Libertarian Showtunes

Russ Roberts is on the hunt for free-market folk songs, and is having difficulty finding any. Bryan Caplan, meanwhile, takes up the call by pointing to some excellent punk rock for classical liberals.

Let me, then, swing this discussion toward a third, unlikely source of inspiration -- libertarian showtunes.In particular, I'm thinking of one of the most criminally overlooked Broadway productions of the 1970s -- Shenandoah. The story of a Virginia family set against the backdrop of the early days of the Civil War, the show propounds a combination of libertarian themes that you don't see too often in Civil War stories. It was anti-war, anti-interventionist, anti-slavery, but also PRO-secession. It is, in a nutshell, the story of a man who decides he'd rather secede from any country at all than have his six sons conscripted to fight for a cause none of them believe in.

Shenandoah wasn't ground-breaking and revolutionary, like Sondheim's shows of the time. It didn't have the show-stopping dance numbers of A Chorus Line or Bob Fosse's best work. It wasn't gaudy and over-the-top like Andrew Lloyd Weber's Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.

But one thing this show did have going for it were some powerful themes of individualism. Adapted from the equally libertarian Jimmy Stewart movie and starring John Cullum (best known for his later television work, and particularly his turn as Holling Vencour on Northern Exposure,) Shenandoah's original cast recording was a major formative influence on me as a kid, and it remains one of my favorite guilty pleasures to this day.

To begin with, you have the show’s best known song, "Freedom," which is, admittedly, more than a bit hokey, but whose lyrics would function perfectly well as a summary of Harry Browne’s How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World:

Freedom ain't a state like Maine or Virginia
Freedom ain't across some county line
Freedom is a flame that burns within ya
Freedom's in the state of mind

(Chorus) Freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom
Freedom is a flame that burns within ya
Freedom's in the state of mind

Freedom ain't a boat that's leaving without ya
Freedom ain't a place ya float to find
Freedom's in the how ya think about ya
Freedom's in the state of mind

(Chorus)

You can't get to freedom by riding on a train
The only way to freedom is right on through your brain

Freedom is a notion sweeping the nation
Freedom is the right of all mankind
Freedom is a body's imagination
Freedom is a state of mind

Freedom, freedom
Freedom, freedom
Freedom is a notion sweeping the nation
Freedom is a body's imagination
Freedom is a full-time occupation
Freedom's in the state of mind

Then there’s the powerful anti-war polemic, "I've Heard It All Before," which really gives Cullum the chance to show off his operatic range over cascading piano fills:

Stand and show your colors
Let's all go to war
The Lord will surely bless us
I've heard it all before

I’ve heard it all a hundred times
I’ve heard it all before
They’ve always got some holy cause
To march you off to war

Tyranny or justice, anarchy or law
We must defend our honor
I’ve heard it all before

I’ve heard it all a hundred times
I’ve heard it all before
They’ve always got a holy cause
That’s worth the dying for

Someone writes a slogan
Raises up a flag
Someone finds an enemy to blame
The trumpet sounds, the call to arms
To leave the cities and the farms
And always, the ending is the same
The same,
The SAME!
The same…

The dream has turned to ashes
The wheat has turned to straw
And someone asks the question
“What was the dying for?”
The living can’t remember
The dead no longer care
But next time it won’t happen
Upon my soul, I swear

I’ve heard it all a hundred times
I’ve heard it all before
Don’t tell me it’s different now!
I’ve heard it all
I’ve heard it all
I've heard it all before

But, finally, the piece de resistance, is the "Meditation." Half a song, and half a monologue, it closes out the show's first half with Cullum talking to his late wife's headstone, reminiscing on how the family got to be where it is, before ultimately closing with a declaration that comes damn close to being an anarcho-capitalist anthem:

You know, Martha
It's getting harder and harder
to find someone to talk to
Virginia's gone crazy, Martha
Everybody's screaming 'States rights!'
...and war....
And the family, well,
We're trying awful hard to stay out of it

But sooner or later
They'll be calling me a traitor
Your friends, Martha, and mine
But they'll never take our sons
to face those Yankee guns
and be targets in a long grey line

They'll say we made life here in Virginia
and we owe the Commonwealth a thing or two
Well, if anyone here
owes anyone here
Virginia should be owing me and you

Remember how it used to be
when it was only you and me, Martha?
Remember when we didn't know
how to make potatoes grow
back a hundred years ago, Martha?

Well, we settled in a corner
of the Shenandoah Valley
and we started on a penny and crumb
You were sweet as clover
and I was green all over
Everywhere except in my thumb
I think of how it used to be
The way we struggled, Martha
You and me

Well, I took an axe and I chopped us a clearing
Hung up a door on a maple frame
Raised up a roof and got us out of the weather
And then came Jacob and James

Jacob and James
and April rains
and frost and snow
and growing pains

You brought me drink and I planted an acre
Sowed us the seeds we were counting on
And it seems we could grow more than beans by the acre
Welcome Nathan and John

Jacob and James,
Nathan and John,
Blessed are those
Heaven smiles upon

Root out the weeds, the stumps and rocks,
Put out the mule and the plow
Got a Jenny and Henry Anderson now
An apple tree with a fruited bough
A loving wife with child again
And I'm thinking I should sleep with the cow, Martha
Yonder in the barn with the cow

Now, send for the Doc
Vicar West'll bring him
Pour me a drink and I'll drink for joy
Pad up the bedroom,
Roll up the gingham
Name him Robert, he's a boy

Jacob and James
Nathan and John
Jenny and Henry
and Robert
and then,
...you were gone, Martha

And me?
I got 28 years in this farm
My blood, my sweat and my tears in this farm
And no one's gonna come along and say
That I owe any part
Not the TINIEST part
to anyone in any single way

This farm don't belong to Virginia
My sons bleed,
but not for the South
This land here
...is Andersonland!
By the strength of my hand
and the sweat of my brow
for as long
as the Lord
will allow

Comments

[Aunt Liz]

Bravo Ray!

[R.J. Lehmann]

Ahh, you're just saying that because you're the one who introduced me to it.

[Bernard Guerrero]

Soundgarden, "My Wave". Fits my brand of libertarianism perfectly. :^)

Take, if you want a slice
If you want a piece
If it feels alright

Break, if you like the sound
If it gets you up
If it brings you down

Share, if it makes you sleep
If it sets you free
If it helps you breathe

Don’t come over here
And piss on my gate
Save it just keep it
Off my wave

Cry, if you want to cry
If it helps you see
If it clears your eyes

Hate, if you want to hate
If it keeps you safe
If it makes you brave

Pray, if you want to pray
If you like to kneel
If you like to lay

Don’t come over here
And piss on my gate
Save it just keep it
Off my wave

Keep it off my wave
Keep it off my wave
Keep it off my wave

My wave

Cry, if you want to cry
If it helps you see
If it clears your eyes

Hate, if you want to hate
If it keeps you safe
If it makes you brave

Take, if you want a slice
If you want a piece
If it feels alright

Don’t come over here
And piss on my gate
Save it just keep it
Off my wave

My wave

[Avi Landau]

The TenGooz have a Reggae-Punk version of
the anti-war classic Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya

Its downloadable for free at

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/the.tengooz/

on their Inertia cd