Saturday, November 28, 1925. Grand Old Opry premiers.

Nashville's WSM radio premiered the WSM Barn Dance which became the Grand Ole Opry.

It was a Saturday.

The French government reigned after failing to reach a settlement with the US over war debt.

Last edition:

Friday, November 27, 1925. Hill Packing.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1928, 1930s, Afghanistan, Diplomacy, Economics, Equine Transportation, Feral Horses, Germany, Imperial Russian Army, Industry, Russian Civil War, USSR, Wyoming (Casper)

Jordan Smart, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" // GemsOnVHS™

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, September 10, 1945. Eh? (Additional Labels)

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, September 10, 1945. Eh?: Post war news items were getting a bit weird. Mike the Headless chicken was ineffectively beheaded, and would go on to become sort of a frea...

Saturday, September 1, 1945. Truman addresses the nation. This Land is Your Land.

Truman addressed the nation by radio.

The thoughts and hopes of all America—indeed of all the civilized world—are centered tonight on the battleship Missouri. There on that small piece of American soil anchored in Tokyo Harbor the Japanese have just officially laid down their arms. They have signed terms of unconditional surrender.

Four years ago, the thoughts and fears of the whole civilized world were centered on another piece of American soil—Pearl Harbor. The mighty threat to civilization which began there is now laid at rest. It was a long road to Tokyo—and a bloody one.

We shall not forget Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese militarists will not forget the U.S.S. Missouri.

The evil done by the Japanese war lords can never be repaired or forgotten. But their power to destroy and kill has been taken from them. Their armies and what is left of their Navy are now impotent.

To all of us there comes first a sense of gratitude to Almighty God who sustained us and our Allies in the dark days of grave danger, who made us to grow from weakness into the strongest fighting force in history, and who has now seen us overcome the forces of tyranny that sought to destroy His civilization.

God grant that in our pride of the hour, we may not forget the hard tasks that are still before us; that we may approach these with the same courage, zeal, and patience with which we faced the trials and problems of the past four years.

Our first thoughts, of course—thoughts of gratefulness and deep obligation—go out to those of our loved ones who have been killed or maimed in this terrible war. On land and sea and in the air, American men and women have given their lives so that this day of ultimate victory might come and assure the survival of a civilized world. No victory can make good their loss.

We think of those whom death in this war has hurt, taking from them fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and sisters whom they loved. No victory can bring back the faces they longed to see.

Only the knowledge that the victory, which these sacrifices have made possible, will be wisely used, can give them any comfort. It is our responsibility—ours, the living—to see to it that this victory shall be a monument worthy of the dead who died to win it.

We think of all the millions of men and women in our armed forces and merchant marine all over the world who, after years of sacrifice and hardship and peril, have been spared by Providence from harm.

We think of all the men and women and children who during these years have carried on at home, in lonesomeness and anxiety and fear.

Our thoughts go out to the millions of American workers and businessmen, to our farmers and miners—to all those who have built up this country's fighting strength, and who have shipped to our Allies the means to resist and overcome the enemy.

Our thoughts go out to our civil servants and to the thousands of Americans who, at personal sacrifice, have come to serve in our Government during these trying years; to the members of the Selective Service boards and ration boards; to the civilian defense and Red Cross workers; to the men and women in the USO and in the entertainment world—to all those who have helped in this cooperative struggle to preserve liberty and decency in the world.

We think of our departed gallant leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt, defender of democracy, architect of world peace and cooperation.

And our thoughts go out to our gallant Allies in this war: to those who resisted the invaders; to those who were not strong enough to hold out, but who, nevertheless, kept the fires of resistance alive within the souls of their people; to those who stood up against great odds and held the line, until the United Nations together were able to supply the arms and the men with which to overcome the forces of evil.

This is a victory of more than arms alone. This is a victory of liberty over tyranny.

