Early of a morning, out in the fields, Mother Nature fills the quiet with a music of her own. Birdsong if you’re lucky, crickets otherwise. Sometime you might hear the patter of raindrops on the leaves, the pleating of a lamb, the grunting of a hog, or the crowing of a rooster. If you’d rather hear the melody of harp or string quartet, you might do just as well to stay inside and fret.
A breeze comes up and the field of leaves rustle with delight, Nature swaying back and forth – to a melody so slight.
Bob Dylan wrote a song about working on Maggie’s Farm. It doesn’t go well for Maggie or her kin. They didn’t treat the singer with any level of respect. Whether the worker is rewarded means little in the end. The song is more on relationships and if or when they’ll mend. [Spoiler alert… they won’t.]
As farm music goes, Maggie’s Farm is hardly a refreshing treat. Is there something deeper going on? Some musicologists point to an old folk song as a likely inspiration for Dylan’s lyric. The song is Down On Penny’s Farm … lyrics here:
Come you ladies and you gentlemen
And listen to my song,
I’ll sing it to you right, but you might think it’s wrong,
May make you mad, but I mean no harm,
It’s all about the renters on Penny’s farm.It’s hard times in the country,
Down on Penny’s farm.Now you move out on Penny’s farm,
Plant a little crop of ‘bacco and a little crop of corn,
He’ll come around to plan and plot,
Till he gets himself a mortgage
On everything you got.You go to the fields
And you work all day,
Till way after dark, but you get no pay,
Promise you meat or a little lard,
It’s hard to be a renter on Penny’s farm.Now here’s George Penny come into town,
With his wagon-load of peaches, not one of them sound,
He’s got to have his money or somebody’s check,
You pay him for a bushel,
And you don’t get a peck.Then George Penny’s renters, they come into town,
With their hands in their pockets, and their heads hanging down,
Go in the store and the merchant will say:
“Your mortgage is due
And I’m looking for my pay.”Goes down in his pocket with a trembling hand —
“Can’t pay you all but I’ll pay you what I can.”
Then to the telephone the merchant makes a call,
“They’ll put you on the chain gang
If you don’t pay it all.”
Hardly happy music, not the kind of message that makes farming seem idyllic. And I’ll not argue that for some farming may be a trap that may well lead to the interpersonal conflicts, the isolation and the drudgery suggested in these songs. But these are songs of men, not Mother Nature.
After long experience working on a farm or sweating in a garden one can come to read the signs Nature has on display. What the crops will do when drying in the heat; what the soil can tell you if you know what to look for; healthy or sickly – there are signs wherever you look. And “hearing” Nature speak to you is proof you’ve learned the language. Her melodies aren’t always sweet, but they reward the listener, which I find quite a treat.
While I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more (or Penny’s for that matter), I’ll take every chance to work on Mother Nature’s farm. Her music’s worth a listen.
Featured image credit:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/627265586/bob-dylan-maggies-farm-pulp-novel-mashup
Gulliver's Pulse 