What The Hell America!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The legendary folk singer Michael Hurley has died at the age of 83. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1941, he had a remarkable career that began in the ’60s in the Greenwich folk music scene. He continued performing up until his sudden death. Last week, Michael Hurley traveled from his home in Astoria, Oregon, to Knoxville, Tennessee, to perform at the celebrated Big Ears Festival. His last New York appearance was in November at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.

Michael Hurley recorded his first album in 1963 for the iconic Folkways label, the home of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and countless others. The album was recorded on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Lead Belly’s last sessions. One song of note was “The Werewolf,” which would later be covered by Cat Power, one of many musical acts that found inspiration in Hurley’s music.

Michael Hurley wouldn’t record again until 1971, when he released his major label debut, Armchair Boogie. While it sold poorly at the time, the album is seen today as a classic. The album also featured Hurley’s distinct artwork. He was a notable watercolor artist and cartoonist.

Over the last half-century, Michael Hurley would go on to release dozens of more albums, many on small independent labels, some even self-released. While he never became a household name, Michael Hurley’s music inspired many musicians. He became known as the “Godfather of freak folk.” In recent years, his music popped up in some surprising places, from the HBO series and film Deadwood to the film Leave No Trace, where he performed his song “O My Stars” at a bonfire.

Ahead of last week’s Big Ears Festival, the organizers said, quote, “Hurley’s music sounds old, like it has always existed, and simultaneously singular, like something you’ve never heard anyone else play quite like that before,” unquote.

Well, in 2020, just weeks before the COVID pandemic, Michael Hurley stopped by our Democracy Now! studios. The initial plan was for him just to record a few songs. He ended up staying in the studio for over an hour for what turned out to be an impromptu concert and discussion about his life and music, even though we weren’t set up for a traditional interview. Michael Hurley began by performing his song “New River Blues.”

MICHAEL HURLEY: [performing “New River Blues”] As the new river flows in the night
Somewhere, honey, some old hog is stompin’ on the bog
Like a free, like a free stream of light
My heart jumps straight to you tonight

Cause you’re pretty, lordy knows, and you’re fair
And you seem like you kind of linger there
Like a hot, like a hot burnin’ flame
My heart jumps straight to you again

For I knew, lordy knows, that you’re youg
And the New River flow ’round the town
And the king-fisher fishin’ in the shoal
My heart jumps straight right out of my soul

A catfish, catfish on the bottom
I’m up here with the blues, lordy knows that I got ’em
I hope the moonbeams shine down to you
So you could see your way the whole night through

As the New River flows in the night
Somewhere, honey, some ol’ hog is stompin’ on the bog
Like a free, like a free stream of light
My heart jumps straight to you tonight.

[performing “The Rue of Ruby Whores”]

I woke up on a summer’s day
From dozin’ on a bank of clay
The hot and humid fog
The splashin’ of the water dog
Lo come a war canoe
And standing in the bow were you

Tell me friend if you got the time
Where in this woods does grow the healin’ vine
And I was searchin’ for my love
Who used to live in the hills above
And I don’t live at all
No never since my last downfall

Over yonder in the briar patch
The animal lives there in a hole
And ne’er in the sun will stir
But come the fall of evenin’ grey
Leaps and jumps away

Standin’ on the mountain side
Just tryin’ to get a little taste o’ rain
My people used to live here
And I feel the same as they do
For I did dwell here too

There she be and she see me
Driftin’ in my daggone dream
They throwed my windows and doors
A century of misery
The Rue of Ruby whores.

[performing “Bad Monsanto”]

Monsanto, ruler of the earth
The air and water too
Have you ever figured
What you’re gonna do

Start it over again.

Monsanto, ruler of the earth
The air and water too
Have you ever figured
What you’re gonna do
When you find you’ve poisoned
Even you

Monsanto, have you no children
To live beyond your time
And live to feel the shame
Of your every crime
The GMO potato that McDonald’s buys
And now it ain’t even safe
To eat a mess of fries

Monsanto GMO canola
Corn oil and all the soy
Can’t even find the junk food
That you need not destroy
With your thugs in the government and on the FDA
“Til every bite of food we eat
It’s you we have to pay

Monsanto, do you really think
We can live without the honey bees
Can you change Mother Nature
For profit as you please
Alfalfa for the cows
It’s going in the cheese
Into the babies in our mother’s wombs
Monsanto, please
Monsanto.

