Writers Guild Office Boy 1970 (viii)

Before I moved to the Bronx, I had already written protest folk songs like “Bloody Minds” and “He Walked Up The Hill,” as well as folk love songs like “If I’ll Give You A Rose,” “Open Up Your Eyes” and “Show Me Films.” But between April 1970 and early August 1971, the protest folk songs and male feminist folk love songs poured out more rapidly. Some of the folk songs I wrote during this period I no longer remember. Or, at best, I only remember the melody and one verse of the lyrics or just the chorus. Other folk songs written during this period I still remember enough to sing.

“Come With Us” included the following lyrics:

“Oh, people sitting on the ground
Why can’t you hear the sounds?
We’ve been trying
But so many still are dying.

And I wish I could have you as a friend
But you seem to prefer another man
So I’ve been cryin’
While you’ve been flying.

Come with us
Flee with me
We’ll be kind
In the breeze...”

“Florrie’s song” included the following lyrics:

"Oh, rhymes and chimes
Runnin’ through my mind
And sobs and moans
Engraved in my soul.

So come to me
Florrie
Oh, can’t you see
Florrie.
The wind, it’s cold
I often feel alone
You still work
Why don’t you take a rest?

And come to me
Florrie
Oh, can’t you see
Florrie...”

“Woman I Love” was another folk song from this period which included the following lyrics:

“Oh, I wish you were here tonight
I’d kiss your lips and I’d hold you tight…

And what are you doing?
Woman I love
And how are you feeling?
Do you still come?...”

“Lynn’s Song”, which was one of the first folk songs written around this time that described the political and economic situation of most intellectual women in the 1960s and early 1970s in an updated way, was also written in the Bronx and included the following lyrics:

“Oh come in
Lynn
We might lose
We might win
You are smart, I know
And your anger shows.

Most men own pets
Who cook and kiss
Men earn bread
So they command
Their maids,
Their women...”