From our war plants rolled the tanks and planes which blasted their way to the heart of our enemies; from our shipyards sprang the ships which bridged all the oceans of the world for our weapons and supplies; from our farms came the food and fiber for our armies and navies and for our Allies in all the corners of the earth; from our mines and factories came the raw materials and the finished products which gave us the equipment to overcome our enemies.

But back of it all were the will and spirit and determination of a free people—who know what freedom is, and who know that it is worth whatever price they had to pay to preserve it.

It was the spirit of liberty which gave us our armed strength and which made our men invincible in battle. We now know that that spirit of liberty, the freedom of the individual, and the personal dignity of man, are the strongest and toughest and most enduring forces in all the world.

And so on V-J Day we take renewed faith and pride in our own way of life. We have had our day of rejoicing over this victory. We have had our day of prayer and devotion. Now let us set aside V-J Day as one of renewed consecration to the principles which have made us the strongest nation on earth and which, in this war, we have striven so mightily to preserve.

Those principles provide the faith, the hope, and the opportunity which help men to improve themselves and their lot. Liberty does not make all men perfect nor all society secure. But it has provided more solid progress and happiness and decency for more people than any other philosophy of government in history. And this day has shown again that it provides the greatest strength and the greatest power which man has ever reached.

We know that under it we can meet the hard problems of peace which have come upon us. A free people with free Allies, who can develop an atomic bomb, can use the same skill and energy and determination to overcome all the difficulties ahead.

Victory always has its burdens and its responsibilities as well as its rejoicing.

But we face the future and all its dangers with great confidence and great hope. America can build for itself a future of employment and security. Together with the United Nations, it can build a world of peace rounded on justice, fair dealing, and tolerance.

As President of the United States, I proclaim Sunday, September the second, 1945, to be V-J Day—the day of formal surrender by Japan. It is not yet the day for the formal proclamation of the end of the war nor of the cessation of hostilities. But it is a day which we Americans shall always remember as a day of retribution—as we remember that other day, the day of infamy.

From this day we move forward. We move toward a new era of security at home. With the other United Nations we move toward a new and better world of cooperation, of peace and international good will and cooperation.

God's help has brought us to this day of victory. With His help we will attain that peace and prosperity for ourselves and all the world in the years ahead.

The speech, set out above, declared September 2 VJ Day, the third such day to claim that title. 

The War Department issues a report regarding an anticipated world wide coal shortage.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—September 1, 1940 & 1945: US soldiers liberate two civilian internment camps in the Tokyo area. US ends military rule in the Philippines and turns over civil administration to President Sergio Osmeña. Britain reduces clothing ration to 3 coupons pe

Military rule in the Philippine government ended.

A temporary government was established by the British in Hong Kong.

The Xinghua Campaign ended in communist victory in China and the Battle of Dazhongji began.

The lyrics to This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie were published.  The song had been written in 1940, but not released.  The recording would not be released until 1953.

In my view, it's one of the greatest American folk songs.

Last edition:

Friday, August 31, 1945. New dances.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Diplomacy, Finland, Japan, Marcus Island, Music, Occupation of Japan, Rock Music, United States, USSR, World War Two

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Wednesday, January 29, 1975. American terrorism of the 1970s.

The Weather Underground bombed the State Department building in Washington, D.C.

Logo of the Weather Underground

The far left terrorist organization came out of the chaos of the 1960s which continued on, now mostly forgotten, into a violent early 1970s.  We're on the verge, I fear, of eclipsing that era in violence, although ironically the party attacking the government now is the populist now in power.  Given as the path we're currently on, in lots of ways, can't continue, there's real reason for concern about where the Trump interregnum's violence against the United States will lead, and if it will result in further societal violence.

In interesting aspect of this is what Gene Shepherd noted long ago, extremist meet in their extremism.  We've never had extremist in power before, however.

The group took its name from Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, which ironically is associated in my mind with well to do old lawyers who came of age in the 1960s singing it, as if any of their later lives reflected what they claimed to have believed in earlier days.