[performing “Wildegeeses”]

And now I see the wind
Blowin’ from northwest
And I hear those honkers again
On their rambling quest

Over Lord’s Valley I roll like a ball
And in the wind I hear them call
Wild goose, loose goose, I count them all

Yonder stepping that ol’ light-walkin’ wolf
Hungry as always
Long legs and long ears and tail
And a long, long will

I had an old goose and I tried to keep her
But she awake and I the sleeper
She flew away left me the weeper

But there ain’t no chill cold wind
Blowin’ through our love nest
And I feel your heart beat again
In the wilderness

I had an old goose and I tried to claim her
It’s only in the wildness, can you name her
It’s only in the wildness, can you tame her.

AMY GOODMAN: Wonderful! Oh my god!

MIKE BURKE: Mike, if you can play one more?

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. I just wanted to say hi. I’m Amy. I did not realize that was you. It’s so nice to meet you.

MICHAEL HURLEY: It’s nice to meet you.

AMY GOODMAN: Wow! Fantastic!

MICHAEL HURLEY: I’ve seen you many times, Amy, on the screen.

AMY GOODMAN: Oh my god! Where do you live?

MICHAEL HURLEY: In Astoria, Oregon.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael, do you think the music scene has changed in the last half a century?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Surely, yeah. There’s a lot more music. There are a lot more musicians, it seems like, too.

AMY GOODMAN: What was it like in the ’60s and ’70s when you started recording?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Well, for the difference, I remember when I started playing the guitar, like in my high school, there was one guy who played the guitar, and it was so unusual, that they sent him around to the different classrooms to play the guitar for the students. And I started playing guitar, actually, after he did. And then, when I was learning, if I was driving around, like with my sisters or some friends, we’d go to a different town or something, we’d see somebody walking down the street with a guitar, we’d chase them down and say, “What’s that guitar there? What do you play on it? You know, break it out. Let’s see it.” And now it’s so different, that it almost seems like every American must own a guitar. It’s a good thing to give somebody. And —

AMY GOODMAN: Who most influenced you when you started?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Oh, I think Lead Belly. And he was around in my locality.

AMY GOODMAN: In Bucks County?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Yeah, he came on — he was in New York, you know, with, like, the folk community. But he sometimes came to Bucks County, because he was recorded by this guy, Fred Ramsey, who ended up recording me. And those records were around. and I started listening to a lot of John Lee Hooker, but also Hank Williams. And my parents had a lot of — they had a lot of jazz records, like Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton and Josh White. Josh White was one of the few blues singers who was available on record, you know, in the ’40s and ’50s, except for like labels like Folkways. But when I started to get really interested in blues, there was maybe — could only find out right away about, you know, five blues singers, you know, five people that made blues records, and that was the people on the Chess label in Chicago, I think, like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. And, of course, rock ‘n’ roll was just busting out around that time and Chuck Berry.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the first song you sang here this morning?

MICHAEL HURLEY: It’s my song called “The New River Blues.”

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us about it?

MICHAEL HURLEY: It’s the New River in — I started singing about the New River in North Carolina, which is one of the few rivers that flows north on the East, and I think goes up through West Virginia, and it empties into the Kanawha, which empties into the Ohio River. But there’s this New River. In North Carolina, there’s a New River Valley. And that river can be like a few inches deep, or it can make a flood that’s taking shacks off of the banks and stuff. And I lived in there along the New River in the northwestern North Carolina for a while.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what’s the song called?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I call it “The New River Blues.”

AMY GOODMAN: Now talk about the Monsanto song.

