Today, I read some conspiracy theory crap on Facebook, which always makes me despair at what the Internet is doing to us. But then I find something genuinely uplifting I likely would never see without the Internet. And so I become more hopeful for humans. Today, I was uplifted when I ran across this live 2016 performance by the late Greg Trooper.
The video is from the East Village Folk Festival on June 12, 2016, with Trooper on stage at the off-Broadway Theatre 80 St Marks in New York. Trooper passed away around six months later on January 15, 2017 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 61.
Artists such as Steve Earle and Billy Bragg have recorded songs written by Trooper. But Trooper’s warm voice is in a class by itself, and despite his battle with cancer, he sounds perfect in this performance.
He was also a great songwriter. His warmth, compassion, and humor comes through his own lyrics as well as his voice. He sings about love, he sings about the dreams of a victim of abuse, he sings from the perspective of a homeless man, and he gives the best tribute ever to Muhammad Ali. And those are only the first four songs.
With a well-played old guitar, Trooper engages the audience here with several of his wonderful songs and a few stories. Check out the entire performance.
The songs in the set are: “This I’ll Do,” All the Way to Amsterdam,” “They Call Me Hank,” “Muhammad Ali (The Meaning of Christmas),” “Everything’s a Miracle,” and “Ireland.”
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, although I would later go back and discover his earlier albums. He had me as a life-long fan the first time I heard “Sometimes It Takes a Hurricane,” a plea for social justice. “Sometime it takes no more than a drop of water/ Sometimes it takes a hurricane.”
(2003), comes from the folk tradition of ageless murder ballads. It is a beautiful song that will haunt you long after you hear the final lines. In some ways, it was courageous for Trooper to sing an unusual song like this one.
, Trooper wrote a song where a lover makes promises. In doing so, he took a typical love-song scenario and made it seem both touching and new.
(2013). It also features one of the funniest music videos you will see anywhere.
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. Sheeran wrote the song about a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine after he visited a homeless shelter.
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, where the singer sees a man avoiding a homeless person.
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