Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness

5 months ago

It's time again for Three Tune Tuesday, that day of the week where members of the Hive community shares three songs of their liking with the rest of the community.

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I take a slow, relaxing approach to Three Tune Tuesday: I like to share pre-1924 78rpm songs from my collection, and record them while playing on an appropriate time-period windup phonograph. I encourage you to take a few moments and slow down with me. Settle down, close your eyes, and take yourself back.. way back.. in time, to a distant uncle's parlour in the early 1920's. There are comfortable seats, pleasant conversation, and old music.

I have had the idea... or, more precisely, the ideal... of freedom and the "pursuit of happiness" on my mind of late. For a lot of late.

Freedom.
Happiness.

For a nihilist like me, what exactly does that mean?

I'm not going to dive into that in this post, but I am going to use it to theme out this week's Three Tune Tuesday!

July 1 is Canada Day. In Canada. Eh?
July 4 is Independence Day. In the US. A.

One nation was formed by a revolution. One nation was formed by policemen. You can guess which was which. Curiously, both countries were born from the same father country.

The Windsor-Detroit area in Ontario and Michigan have, since the late 1950's, jointly celebrated the International Freedom Festival. The idea, or the ideal, is really great.

My first song is "Marching Through Georgia," performed by the Zon-o-phone Concert Band in 1906. This piece was composed by Henry Clay Work in 1865, just as the Civil War was drawing to a close. It captures the jubilant spirit following General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea, a significant military campaign that ran from Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman's march was a bold and destructive path aimed at crippling the Confederacy's war capabilities, and it played a crucial role in hastening the end of the war.

Marching Through Georgia

"The Maple Leaf Forever" was composed by Alexander Muir in 1867, the year of Canada's Confederation. Muir, a Scottish-born schoolteacher, wrote the song to celebrate the unification of the British North American provinces into a single nation. Confederation included four Provinces. I know which four! Do you? I will drink to anyone who knows. 'gwan. Get me drunk.

The Maple Leaf Forever

My third song of the day is "Yankee Doodle," performed by Charles Harrison and the Broadway Quartette in 1917. Originally, it was a tune sung by British troops to mock the ragtag appearance and unrefined manners of the American colonists. However, the colonists, with their characteristic resilience and wit, adopted the song as their own, transforming it into a symbol of their burgeoning independence and defiant spirit. It was the ultimate "fuck you."

Yankee Doodle

Three Tune Tuesday (TTT) is initiated by @ablaze.

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