MICHAEL HURLEY: Well, that’s one thing that really bothers me, is Monsanto’s oppression of the farmers and getting this Roundup glyphosate in all the food. And so, I’ve always been trying to eat healthy food and stuff. And you probably know a lot about Monsanto. And I wrote the song for — to see what I could do about it, you know. We had an election in Portland, Oregon, tried to get the law to be that Monsanto would have to label their food, “This contains the GMO.” And I made a — I rounded up a lot of songs from other writers, you know, songwriters, and so I made a little collection of anti-Monsanto songs from my — that one that I had and others, people that — I asked a lot of people to write songs about it. So I had a little collection, about six tunes, and I call it Doc GMO. And that’s on the Bandcamp. You can download that for free.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael, could you perform “Hog of the Forsaken”?

MICHAEL HURLEY: That’s a — I can play it on the fiddle.

[performing “Hog of the Forsaken”]

An’ the Hog of the Forsaken
He be takin’ all your dues, boy
Standin’ on the corner with the
Hip shakin’ blues, boy
That whole hit with zydeco
It won’t go so far
But the Hog of the Forsaken got
Boogie
Boogie
Boogie blues, boy

An’ the Hog of the Forsaken
Got no reason to cry
He got to chew the angels
Fallen from on high
Waitin’ for no answer
Bakin’ woeful pie
Pie of eyesight, pie blue-black
Whoa that pie, the pie of bye-n-bye

An’ the Hog of the Forsaken
He will leave you one more chance,
Which if you won’t be takin’
He’ll leave it for the ants
Sings out in the wilderness
Sings for friend and foe
He sings of these and those times
As well as the times to go

The Hog of the Forsaken
Got no reason to cry
He got to chew the angels
Fallen from on high
Waitin’ for no answer
Bakin’ woeful pie
Pie of eyesight, pie blue-black
Whoa that pie, the pie of bye-n-bye.

It’s the first thing I can’t think of right now.

AMY GOODMAN: That ended up being on the credits at the end of Deadwood, the movie?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Yeah, I haven’t seen that movie yet, but it was also in that series, of the TV series, the HBO series.

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah. Could I be really greedy and ask for “O My Stars”?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Sure.

[performing “O My Stars”]

Kiss me once, oh, kiss me twice
Give me a taste of paradise
I don’t need the blues always on my shoulder
Give me a cold beer as I get older

O my stars, how you undo me
O my stars
O my stars, you undo me

The sun’s going down and the sky different colors
Baby, run see all the different hues
I feel all right but these times are bad
Mama run here, help me with these blues

O my stars, how you undo me
O my stars
O my stars, you undo me

Seems I’m weary every evening
I have to work every day
But darlin’ when you throw your arms around me
I am where I wanna be

O my stars, how you undo me
O my stars
O my stars, you undo me

You see that spider going up the wall
Going up there to get his ashes hauled
He taking that trip along the mighty top
He learning them ladies the old spider rock

O my stars, how you undo me
O my stars
O my stars, you undo me.

AMY GOODMAN: Bravo! That was magnificent!

MICHAEL HURLEY: That’s one of my most appreciated songs, I think. It’s one of my — I play that just about every set that I play when I play out.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s beautiful. Where’d you write it?

MICHAEL HURLEY: In Boston, when I lived there.

AMY GOODMAN: Who’d you write it about?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I think I was just writing songs.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have another favorite that you play everywhere?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I’ve got this song “Knockando” I play a lot.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes. Where’d you write “Knockando”?

MICHAEL HURLEY: In Amherst. I have a songbook that I put out a few years ago with lyrics of my songs, about 20 songs, I think. And I wrote — at the bottom, I put the initials of the state that I wrote it in. So, for this, I would have had to say “MA.”

