We are only one river - and Airplane

(from 2012)

It’s that folk season again – the season where Mr and Mrs Occasional will shortly be joining daughter and son in law to camp in a muddy field and strum and sing at a weekend folk festival. Occasional has no problem behaving like a superannuated hippie, although rather worryingly, Mrs Occasional was heard to mutter darkly “never again” last year. She has relented – just. But it seems a good time to consider a recurrent theme in folk music – and a popular film that trashed it good and proper!

The concept behind folk music is that this is the music of the people, made by the people. Often made very badly by the people one has to admit, but in its purest form, passing on to future generations the songs and feelings of the past – with a bit of protest and agit-prop thrown in for good measure. The river rushes on – we are part of the whole – a link in the chain – and it continues when we are gone – the sort of mixed metaphor sentiment so beloved of humanist funeral services.

Many songs try and portray this feeling. One of the best was River of Jordan, a song written by Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary – one of the 60s acts which made folk music serious for college students before Dylan led the mass folk movement into electric pop.

The song first surfaced on a Yarrow solo album in the 1970s, but in the early 1990s Peter Paul and Mary managed to persuade the three surviving members of the Weavers – Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman – to sing it with them. The Weavers represented folk music before it was made cool by groups like the Kingston Trio in the late 50s. A huge success initially, then their politics got them blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Seeger helped write such standards as Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I Had a Hammer, Turn Turn Turn, and introduced the western world to Wimoweh. He has lived long enough to morph into National Treasure from suspected pinko pariah in American consciousness.

So the Weavers – or three quarters of them – start the song – a line each, and then the baton is taken up by Peter, Paul and Mary. The message is clear; the torch is passed on from generation to generation, from aged folk icons to not quite so aged folk icons. It ends with a swelling chorus as if the whole world holds hands and joins in like a Coca Cola advert. I trust that fair use will allow me to quote: “We are only one river, we are only one sea, and it flows through you, and it flows through me...etc.” To quote from other contemporary sixties icons, “Yeah, yeah, yeah...”

Emotionally inspiring? Over-theatrical? Well, you can take your pick.

I lean towards the “emotionally inspiring.” But then came the film Airplane.

I am sure virtually all blog readers will have seen Airplane (and don’t call me Shirley). One of the swipes is at the sparkling pearly toothed singers of inspirational songs then current – and they use River of Jordan to do it.

The actress Lorna Patterson borrows a guitar from a singing nun. Right there is a cultural reference for those of a certain age - the tragic tale of the Singing Nun. She made a hit folk record Dominique, and so the story goes, being unworldly donated much of her royalties to the convent but without a paper trail. After leaving the convent, she was later hounded for taxes on money she claimed she never had, and ultimately committed suicide). But anyhow, back to Airplane, a nun gives Lorna the guitar and she smiles a smile designed for an orthodontics commercial (inviting a custard pie from the seriously unimpressed) – and starts singing to a little girl who is hooked up to an intravenous drip while travelling for a lifesaving transplant. All the emotional stereotypes are in place.

As Lorna gets into the swing of things, her guitar snags on the drip and pulls out the lead. The little girl starts writhing in the background, pulling a variety of spectacular faces, while her mother is oblivious and the singer blithely hollers at full throttle... We are only one river, we are only one sea...

I actually love the song. I loved the Weavers. I didn’t even mind Peter, Paul and Mary. And I certainly enjoy the Weavers remnants and PPM singing it together. I also find the Airplane parody hilarious, but unfortunately I can’t hear the song now without seeing the Singing Nun and the consequences. I must be both a true folkie believer and a closet Philistine. Call it cultural schizophrenia.

Shall we just say that I wouldn’t dare try and sing it at our folk festival weekend. Breaking into hysterics in the middle of serious folk-angst is really not the done thing on these occasions. Even by Occasional.