`New City Songster''s Volume 17 Editorial Revisited

In September 1981, volume 17 of New City Songster, a UK protest folk songbook--which contained the lyrics to Ted Edwards' "The Coal and Albert Berry," Don Minifie's "The Ballad of Pat Brady," Deborah Silverstein's "Draglines," Ewan MacColl's "Nobody Knew She Was There" and "What The Poet Called Her," John Pole's "Under The Leaves of Life,", Clem Parkinson's "Fishes Need--Bicycles," Ewan MacColl's "The Vandals," Yan Sharangparni's "Misfit's Story," Peggy Seeger's "Enough Is Enough," Ewan MacColl's "Kilroy Was Here," Paul Wilson and Marilyn Tucker's "Uni-Multi-Factors International," Jim Moreland and Keith Gregson's "I'm A Pneumo," Clem Parkinson's "Microbe's Picnic," Alan Lavercombe's "Laid Off," Ted Edwards' "Thy Fayther's Comin' Wom," Charlie King's "Taft-Hartley Song" and "The Dancing Boilerman," and Rod Shearman's "Is The Big Fella Gone?"--was published. And volume 17 of New City Songster also included an editorial which stated the following:

"...There has never been a greater need for good songs. We are standing on the brink of the Third and Last World War, at a crossroads that has no left or right turns, only forward and backward.

"The songs that are coming in reflect varying attitudes toward this cliff-edge, but they essentially all say the same thing: the human race is in trouble, there is alienation on all fronts. It is no longer just the boss against the worker, but male vs. female, old vs. young, city vs. country, big business vs. the people, first vs. second vs. third worlds, black vs. brown vs. yellow vs. pink vs. white. And of course, the nuclear threat hanging over the whole thing.

"It is hard to write hopeful songs these days, but we are doing it. That is the job of the artist, not to point the finger and say `Look at all that's wrong with the world' and then cut his throat. He/she must point to the way out. In all the songs in this volume, the huge issues of unemployment, race hatred, class war, ecological devastation, nuclear cataclysm are put into perspective as obstacles that we can overcome. This is done by personalising, by putting into detail the human response.

"It isn't only the comedy reactions of the characters in UNI-MULTI_FACTORS INTERNATIONAL, or PAT BRADY--nor the use of BIG  FELLA as an endearment to the whale--nor the detailed descriptions in NOBODY KNEW SHE WAS THERE. It is all these approaches at once, a total of individual human actions which is presented. Faced with nuclear annihilation, you feel mighty small. You may say, `What can one person do?' then, in despair at your seeming impotence, do nothing. But the bucket fills with water drop by drop until one mighty small drop takes the water over the top. No drop is indispensable to the final spillout. All the songs, all the constructive responses to the world situation are now not only important but vital.

"The first drop in the bucket is just as important as the last."