Last edition:

Tuesday, January 28, 1975. Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cartoons, Japan, Petroleum, Sakhalin Island, television, USSR

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (Take 2, Complete)

A song, now strangely, for our age.

Friday, January 16, 1925. Leadbelly released from prison and some Italians got to vote a lot.

Huddie Ledbetter, aka "Lead Belly", was granted a full pardon by Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff  Neff for having served the minimum seven years of his prison sentence for the 1918 killing of Will Stafford, a relative of his, in a fight over a woman.

It was a least his second period of incarceration, with  his first being in 1915 for carrying a handgun, something that would not be a crime now.  

While in prison for homicide, he'd be stubbled in the neck by another inmate, resulting in a permanent scar.

The pardon came about due to Ledbetter writing the Governor and seeking the same, and the Governor visiting him more than once in prison.

Ledbetter would return to prison in 1930 for attempted homicide and 1939 for assault.

Perhaps not a pacific man, he was the greatest American folk musician and one of the greatest blue musicians of all time.  He was personally responsible for the survival of the twelve string guitar.  He was principally a bluesman, but the blues had not quite stabilized into its form at the time, and not all of his music fits the genera.  Indeed, this so much the case that at least one of his songs that is typically preformed as a blue piece, The Midnight Special, was not performed quite that way by Leadbelly.  He became known to the general public due to John Lomax's recordings of him in 1933, at which time he was again in prison.

Leadbelly was born in Louisiana in 1888 or 1889, and died of Lou Gehrigs disease in 1946 at age 61 or 62.  He took to music early and learned to paly the mandolin, accordion, guitar, harmonica, Jew’s harp, piano, and organ, with his principal instructor's being his uncles, Bob and Terrell Ledbetter.

His songs are widely preformed to this day, and once were part of the American music canon taught to school children.  Interestingly enough, he's associated with the first recorded use of the word "woke", in a spoken item after a song in which he stated; "So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there—best stay woke, keep their eyes open."

Italy passed a bill giving double votes to academians, professors, those with diplomas, knights, military officers, those with any military decorations, officeholders, certain business personnel, all those paying a direct tax of 100 lira or more, and fathers of at least five children, triple votes to members of the royal family, members of high nobility, cardinals, highly decorated war veterans, high officeholders, or anyone who met three conditions for double votes. 

Last edition:

Thursday, January 15, 1925. Trotsky gets canned, Ross addresses the legislature.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Wyoming Legislative Session, Communism, James Dean Effect, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Politics, USSR, Wyoming

The Carter Family - Can't Feel at Home

An election special.

Kris Kristofferson - Vietnam Blues (1993)

Monday, July 29, 1974. Philadelphia Eleven and Alpha Group.

Episcopal Bishops Robert L. DeWitt, Bishop of Pennsylvania; Daniel Corrigan, Suffragan Bishop of Colorado; and Edward R. Welles II, the retired Bishop of West Missouri., ordained elevent female Episcopal deacons as priests, sparking a crisis in the Episcopal Church.  The acts were declared valid but irregular by the Episcopal Church.

The act was pioneering as the direction became that of the Episcopal Church and much, but not all, of the Anglican Communion thereafter.  It also had the result of causing it to be increasingly impossible for the overall Anglican Communion to reunite with the Catholic Church, which does not recognize the ordainment of women and of course which generally holds that Anglican holy orders are invalid, although there are exceptions we won't deal with here for individual priests and circumstances.  The validity of Anglican holy orders has been a major topic in the Anglican Communion.

It's worth noting that Christian churches in general were becoming increasingly liberal in the wake of the 1960s, although that wasn't universally true.  It was relatively noticeable in the Episcopal Church which had always been one of the most influential in the United States and one of the largest of the "mainline" Protestant churches. The Episcopal Church had been particularly associated with wealth and establishment in the US and remained so for much of the 20th Century, but starting at some point after this it began a dramatic decline and no longer holds the status it once did.   The Anglican Communion itself has globally been in a condition of strife as conservative elements, with a heavy African representation, have been opposed by developments such as this within it.

