Jan 07 2009
The Kingston Trio Nailed it in The ’50’s
There’s a song by the Kingston Trio called “The Merry Minuet” that says it all. “The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch and I don’t like anybody very much!” These lyrics often drift through my head when I am listening to the evening news. Fifty years ago, our world was in exactly the same chaos that it is today. When the song was performed back then, audiences thought it was very clever (which it was) in its’ frankness about world-wide political conditions, including fear of one another as well as fear of the latest nuclear bomb. Presidential party affiliations, academic hierarchies, prolific education of the masses and intellectual freedom of every sort have not changed the status of world-wide antagonism one whit. Isn’t it amazing that in 50 years things have changed so much and yet so little?
The last part of the song goes, “They’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran. What nature doesn’t do to us will be done by our fellow man.”
Great article! A lot of the problems that are the same go back hundreds of years! Clever use of the Kingston Trio song.