Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco

That’s what I do is I collect stories
(That’s what I do)
(That’s what I do is I collect stories)
Stories and songs and poems
(That’s what I do is I collect stories)
I seek out the elders
(I seek out the elders)
And garner stories and songs and poems
(Stories and songs and poems)
Characterized critically
(Stories)
Characterized critically as “Oh that’s that sixties stuff”
Like somebody doing old rock and roll would be doing “that fifties stuff”
Well, or “this is the nineties,” you know
I have a good friend in the east
A good singer, and a good folk singer, a good song collector
Who comes and listens to my shows and says
“You sing a lot about the past
You always sing about the past
You kind of live in the past, you know?”
And I say to him, “I can go outside and pick up a rock that’s older than the oldest song you know
And bring it back here and drop it on your foot
Now the past didn’t go anywhere, did it?
It’s right here, right now
I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn’t live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it would get ‘em in serious trouble
Heh heh heh
Y’know, it’s not that…
That fifties, seventies, nineties, that whole idea of decade packages
Things don’t happen that way
The Vietnam War heated up in 1965 and ended in 1975
Y’know, what’s that got to do with the decades?
No, that packaging of time is a journalistic convenience that they use to trivialize and dismiss
Important events and important ideas
I defy that
(I defy that)
(I defy that)
Time is an enormous long river
(Important events and important ideas)
(Time is an enormous long river)
(Time is an enormous long river)
(Important events and important ideas)
(Time is an enormous long river)
And I’m standing in it just as you’re standing in it
My elders were the tributaries
And everything they thought
And every struggle they went through
And everything they gave their lives to
And every song they created
And every poem they laid down
Flows down to me
And if I take the time to ask
If I take the time to seek
If I take the time to reach out
I can build that bridge between my world and theirs
I can reach down that river and take out what I need to get through this world
Bridges
From my time to your time
As my elders from their time to my time
And we all put into the river
And we let it go
And it flows away from us and away from us
Until it no longer has our name, our identity
It has its own utility and its own use
And people will take what they need and make it part of their lives
(Bridges)
Oh oh oh oh oh
(Bridges)
(Bridges)
Oh oh oh oh oh
(Bridges)
(Bridges)
(Bridges)
(Bridges)
(Heh heh heh)
(Heh heh heh)
I sometimes dwell at length
(I sometimes dwell at length)
(The past didn’t go anywhere)
(Heh heh heh)
(The past didn’t go anywhere)
(The past didn’t go anywhere, did it?)
Oh oh oh oh oh
Well lemme tell you a story…