Howdy,
Before getting to today's offering, here is yet another vintage song-poem ad from Vinnie. I suspect this one may have been more for a book than for records. The limit on length and the suggestion that poets send in haikus suggests to me that no songs were being created. I have such a book, made up of somewhat fair to absolutely wretched poetry, produced by a company that was doing even less for the customer than the song-poem factories were, literally just compiling well over 1000 poems into one volume (this book is from the 1940's). There is hardly anything that could be more anonymous and would have taken less effort.
I'm always up for an astronaut related song-poem - as the compilers of the early song-poem album and CDs said somewhere, that's a subject that really seemed to fascinate a significant percentage of song-poets, being the subject of song-poems seemingly about as often as was John F. Kennedy.
So I eagerly snapped this one - "The Ballad of Apollo 8" - on eBay not long ago, with the fond wish of sharing it with y'all. And it's a nice enough country groove with an effective musical and backing vocal arrangement, and a genuinely excellent vocal from Sammy Marshall.
But ooof, those lyrics. Apparently the ENTIRE project was managed by God. The entire song is about what God did for us, including a reference to the Genesis description of the moon as "the lesser light". There is nary a mention of scientists or others who might have had just a tiny role in the project.
The song-poet was thoughtful enough to make mention of the first manned attempt in the series - Apollo 1, which caught fire and killed three astronauts without ever taking off - but somehow.... SOMEHOW.... doesn't get around to indicating what role God's played in that disaster. After all, if he made the tin can go around the moon, then he must have made the other tin can go boom. Hmmm. Maybe it was his day off.
I suspect I can't say the following without offending at least a few readers, but this sort of thing just grates on me. As a cradle-to-grave Christian, I have yet to be able to understand the version of religion, ANY religion, that thinks God cares who wins ballgames, who wins awards, who wins wars, or who successfully circles the moon first. Maybe it's not quite as bad when someone does something singular, alone, like win a tennis championship (although I still can't stand it), but when you are literally ignoring a decade of work by thousands of people. No. Just no. As you can tell, I actually find it pretty obnoxious. Your mileage may vary.
Science did it, Ms. song-poemist. Engineers. Science. Federal Funding (remember when that was a thing most people supported?). Write a song about the scientists. Or the astronauts.
Download: Sammy Marshall - The Ballad of Apollo 8
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The same song-poet submitted the flip side, "Memories of Schooldays". And while this doesn't rile up any emotions close to the other side, it does strike me that the other problem exists here. This is a sort of sweet lyric about the writer visiting her elementary school, no closed and in poor repair, and reveling in her memories, hearing the voices of those she knew in her head, and imagining children on the playground.
It's sweet. Clunky in spots but sweet. And in this case, the music doesn't do the lyrics justice, at least not for me.
Download: Sammy Marshall - Memories of Schooldays
Play:
