Of Hard Times and Harmony

Windborne are hailed as “the most exciting vocal group in a generation,” singing songs of social justice, past and present. Here you’ll find the Chartist anthem ‘Earth’s Burdens’ beside Burns’ ‘Parcel of Rogues’ (addressing the Scots colonialist adventurers whose bankruptcy led to the Union) and next to it ‘The Song of Hard Times’, collected by Alan Lomax in the 1930s, a decade of very hard times indeed. Are we destined to see their return, in the wake of Putin’s war, rocketing inflation, and a recession linking arms with Depression? If we are, will these beautifully sung political songs change things for the better?

Racial justice and BLM looms large. Phil Ochs’ ‘The Ballad of Medgar Evers’ even comes with extra verses; though switching and mixing verses in the tradition is nothing new, adding words to Ochs’ song, which needs nothing added (they do the same with Burns, too) makes me uneasy. In the album’s lyric book, you’ll read plenty about Ochs and Evers, while Dylan, and ‘Only a Pawn in Their Game’, a far better song, is glaringly absent. Maybe they can’t forgive Bob for going electric, finding Jesus or not being committed enough. Thankfully, they leave untouched Ochs’ ‘When I’m Gone’. When it comes to highlighting the ugliness of injustice, these harmonisers do make beautiful work of it.