The mysterious Alpha Group within the KGB Special Forces was created by Yuri Andropov.

From Uncle Mike's:

July 29, 1974: The Death of "Mama" Cass Elliot

Last edition:

Saturday, July 27, 1974. Articles of Impeachment.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, 93d Congress, Angola, law, Mozambique, Portugal, Portuguese Empire, Rhodesia, Rhodesian Bush War, Richard Nixon, Watergate

"And I'm gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks They say 'America First,' but they mean 'America Next!' "

I've been seeing some political signs around town that say "America First!"

Americans are, I'm afraid, notoriously dense about history, which doesn't keep Americans from citing it.  Just recently, for example, as I already noted here, the state's populist's caucus cited Operation Overlord as a great example of American virtue and heroism, apparently dim to the fact that Operation Overlord was made necessary by the US sitting out the post 1917 to 1941 world stage's drama and that the heroism was made necessary by the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, not the US waking up one day to the dangers of fascism.  Indeed, recently populist have been itching to repeat the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, in the form of Ukraine, so we can finally bring World War III about, although they are dim to the fact that's what they're doing.

Part of that late 1920s and 1930s drama that it seems people have forgotten (in addition to massive tariffs being a horrific idea, and that taxing upper income levels at the 50% rate actually doesn't hurt the economy at all) was the rise of the America First idea, which was that the US could just sit around and ignore the world, safely.  It turned out, of course, that ships going down daily in the Atlantic, numerous people being murdered due to their religion, and the Japanese fleet proved that concept wrong in a bloody fashion, but populists are imagining it again.  This time its pretty likely, I'd estimate in the 75% range, that the Chinese navy and ballistic missile force will prove that idea wrong again.

Anyhow, when I read "America First!" on political signs, having a sense of history, I can't help but recall this Woody Guthrie song:

While I suppose it's not directly applicable to the current times, I love the last line of the song:

And I'm gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks

They say "America First, " but they mean "America Next!"

In Washington, Washington

In Memoriam. Melanie Safka, 1947-2024

Best remembered for Brand New Key, she was, in some ways, a slightly earlier, and somewhat less known, version of the same sort of singer than Linda Ronstadt would become, even preforming some of the same songs.

She performed at Woodstock, still so young that her mother went with her.

What Have They Done to My Song Ma is one I recall from my childhood for some reason, dimly recalling that my mother liked it.

Tuesday, June 19, 1923. the Little Old Log Cabin.

 

John Carson

"Fiddlin" John Carson recorded "The Little Old Log Cabin" in the Lane in what is now inaccurately regarded as the first "country" music recording.  The flipside was "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going To Crow."

It was "country", but not in the country pop or modern C&W understanding, but rather in the "Hill Billy" music understanding of the word. That type of music, often highly evolved, is still within the "country" genre, but much, indeed most, of modern C&W music is as much related to pop music than anything else.

Carson would record off and on until 1935.  He died in 1949 at age 81, spending his final years as an elevator operator.

The US and the UK came to an agreement on the UK's war debt.

La Golondrina

Mariachi El Bronx - Revolution Girls (Live on KEXP)

House of the Rising Sun Deconstructed. Anything seem a little odd?

Most of us know the song, House of the Rising Sun.  Probably most people who think of it, when they do, think of the version by Eric Burdon and the Animals.

It's a great song.

Anything ever seem a little off about it, however?

The song is about a house of prostitution, which most people familiar with the song are aware of.  As Burdon sings it, the lyrics are:

There is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God, I know I'm one

My mother was a tailor

She sewed my new blue jeans

My father was a gamblin' man

Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs

Is a suitcase and a trunk

And the only time he's satisfied

Is when he's all drunk

 

Oh mother, tell your children

Not to do what I have done

Spend your lives in sin and misery

In the House of the Rising Sun

Well, I got one foot on the platform

The other foot on the train

I'm goin' back to New Orleans

To wear that ball and chain

 

Well, there is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God, I know I'm one

Now, it is a great song.  And I like this version of it, which was released in 1964.

