for Springsteen to include Clemons on the album. And because the song goes back to 1999 when Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band, it also evokes the connection among the band mates.
It was not surprising that when Dave Marsh wrote an essay memorializing Clarence Clemons that he entitled the article, “In the Land of Hope and Dreams.” Springsteen often has included references to the E Street Band members in his songs, ranging from “Tenth-Avenue Freeze-Out” to “The Last Carnival,” a tribute to deceased E Street Band member Danny Federici. Here, the placement of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” featuring Clemons’s sax solo, next to the final song on the regular album, “We Are Alive,” where Springsteen imagines his own death, connects the album to the Big Man and his sweet soul departed.
In The Guardian, Springsteen noted that when listening to the new album, “When the sax comes up on ‘Land of Hope and Dreams,’ it’s a lovely moment for me.” What a perfect tribute.
(2) A Song of Hope
Second, the album Wrecking Ball is Springsteen’s recession-era CD, and the song signals a way out of hard times. Springsteen’s last CD, Working on a Dream, came out during the recent recession, but it had been recorded during a period of hope as then Senator Barack Obama was running for president.
By the time Springsteen toured to support Working on a Dream (2009), the economy and the mood of the country had changed, leading to dissatisfaction and some despair. So Springsteen had to rework setlists from an originally upbeat theme to include more of his past songs about hard times. He even added Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More.” During that time, he apparently began thinking about this album, as during the tour he debuted this album’s title song, “Wrecking Ball.”
While there is a touch of sadness in almost every Springsteen song, including classics like “Thunder Road,” he often mixes dark and light. When he sings about despair and hopelessness, he is rarely hopeless. So, on an album about hard times, it is not surprising that he would signal to us that there is some hope: “Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine/ And all this darkness past.” As in the first single, “We Take Care of Our Own,” he embraces one of his common themes that hope lies in caring for each other.
(3) The American Songbook and Trains: “This Train”
Finally, we come to why “Land of Hope & Dreams,” one of Springsteen’s most optimistic songs, is also one of his greatest and not just a cartoon as the Washington Post claims. The song embraces much of the American songbook. With the song’s reference to “bells of freedom” it evokes the Bob Dylan song that inspired the name of this blog.
But, more prominently, “Land of Hope and Dreams” connects to the long tradition of songs about trains. This legacy travels from Robert Johnson, Jimmy Rodgers, and Hank Williams through songs like Cat Stevens’s “Peace Train.”
To understand “Land of Hope and Dreams,” though, we must begin with a classic folk song, “This Train,” which Springsteen has confessed helped inspire “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Big Bill Broonzy recorded the traditional song “This Train,” and the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe had a hit with “This Train” in 1939.
“This Train” goes back even further in time. Woody Guthrie adapted the traditional song as one about going to glory if you are good, because that train “Don’t carry nothing but the righteous and the holy.” The song specifically excludes gamblers, liars, smokers, con men, rustlers, side street walkers, wheeler dealers, and hustlers.
One may hear Guthrie’s version in this scene from Bound for Glory (1976), with David Carradine portraying Woody Guthrie.
It is interesting that Guthrie became associated with a righteous song, when the lyrics seem counter to many of his principles. Yet, one may also see it as attacking the con men of the establishment.
When Guthrie’s editor-agent proposed changing his autobiography’s title from Boomhchasers to Bound for Glory because of the book’s descriptions of Guthrie singing the song to homeless men, Guthrie initially balked. He was worried that readers would think he meant “Bound for Glory” to apply to himself. His understanding of the phrase from the song was that “the common people” are bound for glory. (Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life.)
“This Train” may be bound for glory, but many sinners have sung the song. Below is a performance by some of the early Sun Records rockers and admitted sinners, including Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison.
The song goes back even further in American history, as “This Train” was used by slaves to convey messages to each other on the Underground Railroad, with “glory” meaning “freedom.” Still, despite the history and inclusiveness attributed to the song, in the lyrics the train that is bound for glory limits its ridership to exclude sinners, however that term is defined.
Springsteen takes that limit and turns it on its head. As he has explained, “Land of Hope and Dreams” is a response to “This Train,” spreading a message of inclusiveness instead of a message of exclusion.
“People Get Ready”
In case anyone missed the message of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” on the new studio version one hears the Victorious Gospel Choir repeating the refrain from Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” That song originally was a hit for the Impressions in 1955 (discussed in more detail in a previous Chimesfreedom post).
The gospel songs of Mayfield’s youth inspired him in writing “People Get Ready.” And in looking closer at the lyrics and hearing the song sung below by Alicia Keys, one may understand how the song inspired Springsteen either consciously or unconsciously in writing “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
People get ready there’s a train comin’; You don’t need no baggage, just get on board; All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’, You don’t need no ticket, just thank the Lord.
