Welcome to Letters from Quotidia, 2024 Episode 7, the June edition. Quotidia remains that space, that place, where ordinary people lead ordinary lives. But where, from time to time, they encounter the extraordinary. I was looking for a June song and almost immediately, That’s Life, suggested itself to me. I think I first heard it back in late 1967 or early 1968. The song was written by a 22-year-old Dean Kay whose drafting by the US military had put his slowly growing musical career on hold. Home on leave, he sat at the piano and in twenty minutes had the song mostly crafted. Frank Sinatra heard a version of the song in 1965 and knew he had to sing it. A now 26-year-old Dean Kay knew that his life was to be changed immeasurably for the better when he learned that Sinatra wanted to cover it. And so it was. The phrase, that’s life, encapsulates the dips and peaks one experiences on life’s journey and the song appeals to those who determine to pick themselves up after being knocked down by misfortune. In Australia, there is a myth that a similar phrase, Such Is Life, were the final words of Ned Kelly, the infamous outlaw as he stood on the scaffold of Melbourne Gaol. In fact, his final words were Ah Well, I suppose…which his detractors use to claim that he was just mumbling incoherently at the end. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, as Niall Williams points out in his wonderful novel History of the Rain. Ah Well, in the mouths of Irish people has the same plangency as Virgil’s sunt lacrimae rerum– there are tears at the heart of things- pointing to the universality of suffering and mortality. Emily Dickinson expressed it so well in the open and closing stanzas of her poem, After Great Pain-After great pain, a formal feeling comes –/The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –/The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’/And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?/…She concludes with-This is the Hour of Lead –/Remembered, if outlived,/As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –/First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –// But before any letting go, let’s listen to a version of the song by this denizen of Quotidia who, as visitors to these shores have often witnessed, has no shame or hesitancy at all in taking on songs that some may feel ought to be sacrosanct- left to the superstars who have made them known all over the world. But, that aint me babe, no, no, no. What I like about That’s Life, apart from the lyrical content which I applaud, is the bluesy swing that propels the melody and makes this song so memorable. [insert song] The American song tradition is one of the glories of the modern world and I go to the other end of the spectrum for my second song. I first heard the work of this songwriter as a kid in Lago Elementary School in Aruba in the late 1950s. We learned a lot of patriotic songs in music classes there in the depths of the Cold War in the tropical heat of the Caribbean. Now, it wasn’t until a bit later that I realised that author of, perhaps, the most loved and performed song at the school was a true radical whose political beliefs were anathema to the prevailing ethos. I refer, of course, to Woody Guthrie and his song, This Land is Your Land. But it’s not this rousing song I will cover but one that is more sombre which I heard on the Christy Moore album Prosperous released in 1972. The Ludlow Massacre is one of the standout tracks. According to Wikipedia, The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners’ wives and children, were killed.  Ludlow was the deadliest single incident during the conflict. In retaliation, bands of armed miners attacked dozens of anti-union establishments, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 225-mile (362 km) front from Trinidad to Louisville. An estimated 69 to 199 people were killed during the strike. The massacre site is owned by the United Mine Workers of America, which erected a granite monument in memory of those who died that day. The president of the time, Woodrow Wilson sent in federal troops to quell the unrest in 1914. Contrast that to what current US President, Joe Biden, did on September 26, 2023- he stood in solidarity alongside American auto workers on a picket line. A first in American history. Woody Guthrie wrote the song in 1944 from the point of view of one of the miners. Here is my version. [Insert song] I will attempt to regain my mojo and write an original song for the next post quoting another American president, Theodore Roosevelt,  who wrote, The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…. who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Until the next time, take care and, like me, try to avoid becoming one of the cold and timid souls that Theodore Roosevelt referred to!

That’s Life (words and music Dean Kay; additional matter Kelly Gordon)

That’s life (that’s life)
That’s what all the people say
You’re riding high in April, shot down in May
But I know I’m gonna change that tune
When I’m back on top, back on top in June

I said that’s life (that’s life)
And as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks
Stomping on a dream
But I don’t let it, let it get me down
Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin’ around

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

That’s life (that’s life)
I tell you, I can’t deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it
And if I didn’t think it was worth one single try
I’d jump right on a big bird and then I’d fly

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

That’s life (that’s life)
That’s life and I can’t deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out, but my heart won’t buy it
But if there’s nothing shaking, come this here July
I’m gonna roll myself up
In a big ball and die

My, my

The Ludlow Massacre Woody Guthrie

It was early springtime when the strike was on

They drove us miners out of doors

Out from the houses that the company owned

We moved into tents up at old Ludlow

I was worried bad about my children

Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge

Every once in a while a bullet would fly

Kick up gravel under our feet

We were so afraid you’d kill our children

Dug us a cave that was seven foot deep

Carried our young ones and a pregnant woman

Down inside the cave to sleep

That very night you soldiers waited

 ‘Till all us miners was a sleep

You snuck around our little tent town

Soaked our tents with your kerosene

You struck a match and the blaze it started

You pulled the triggers of your Gatling guns

I made a run for the children but the firewall stopped me

Thirteen children died from your gun

I carried my blanket to a wire-fence corner

Watched the fire ‘till the blaze died down

I helped some people drag their belongings

While your bullets killed us all around

I never will forget the look on the faces

Of the men and women on that awful day

When we stood around to preach their funeral

And lay the corpses of the dead away

We told the governor to phone up the president

Tell him call off his national guard

But the national guard belonged to the governor

So he didn’t try so very hard

Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes

Up to Wallensburg in a little cart

They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back

And they put a gun in every hand

The state soldiers jumped us in the wire-fence corners

Did not know that we had these guns

And the redneck miners mowed down them troopers

You should of seen them poor boys run

 We took some cement and walled the cave up

Where you killed these thirteen children inside

I said, “God bless the mine workers’ union”

And I hung my head and cried

Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.