Being unemployed has driven me to start writing about stuff and posting it on the Internet for anyone to read. I was listening to one of the Secret Museums of Mankind compilations this morning and really just admiring how songs can sometimes feel so poignant nearly 100 years after they've been recorded, even if they're recorded in a language of which I have no understanding (in fact, the song that was playing was sung in Georgian.)
Towards the end of college I got very into old time American folk music and while the new stuff is great, it somehow can't compare to the likes of Uncle Dave Macon or Charlie Poole. Work like theirs goes beyond just music. It's an artifact and I mean that in the most positive way. It creates a direct audio connection to the lives our ancestors lived. Someone's great great grandmother in Greece fell in love to Marika Papagika. Someone's great great grandfather in New York City reminisced about the country he left behind while the strains of Poland's Cyganska Orchestra Stefana played.
Since discovering this sort of music I've loved thinking of the people who were touched by the songs of their time and I'm going to use this space to share it as well as my thoughts on it.
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