The interesting thing, however, is that song from a male point of view, which it is, it's sort of way ahead of its time.  Not that it isn't relevant, it's just a point of view that I can't think of any other song from the mid to late 20th Century expressing that view.  Basically, the protagonist is confessing that he's a sex addict and addicted to frequenting the prostitutes of The House Of The Rising Sun.

The song wasn't written by Eric Burdon, or any of his band. They were covering a song, which many are unaware of, that had already had a successful recording run when sung by Woodie Guthrie and Hudey Ledbetter (Leadbelly).  Indeed, I thought Leadbelly had written the wrong, but I was in error on that.

The Guthrie version, from 1941, has the following lyrics:

There is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God I know I'm one

My mother was a tailor

She sewed my new bluejeans

My father was a gamblin' man

Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs

Is a suitcase and trunk

And the only time he's satisfied

Is when he's on a drunk

Oh mother tell your children

Not to do what I have done

Spend your lives in sin and misery

In the House Of The Rising Sun

Well, I got one foot on the platform

The other foot on the train

I'm goin' back to New Orleans

To wear that ball and chain

Well, there is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God I know I'm one

Identical.  What about Leadbelly?  Well, he recorded it twice, first in 1944, which had these lyrics:

There is a house in New Orleans

You call the Rising Sun

It's been the ruin of many a poor soul

And me, oh God, I'm one

 

If I'd listened to what mama said

I'd be at home today

Being so young and foolish, poor girl

I let a gambler lead me astray

 

My mother she's a tailor

Sews those new blue jeans

My sweetheart, he's a drunkard, Lord God

He drinks down in New Orleans

 

He fills his glasses to the brim

Passes them around

The only pleasure that he gets out of life

Is a hoboin' from town to town

 

The only thing a drunkard needs

Is a suitcase and a trunk

The only time that he's half satisfied

Is when he's on a drunk

 

Go and tell my baby sister

Never do like I have done

Shun that house down in New Orleans

That they call that Rising Sun.

 

It's one foot on the platform,

One foot on the train.

I'm going back down to New Orleans

To wear my ball and my chain

 

My life is almost over

My race is almost run

Going back down to New Orleans

To that house of the Rising Sun

Oh, now wait a moment, that's a lot different.  In this version, which is earlier, the protagonist, while sung through Leadbelly's male voice, is a girl entrapped in prostitution.  Frankly, the song makes a lot more sense all the way around.

Leadbelly's 1947 version of The House of the Rising Sun.

In the second recording, which is the one people normally here, Leadbelly had followed Guthrie's lead, and the protagonist was male.

The first one presents a really grim warning. The girl who is the subject of the song has obviously left the house, and now is returning? Why? Well, contrary to the way prostitution is portrayed in film, her reputation would have been completely ruined and by this point that probably would have been her only option to try to make enough money to stay alive.  Not only that, she's noting that she's expecting an early death.  

More on that in a moment.

Leadbelly, it should be noted, didn't get around to recording until very near the end of his life.  He died in 1949, and was first recorded in 1933.  He was born in 1888 and was preforming professionally by 1903.  Indeed, at first he preformed in Shreveport audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, its red-light district, with his career interrupted by stints in jail, which are referenced in some of his most famous songs.  He was in fact discovered, and truly was a great musical talent, by Alan Lomax while serving a prison stint.

Leadbelly preformed so early that some have speculated to what degree he was an indeterminable influence on the blues.  He definitely was, but he also was unique in that he played a twelve-string guitar, very unusual for bluesmen, and his songs were always in the blues format but in sometimes in a near blues, ten bar, format.  Indeed, some of those were converted to eight bar blues formats by later recording artists, probably basically by accident.

