Showing results by narrator "Barbara Groark" in All Categories

Why does a song become a favorite oldie, even across generations? The problems of heart versus head versus hormones have been fodder for songs even older than one's parents and grandparents. These three spoken ballads, originating in the British Isles but well-traveled into American Appalachia, and recorded even by some of today's musicians, tell tales of careless love and heroism and the real (or satirical) effects of an individual's words and actions and willfulness.

The very short, 100-year-old Prayer to Saint Michael was a part of the Catholic Mass up till the 1960s. The longer, 1000-year-old Saint Patrick's Breastplate has not been a part of formal liturgy. Both represent a fighting spirit while asking for divine protection against very particular problems of evil and its many threats against human life. With short introductions.

The biblical psalms offer several different viewpoints on war and warfare, from pride in victory with the Lord's help, to complaint that the speaker is the only one who seems to want peace, to demands on the Lord to wake up and take revenge on enemies who prowl the streets howling like dogs and preying on the innocent.

Love added to anger produces work and a maturing of the human spirit. This is the message of "The Quarry," one of the more philosophical and secular poems from the Polish poet Karol Wojtyla, also known by the name Pope John Paul II. The observer analyzes the materials and technology, inspiration and satisfaction, and transformation of the stonecutters performing their work, as well as the danger in what they do. With a short introduction.

This bit of Americana from the early 20th century is a working-man's "drinking poem" that at the same time warns of the perils of drink, and also perhaps the perils of love. With a short introduction.