[performing “Knockando”]

I had a drink of Knockando
Oh yes I really did
The flames that lit, they were blue
As they recalled the red

And I had a glass of Knockando
This is what I said
You are the fire, spirit fire
Your soul is burning good
Can you hear the cracklin’ heart
Of the old pine wood

Now everywhere that I may roam
I’m grieving all the while
From the valley where I longst to be
I wander in exile

And I had a glass of Knockando
This is what I said
You are the fire, spirit fire
Your soul is burning good
Can you hear the cracklin’ heart
Of the old pine wood

Knockando what I dream of
In the dark and bloody ground
Knockando ain’t it good for you
I’ll see you all around

And I had a glass of Knockando
This is what I said
You are the fire, spirit fire
Your soul is burning good
Can you hear the cracklin’ heart
Of the old pine wood

Go ye to the little black hill
Go again you will
Enough for me, enough for you
And a glass of Knockando

And I had a glass of Knockando
This is what I said
You are the fire, spirit fire
Your soul is burning good
Can you hear the cracklin’ heart
Of the old pine wood.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you find yourself most in the mood for these days with your songs?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I just — I have to play what I like. I have to play what I’m interested in at the time. So — 

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any favorite songs that others have written that you like to perform?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, lots of them. We call them covers.

AMY GOODMAN: Who do you like to cover?

MICHAEL HURLEY: It’s random, quite random. Could be anything. I played a few covers last night. A
friend of mine advises me all the time that when I’m performing, not to play so many covers. “Play,” she says, “what you’re — play your original songs. That’s what people want to hear.” But often what I feel like playing is these — I arrange these covers, you know. I hear things that I want to learn, and I learn them, and I want to play them.

AMY GOODMAN: Is there any you’re in the mood to play right now?

MICHAEL HURLEY: One of my favorites right now is, like — this was a song by The El Dorados in the ’50s. I like that era, so, you see, happens to go some…

[performing “What’s Buggin’ You Baby”]

What’s buggin’ you, baby?
How come you hum like you do?
Why must you raise a storm
And get your grew in a stew?

What’s buggin’ you, baby?
You’re mean and you’re quick on the bit
Don’t make wind, gone maybe
Don’t miss when you ought to hit

Every time I flips a dime
You start blowin’ your top
It must be because that’s your way
All over the lot

What’s buggin’ you, baby?
Make with the scoop for the crew
Give out to your baby
Baby, baby, what’s buggin’ you?

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you so much, Michael Hurley! How do you feel when your songs get covered, especially by a bunch of younger artists?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I like that a lot. Lately, I really like the — Yo La Tengo did a song of mine called “Polynesia.”

AMY GOODMAN: How about Cat Power playing “Sweedeedee”?

MICHAEL HURLEY: That’s really good. I like the way — when I listen to her play “Sweedeedee,” I go to a whole different place than my version of it. She takes you right to a whole ’nother place. And I like — 

AMY GOODMAN: When did you write it?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Oh, about ’68, 19— I think, 1968.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you remember where you were?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Boston.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you play just a little snippet?

MICHAEL HURLEY: It starts out with this monolog thing. I don’t know if Cat Power does that. But when I heard her first do it, I didn’t even know it was “Sweedeedee” ’til about a minute and a half.

[performing “Sweedeedee”]

My little woman causes me a lot of trouble sometimes
She worries me so bad, I don’t know what to do
Take a walk, figure the rolling of my feet come to ease my mind
I’ll just go away, and I won’t know where I’m going

I won’t know where that I am going to
But she bugger me, she bugger me, man, she’d bugger you
With you in the morning, baby
“Til the break of day
I know you don’t want my heart
Trying to make me go away
Seem like anybody got a little hard luck sometime
I know one thing for sure, baby: been having mine
Baby, I been having mine.

You wash the clothes, Sweedeedee, and hang ’em on the line
I can see by the way you wash the clothes, your cooking must be fine.

That’s what that’s like.

