Autry, Gene - The Death Of Mother Jones Lyrics

Great song about Mother Jones ...

"This song comes from a gritty reality not much remembered today."

Needs to be remembered, though. Remembered a LOT.

Wonderful!

Gene Autry was pro-union, went on strike and was replaced by that scab Roy Rogers!

Why "cognitive dissonance"?  Why should he have to choose between silly songs and meaningful songs?

i corresponded with Gene Autry when he saw his picture taken from my film The Gringo in Mañanaland on a pacific film archives poster. He asked me to send my film. In trepidation I sent it, expecting him to sock me a big copyright bill. He replied that my film only used scenes from two of his films and if I wanted to use any more here was the list and to just let him know.

The only known recording of Mother Jones, recorded at or around her 100th birthday party in 1930 (but she was only 93..)

Mother Jones Speaks

Yes, he became a very wealthy man, that is true. We change as times and circumstances change, and as age turns us into different people throughout life. All true!

Since he was worth hundreds of millions by time he reached his sixties, I rather suspect that Gene became a Republican somewhere along the line. But there have been fine, if rather incongruous, renditions of workingmen's songs over the years: Crosby did an excellent job on "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" and Ernie Ford,quite the conservative politically, was brilliant on "Sixteen Tons" and other workers, laments.

Coming from a mining family, I found the line in 16 Tons that say a miner has "a mind that's weak and a back that;s strong" to be untrue. It always made me cringe.

Spot on, my friend. II can remember one hard year, back in the 50's, when nobody around home made any money, and I pointed out to my father that he had never made any money under Eisenhower. I still remember his instantaneous response: "You're talkin' more like a communist every day."

Edmund StAustell "Well, dad, You aint done nothin if you ain't been called a red!" would've been the proper response to that.

Spot on, my friend. II can remember one hard year, back in the 50's, when nobody around home made any money, and I pointed out to my father that he had never made any money under Eisenhower. I still remember his instantaneous response: "You're talkin' more like a communist every day...."

If that gritty reality were here today, the Tea Party would blame liberals.

Good comment, thanks. We could use her now......

"I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser."
Mother Jones

Yes, because we were smack in the middle of the Great Depression, and Autry came up the hard way. He had seen enough to know the importance of social justice. There wasn't a whole lot of it around when he was a kid. Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it!

Happy birthday Gene! A friend who's put some time into researching Autry says social justice themes were something of a constant in his early films.

Yes, agreed, hate radio is a bane, for the heart and mind as well as socially. Of course, we should not forget the likes of Father Coughlin during the Great Depression, but that is rather small change compared with the money-driven, consumerist ranters of today. Let us hope - as some research supports - that they command far less listener support than their reputations suggest. Best to talk around them, not through them. But enough said. Peace and good power to you.

My pleasure, my friend. Thanks for a most articulate and incisive comment. All we need add to your assessment of the current state of media "entertainment" is hate radio, and you have the recipe for absolutel social disaster before long. Always nice to know a video reaches someone like yourself who gets it. Thanks.

An archival gem of a different America, indeed. Always revealing to revisit how the real lives and stories of rural citizens and laborers once made it to the airwaves and resonated across a very big continent without, as is often the case today, being pureed through the corporate media "entertainment" blender. Seems to me that ubiquitous visual formats have also done much to undermine the sentiment and significance traditionally transmitted by poetry, ballads and narrative. Thanks for posting.

I had no idea that Gene Autry had this big feeling about labor unions and economic justice. It made for more respect in me for him. Thanks again. I will forward the link to others.

@Annabelle194 Thank you very much. This recording is actually rather rare, and rather interesting. It shows the depth of sentiment relating to the labor movement among people who perhaps today would not share those interests. Or again, they might! One can never be sure.

Thanks for sharing this. I am studying her life, and I knew nothing about this recording.