Anyhow, Leadbelly's songs often had a really old origin.  This seems to be one. And the fact that the first version he recorded was sung from a female point of view is telling. Taht's probably how he learned it.

How early is that version?

Well, the song first makes its appearance by reference in 1905. By that time, it was being sung by miners in Appalachia, which means that one of the references doesn't quite fit unless the song had really travelled in the South.  I.e., a song about somebody in New Orleans is out of regional context.  The first printed version of the lyrics appear in 1925, with this:

There is a house in New Orleans, 

it's called the Rising Sun

It's been the ruin of many poor girl

Great God, and I for one.

Just like Leadbelly had it.

The first recorded version came in 1933, later than I would have supposed, but still pretty early in the recording industry.  It was by Applachain artist Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster.  Ashley claimed to have learned it from his grandfather, which pushes the song back to the mid 19th Century. Ashley's version has a male protagonist:

There is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

Where many poor boys to destruction has gone

And me, oh God, are one.

Note, this one has a blunter warning than any others with a male protagonist. The male vocalist hasn't gone to "ruin", but to "destruction".

Hmmmm. . . . so was it a male or female song?

My guess is that it was originally a female one, but because of its compelling popularity, it's been switched back and forth from its near onset.

So, was there a House of the Rising Sun that induced poor girls into lives, and probably shortened ones, of prostitution?

Nobody really knows for sure, but applying Yeoman's Eighth Law of History, as we should, would suggest it's likely. That law, as you'll recall, stated the following:

Yeoman's Eighth Law of History:  Myths, unless purely fanciful, almost always have a basis in reality.

In cultures that write things down, the concept that myths, which were primarily related by word of mouth, have any basis in reality seems to come as a shock. But they normally do. 

It is the spoken word that is the default means of transmitting information, including history, in human beings.  The written word is a learned behavior, indeed one that must not only be learned but nurtured in order to take root.   Even now, a lot of people will take and retain information better orally than in a written form.

But oral transmission is always subject to decay with the teller, and the tricks the mind uses to retain the story warp it a bit by default. But that doesn't mean that the stories were never true in any fashion.

All the time we find that historians and archeologist are surprised to learn that something thought to be a myth has some basis in reality.  Probably most do. Troy turns out to have been a real city (and the war was probably over the teenage wife of a teenage king, I'll bet), the Navajo and Apache turn out to be from the far north originally and so their memories of their being great white bears and great white birds are spot on.  Myths, even very old ones, if carefully discerned usually have some basis in fact.

While that eight law mostly referred to old myths, it applies to more recent ones as well, as the basic principle is the same. The song clearly came out of Louisiana, and it traveled the South pretty extensively while persistently retaining its references to a House of the Rising Sun.  There likely was such a place in Louisiana, or at the chances that there was are pretty good.

Indeed, a whole series of theories hold that it was on Conti Street in the French Quarter or on Ursulines Street or on St. Louis Street.  In 2016 however, the New Orleans Times Picayune ran an article about an advertisement they'd found in which a hotelier was advertising the Mechanics Hotel, just outside of town, and with obviously pretty good rooming accommodations, which was noted to have formerly been "the old establishment of the Rising Sun".

Hmmm. . . .

The owners of the Mechanics Hotel wanted his potential guests to note that the hotel had a variety of rooms and offered a variety of services and accommodations, none of which included prostitution.  The prior role of the Rising Sun wasn't mentioned, just that the Mechanics Hotel was where it formerly was, or rather that it was being rebranded.  Perhaps it was also being repurposed. If so, that advertisement would have served two purposes, one being "don't stay away if you would have avoided the old Rising Sun", and the second being "don't come around if you are expecting the old services of the Rising Sun".

That advertisement, by the way, ran in 1828, which would mean that the song would have to have dated back to at least that approximate time.

So, what's the moral of the song?  It clearly has one.