Mayfield did not specifically address the sinners of “This Train” in “People Get Ready.” But his song implied the sinners could still board the train as long as they had faith.
Climb On Board This Train
Springsteen, though, goes even further than Guthrie and Mayfield. His train has no requirements and calls everyone to board.
Springsteen does note that “faith will be rewarded.” Faith in what? God? Rock and roll? He does not say. And that is the beauty of the song. We are all saints and sinners and we are all welcome. Just have faith in something, even if it is each other.
Yes, Washington Post, the welcoming train in American music is an American cliche. But every decade or so it is good for us lost souls to be reminded that we all are on the same journey together.
This train Carries saints and sinners; This train Carries losers and winners; This Train Carries whores and gamblers; This Train Carries lost souls.
{This last video from a Springsteen performance at the Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut on May 8, 2000 is the E Street Band’s wonderful guitar-heavy version of the song that also appeared on 2001’s Live in New York City album. I love the opening riff of this earlier live version of the song, but I will reserve judgment for which version I prefer after numerous more listens of the newer gospel version.}
Do you prefer the new 2012 version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” at the beginning of this post or the 2001 live version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” at the end of the post? Leave your two cents in the comments.
After hearing that Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was devoting a whole show to Bruce Springsteen, I had little doubt that they would reprise a Niel Young-Bruce Springsteen duet like they did on an earlier show with “Whip My Hair.”
But last night, instead of a Born-to-Run-era Springsteen, the Boss got out his old bandana and came as Born-in-the-USA Springsteen. This time, they sang LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It,” with Springsteen in on the joke making fun of his former muscle-shirted self exchanging his usual “whoa, whoa, whoa” with “wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.”
(May 2012 Update: The link from NBC apparently no longer works, but you may also see the video on YouTube here.) If you missed the show and wish to see the Springsteen interview as well as his performances with the E Steet Band of two new songs from the new album — “Death to My Hometown” and “Jack of All Trades” — as well as a rousing “E Street Shuffle” with the Roots, you may find them at Consequences of Sound and at Blogness on the Edge of Town.
What do you think of the cover of “Sexy and I Know It”? Funny or just a retread of “Whip My Hair”? Leave your two cents in the comments. If you like the post, retweet it!
This week on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” John Legend and The Roots performed an excellent cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” from Springsteen’s Born in the USA (1984). To top it off, Legend also made the performance MP3 available to fans with a free download.
2024 Update: Unfortunately, the performance with the Roots is no longer available, but here is another performance by Legend singing “Dancing in the Dark”:
What do you think of John Legend’s cover? Leave your two cents in the comments.
With Tank Full of Blues (2012), Dion completes a trilogy of outstanding blues albums along with Bronx in Blue (2006) and Son of Skip James (2007). While Bronx in Blues focused on covering traditional blues standards from Robert Johnson and others, and Son of Skip James followed that formula with a few more originals, in Tank Full of Blues Dion wrote or co-wrote all but two of the songs, taking his blues to another level. The new album adds more percussion and electric guitar into the mix without overdoing it on these new classics.
Dion worked to build his blues cred with the previous two albums, paying homage to the kings with a little bit of Bronx street swagger thrown in. I have previously written about the two earlier CDs and how when Bronx in Blues came out it was a great discovery for me. On Tank Full of Blues, though, Dion uses his blues credibility to show a little more of his own wings, as Dion’s originals on this album transition smoothly next to ones by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Just as the album makes you wonder what else Dion can do, he closes with a spoken word rap on “Bronx Poem.” While he is not a hip-hop artist, one might root for him to try a rap album next as he shows here that his rhyming skills and bravado dating back to “Runaround Sue” are still there.
Dion Dimucci is one of the great rock n’ rollers, and these albums have shown he is also a great blues man. These albums are not an artist’s self-absorbed dabbling in another genre, but music that has the great Dion’s heart. As AllMusicwrote about Tank Full of Blues, “it is the album he’s been waiting an entire career to make.” For the artist behind such hits as “I Wonder Why,” “The Wanderer,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Donna the Prima Donna,” and “Abraham, Martin, and John,” that is high praise. Check out this great album by a music legend.
What do you think of Dion’s blues? Should he write a new song called “Runaround Blues”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Robert Sherman, who with his brother Richard Sherman co-wrote numerous Walt Disney classics, has passed away at the age of 86. The Sherman brothers composed music for such films as Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), The Jungle Book (1967), and other films. They also composed the oft-played, “It’s a Small World After All.” Among their many awards, the brothers received Academy Awards for the score of Mary Poppins and for the best song, which also was from that film, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”