AMY GOODMAN: What message do you have for young musicians?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Make original material. Make what you like, stick to it, and just do it for fun. If you don’t like it, then nobody else is going to like it. If you like it, probably other people will like it, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Final question: How does it — how does it feel to come from rural Oregon to New York City?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Well, it’s always — I’ve practically been coming in New York all my life, you know? I can remember being 4 or 5 years old, following my family around the streets. And I would fall behind. They’d say, “What happened to him? He’s not with us.” And then they’d find me way back looking up at the tall buildings and thinking they were falling over because the clouds were going by. And I can — in Bucks County, it was always kind of there to go to, so I went a lot. But it’s always a culture shock, and this time, too, like, especially driving through, approaching from Jersey City and going through all the industrial complex that’s laid out. I think we came in on Highway 80 or 380 — 380 and 80, we came. And just looking at the density and the immensity of all the industrial stuff, you know, the electronic stuff and the tanks and the gas and whatever, it’s always a shock. And the subway is even always a shock, you know. Like last night, that would be the first time I’d been in the subway for maybe two years or something. And the population itself is — all these things — in rural Oregon, you don’t get the sense of how many people we are.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the Village music scene like in the ’60s? Can you describe it to people? Where were you in New York City?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I didn’t — there’s only one year that I lived in the city through, but I could visit it at will. I hitchhiked into the city a lot from Bucks County. And the first scene I was interested in, you know, about the beatniks era. And that was — before it was all folk singers there entertaining, there was beatnik poets.
And that was the game in the Village. Like, if the cafes didn’t have folk singers, at first they had beatnik poets. That’s what the tourists came to see.

AMY GOODMAN: Like Allen Ginsberg.

MICHAEL HURLEY: Well, he was one of them, yeah. I never saw him, but I saw a lot of the other ones, you know, especially Jack Micheline. Bunches of them, a lot of them that you wouldn’t never hear of again. Shortly after that, it began to be a lot of folk singers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you play “Portland Water” for us?

MICHAEL HURLEY: [performing “Portland Water”]

The Portland water swillin’ cold
Swill my body but not my soul
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
They said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon

Up in the canyon lookin’ down in the river
And the wind come blow and it make me shiver
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
They said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon

You see those Indians lookin’ down in the water
They say the river is the spirit daughter
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
They said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon

Well, I went to the zoo and I saw the puma
My home, my good home is Moctezuma
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
Said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon

Well, I walked down Hawthorne, turned up old Belmont
Just tryin’ to find a honey, that’s all I want
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
They said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon

Well, yes, I walked down Hawthorne where do my fishy go
Line up old Belmont, I holler hi-de-ho
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
Said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon

Well, the girls are smilin’ and the beer is sweet
But the police will shoot you dead on the street
Put a call up to Portland on the public telephone
Said it sure is rainin’ in the state of Oregon.

AMY GOODMAN: You want to sing a final song for us?

MICHAEL HURLEY: Sure. Let’s see here.

[performing “Let Me Be Your Junebug”]

Let me be your Junebug
Tell your dragonfly come
Let me be your Junebug
Tell your dragonfly come
I could do more draggin’
Than the dragonfly done

Let me be your little crow
Tell your raven come
Let me be your little crow
Tell your raven come
I could do more crowin’
Than the raven done

Let me be your raccoon
Tell your grizzly come
Let me be your raccoon
Tell your grizzly come
I could be more grisly
Than the grizzly done

Let me be your mole
Tell your big rat come
Let me be your mole
Tell your big rat come
I could do more diggin’
Than the big rat done

Let me be your daisy
Tell your dandy bloom
Let me be your daisy
Tell your dandy bloom
Dandy in the middle
I could find some room.

AMY GOODMAN: Nice. Yay! Michael, thanks so much for spending this time at Democracy Now!

MICHAEL HURLEY: It’s enjoyable. I’ve been watching Democracy Now! quite a bit over the last 10 years, I think.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you discover it?

MICHAEL HURLEY: There’s a friend of mine saw me play in Portland and brought me to one of your live auditorium shows in Portland about 10 years ago. Now, I’d never heard of you, but I saw you do that show in Portland, and then followed on radio and —

AMY GOODMAN: Was it at the Bagdad Theatre?

MICHAEL HURLEY: I don’t know. I don’t remember the theater. Was a pretty big auditorium-type theater. You had a pair of boots on you. You still do, I see.

AMY GOODMAN: The legendary folk singer Michael Hurley in our Democracy Now! studio in January 2020, just weeks before the COVID pandemic was declared. Michael Hurley died this week at the age of 83.
I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.