The basic warning is against living a life of depravity, that's clear enough.  More than that, it was a direct warning about living a life of sexual depravity.  Further, it warns the audience that the vocalist can't get out of it, now that the protagonist is in it, even though it would see, that the protagonist has tried.  In the male variant sung by Guthrie, and in the female variant sung by Leadbelly, the protagonist informs the audience that the subject is at a railroad station with one foot on the platform, and one on the train, and is going back to New Orleans "to wear that ball and train".  That tells us that the male protagonist is going back to New Orleans where he intends, seemingly against his will, to resume visiting the House of the Rising Sun.  In the female protagonist version, she's going back to be a prostitute.

The female version is even grimmer.  In that version, not only does the lyrics indicate that the subject is a slave to the situation, she's a different sort.  Her slavery, in essence, is implied to be economic.  Her reputation is ruined and she can't do anything else at this point.  Moreover, she knows that she's going to die young, either at the hands of one of her clients, or more likely through disease.

Which takes us to this.  That in fact was then and is now the thing that kills prostitutes early.  It's odd how in Western movies like Lonesome Dove or Open Range this is ignored.  Prostitutes were nearly guaranteed to get a venereal disease at the time, and it was probably going to kill them. Regular clients were likely to get a "social disease" as well, and the number of men who came down with one even where they were not regular customers, but who had made a visit a few, or perhaps even one, times were likely to as well.

Indeed, it wasn't really until after World War Two that it was the case that VD could really be effectively treated. . Nearly all of the treatments before then were ineffective to varying degrees.  But that's not the last of it.  Girls who fell into prostitution didn't simply think it an economic option, but were often victims of what was termed "white slavery".  Kidnapped and drugged, or kept against their will in some fashion, sometimes by force, sometimes by addition.  This is also still the case.  

It's worth noting, in addition, that modern pornography has its origin in prostitution and indeed the word stems from it.  "Graphy" indicates depiction, and pornea is Greek for of or pertaining to prostitutes.  Very early pornography, going back to the first really easy to use cameras, came from photographing prostitutes to expand on their marketability.  I.e., the working girls were basically captives of their procurer, and those people expanded their profits, not the girls profits, by photographing and selling their images, which had the added impact of being a species of advertising.  This aspect of pornography was very heavy in the industry up until the mid 20th Century, when some of the subjects limited themselves to selling their own images in some fashion, but it's apparently returned in spades since the Internet, with many, apparently, of the images around now being once again of young girls trapped most likely by drug addiction.

The whole thing is pretty bad, suffice it to say.

Okay, we went down sort of a rabbit hole here, and for an odd reason. The trip to House of the Rising Sun started off as it refers to the mother of the subject sewing his blue jeans. We'll explain that in the other thread, but we would note that the song has one final aspect.  It's a warning about the decay of a family. 

Waiting For A Train

The Rumjacks - What Was Your Name in the States? Official Music Video)

Spotify don't need him around anyhow*

I don't think Joe Rogan should be posting crap about COVID 19 on Spotify, but I have to be somewhat amused by Neil Young's actions and what has followed, including Joni Mitchell following in his wake.  I suspect it's largely:

Boomers:  What's Spotify?

Generation Jones:  Oh, thank goodness, at last we don't have to hear Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. .  . any chance James Taylor will pull his music too?

Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Y:  Neil who?

Footnotes:

*Apologies to Lynryd Skynyrd whose anthem Sweet Home Alabama contained these lyrics, regarding Neil Young:

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her

Well I heard ol' Neil put her down

Well I hope Neil Young will remember

A southern man don't need him around anyhow.

FWIW, I like the ballad Sweet Home Alabama, and Neil Young actually acknowledged that he himself thought he'd gone too far with his song Southern Man, but Neil was on the right side of history on that one for sure, and he probably is here too.  I can't actually imagine Sweet Home Alabama being released today, and like most songs, probably nobody really pays very much attention to its lyrics.