...And If You Don't Like Me, Then Leave Me Alone

That advice is widely quoted in old folk songs, and it's good advice for these people. (By the way, having old folk songs is evidence of having a culture, though "whiteness" is not what it's properly called.)

Here's one of those old songs, as a matter of fact. 


Actually Charlie Daniels says about the same thing in "Long Haired Country Boy." 


It's very fine advice. It goes well with the two rules of business: mind yours, and stay out of mine.

UPDATE: Here's a folk song called "Fisherman's Son," which looks to be sung to the same tune as "Moonshiner." 
The sea is my lifeline the shore is my home
I've been to your cities I didn't stay long
I stared at the bright lights the dark city ways
I'll tell you that's not for me, no I couldn't stay....

I'm a fisherman's son got fisherman's blood
Just hauling the lobster and jigging the cod
And if you don't like me then leave me alone
And I'll go on singing my fisherman's song.
on

6 comments:

  1. raven3:38 PM

    Social media has made it possible to be in everyone else business, and to harass them without the threat of a bloody nose. I think this has conditioned people there will be no repercussions for in-person harassment-especially those with a built in political indulgence.

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  2. Grim6:00 PM

    Yeah, many years ago I thought we needed to restore the practice of dueling. It’s a highly ritualized form of sometimes-deadly combat that would restore manners by restoring the ultimate sanction for behaving dishonorably.

    These days I think even a few punches in the nose could be helpful.

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  3. Gringo6:19 PM

    I was introduced to Moonshiner and other Clancy Brothers /Tommy Makem songs in my early teen years. Learned several albums by heart. Still have the songs, though now on CD. Though I may have had some issues with some of the messages of their songs, great music though it was.

    While the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are of the Green, many of my ancestors are of the Orange. Potential conflict there. What the hell, I had no problem in the US with the Green. And we wanted to be rid of English rulers also.

    While I like the drinking songs of Ireland, the singing has more appeal to me than the drinking. At age 6 I was a passenger in a car in which the driver got killed: a drunk plowed into us head on.

    While US country music, based in large part on Celtic folk songs, tends to have drinking songs that show the harm that drinking can to (Whiskey River, George Jones...), Irish drinking songs tend to celebrate drinking.

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  4. Grim6:57 PM

    That might have something to do with the Baptist gospel music that heavily influenced American country music, which staunchly disapproves of drinking. The Irish Catholic music embraces beer and whiskey as gifts of God.

    Which they are, like all good things; it’s the sinful nature of man that causes gifts to be misused.

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  5. raven7:37 PM

    After a rafting upset on a north slope river, the food lost to the water, and most of the gear, how grateful we were for a flask of whiskey and a warm fire. A gift, both of them.
    A long way from anywhere.
    69 13 25 N
    141 49 52 W

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  6. Grim8:59 PM

    That is a long way from anywhere.

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