We boomers might remember a “novelty record” from the Fifties called “The Old Philosopher,” by Eddie Lawrence. here’s a live performance:
For those who can’t or don’t feel like watching, it begins with sad music in the background, as a guy with a raspy codger voice said:
Hiya folks. Ya say ya lost your job today? Ya say its 4 A.M. and your kids ain’t home from school yet? Ya say your wife went out for a corned beef sandwich last weekend - the corned beef sandwich came back but she didn’t? Ya say your furniture is out all over the sidewalk cause ya can’t pay the rent and ya got chapped lips and paper cuts and your feet’s all swollen up and blistered from pounding the pavement looking for work? Is that what’s troubling ya fellow?
Then there’s a drum roll and music abruptly changed to a Sousa march (and cheerleaders in the video), and the voice began shouting:
Well lift your head up high and take a walk in the sun with dignity and stick-to-it-ness and ya show the world, ya show the world where to get off. Youll never give up, never give up, never give up...that ship!
[Two similar verses ensue.]
Let’s try the 2022 version:
Ya say the opinion polls are gettin’ you down? Ya say they’re suppressing the vote? Ya say there’s two Democratic Senators who won’t let you do anything good? Ya say the investigation of the insurrection is going too slow for ya? Ya say racism and homophobia is just out in the open? Ya say democracy itself is threatened? Ya say the media “both sides” everything? Ya say 74 million people voted for a bigoted pathological liar?
[Drum roll, Sousa March, Cheerleaders]
Well lift your head up high and take a walk in the sun …. etc.
Many might say “The Old Philosopher” was mocking optimism. Maybe to some extent. But mostly, it was just weird and funny, and the optimism, mocking though it may have been, does have lessons for today
Too many people, even some here, are wallowing in the “Ya say your . . .” part of the song. I hear too many Democrats who think November 2022 is a foregone conclusion, at best an uphill battle. I see it in columns in the NY Times like Charles Blow’s Biden Bloodbath. I see it in people who already “know” that the January 6 Committee hearings won’t make a difference. I hear it from people who think Merrick Garland has already failed. I see it in lazy media which relies on stale conventional wisdom about “inevitable” midterm election results for the President’s party. I say two things to them:
1. Lift your head up high and take a walk in the sun with dignity and stick-to-it-ness and ya show the world, ya show the world where to get off. Youll never give up, never give up, never give up...that ship!
2. How? Do something!!!
Like what?
I am making calls to high schools all over the country to initiate connections between the schools and the Ready to Vote Challenge, an exciting program devised by The Civics Center, helping register thousands of high school seniors before graduation this spring.
There are many, many ways you can help, through other school voting groups like CivicInfluencers.org or Swingleft.org and many others featured here on Daily Kos.
So “Lift your head up and take a walk in the sun” by DOING SOMETHING to help Dems win the midterms.