Just A Little Rain
The following post is from a friend, Nina Egert. Thank you, Nina. This is very apt as we all wonder what kind of rain is falling on California. And yes, nothing seems to have changed since the 1960’s.
Nina:
Back in the 1960’s, Malvina Reynolds, a 40-something CAL Ph.D. in English, began writing songs for the coffee house movement. While not a great singer, her simple lyrics are some of the most profound ever written. Luckily, people like Joan Baez and Pete Seeger picked up on her material.
Newport Folk Festival, 1964
In those days, the concerns were over nuclear war. The fear was that fall-out from bombs would travel through the atmosphere, destroying the planet. How little has changed.
On a rainy day in California, when news from power plants in Japan worsens, I though people might appreciate a link to this song on YouTube. Malvina’s version is tender, but missing some of the lyrics, so listen to Baez’s as well:
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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).
Left Coast Voices 