[Music]
[Music]
I like to try to blend science and art
in my professional life at the time
about a decade ago I was doing outreach
work with public health department and
it was going into people’s homes and
gathering their stories and interviewing
them and finding that their stories were
more interesting and marvelous than
anything I could ever make up so it
dawned on me one days I was driving way
up there in Greg LA that maybe I should
put their songs there two stories to
song and that really opened up a large
segment of time for me and I have
numerous stories than of people put into
song and what was marvelous about it was
that I would later then on subsequent
visits bring my guitar and sing their
song for them and they it was marvelous
for me and I hope it was marvelous for
them and most of them all of them have
said that they enjoyed it very much to
be written up in song so this song
Marguerite she was born in the
french-speaking portion of Belgium she
spoke four languages
she spoke Spanish her father was from
Spain she spoke French
she spoke phlegm Oh or Flemish and she
spoke English and she was a teenager
during World War two
and she told the stories of living in
the sewers and in the tunnels under the
city to avoid the bombs she told the
story of stories of her peers being
lured by the German soldiers with money
and clothing and food and how those poor
women were publicly shunned on the
streets with their heads shaved remember
those stories
there’s been a movie made of it she
proudly said I resisted I was tempted
but I resisted she met her husband her
future husband on the streets of her
city home city Haines st. Pierre he was
a US soldier AWOL and intoxicated he
proudly would say I was there saving the
world from Hitler they largely hugely
downplayed his dishonorable discharge
and lamented that he had no veteran
medical benefits they had to get
permission from the Pope to be married
and to leave France so they waited for
that to come oh I wanted to interject
also he said he would come back for her
after the war and she told me she didn’t
expect him to show up but he did he
actually went back they petitioned the
Pope to be married and they were married
and came to the US I will say that I was
honored to sing this song at some of her
birthdays and some of their
anniversaries and also at her funeral it
is entitled self-titled Marguerite
[Music]
you
ah hi I am Marguerite it is with
pleasure that
and we meet your father he worked with
man
do you remember we played together
back in Belgium 1939 we were young and
could not believe
how terrible this world could be but
when the grown-ups whispered fearfully
the children listened carefully back in
Belgium 1943 who how that war changed
everything
[Music]
nights of nights and they’re awful
thundering
[Music]
when I grew up I left the place
married a soldier from united states but
when my father died I could not return
our kids were young we had to work in
Boston 1954
now how could it be that today
to women now old and gray would meet
again after all this time
[Music]
in a cafe
on a winter day Minnesota 1989
now you say that you lost everyone
yes we always wondered wondered where he
had gone
[Music]
juice we just we might believe
see appears you do connect for prepare
12 Ayyappa gloomy
vous appelez your soul uber chic Disney
son
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you so much
[Music]
I’ll do something on a lighter note and
I can dedicate this one to the folks at
the rail river and anyone else who
happens to be a railroad or depot the
aficionado
[Music]
it’s called the freight train blues he
was born in Dixie and Boomer Shack just
a little shanty by the railroad track
the hominid the driver was is lullaby
and a freight train whistle taught him
how to grab his that it was a fireman
and his mama dear she was the only
daughter of an engineer sister loves a
break man and it is no joke it’s a
wonder how she keeps her good man broke
[Music]
he’s got the freight dream balloons he’s
got him in the bottom of his ramble in
gee we need whistle blows he’s got to go
Oh
Laurie well I guess he’s never going to
lose the freight train blues
[Music]
airplanes and autos always leave him
cold and the steamboat whistle never
stirs his the only thing that makes him
warm to navigate
he’s a wild can’t whistle on a
southbound frayed
well he rambles through the cities he
travels through the towns and he never
can’t find a place to stop and settle
down
every time he finds a place he wants to
stay then I whistle blows and he’s on
his way he’s got the freight train days
he’s got him in the bottom of his
rambling G when a whistle blows he’s got
to go
[Music]
well I guess he’s never going to here’s
the freight train
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
I like to try to blend science and art
in my professional life at the time
about a decade ago I was doing outreach
work with public health department and
it was going into people’s homes and
gathering their stories and interviewing
them and finding that their stories were
more interesting and marvelous than
anything I could ever make up so it
dawned on me one days I was driving way
up there in Greg LA that maybe I should
put their songs there two stories to
song and that really opened up a large
segment of time for me and I have
numerous stories than of people put into
song and what was marvelous about it was
that I would later then on subsequent
visits bring my guitar and sing their
song for them and they it was marvelous
for me and I hope it was marvelous for
them and most of them all of them have
said that they enjoyed it very much to
be written up in song so this song
Marguerite she was born in the
french-speaking portion of Belgium she
spoke four languages
she spoke Spanish her father was from
Spain she spoke French
she spoke phlegm Oh or Flemish and she
spoke English and she was a teenager
during World War two
and she told the stories of living in
the sewers and in the tunnels under the
city to avoid the bombs she told the
story of stories of her peers being
lured by the German soldiers with money
and clothing and food and how those poor
women were publicly shunned on the
streets with their heads shaved remember
those stories
there’s been a movie made of it she
proudly said I resisted I was tempted
but I resisted she met her husband her
future husband on the streets of her
city home city Haines st. Pierre he was
a US soldier AWOL and intoxicated he
proudly would say I was there saving the
world from Hitler they largely hugely
downplayed his dishonorable discharge
and lamented that he had no veteran
medical benefits they had to get
permission from the Pope to be married
and to leave France so they waited for
that to come oh I wanted to interject
also he said he would come back for her
after the war and she told me she didn’t
expect him to show up but he did he
actually went back they petitioned the
Pope to be married and they were married
and came to the US I will say that I was
honored to sing this song at some of her
birthdays and some of their
anniversaries and also at her funeral it
is entitled self-titled Marguerite
[Music]
you
ah hi I am Marguerite it is with
pleasure that
and we meet your father he worked with
man
do you remember we played together
back in Belgium 1939 we were young and
could not believe
how terrible this world could be but
when the grown-ups whispered fearfully
the children listened carefully back in
Belgium 1943 who how that war changed
everything
[Music]
nights of nights and they’re awful
thundering
[Music]
when I grew up I left the place
married a soldier from united states but
when my father died I could not return
our kids were young we had to work in
Boston 1954
now how could it be that today
to women now old and gray would meet
again after all this time
[Music]
in a cafe
on a winter day Minnesota 1989
now you say that you lost everyone
yes we always wondered wondered where he
had gone
[Music]
juice we just we might believe
see appears you do connect for prepare
12 Ayyappa gloomy
vous appelez your soul uber chic Disney
son
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you so much
[Music]
I’ll do something on a lighter note and
I can dedicate this one to the folks at
the rail river and anyone else who
happens to be a railroad or depot the
aficionado
[Music]
it’s called the freight train blues he
was born in Dixie and Boomer Shack just
a little shanty by the railroad track
the hominid the driver was is lullaby
and a freight train whistle taught him
how to grab his that it was a fireman
and his mama dear she was the only
daughter of an engineer sister loves a
break man and it is no joke it’s a
wonder how she keeps her good man broke
[Music]
he’s got the freight dream balloons he’s
got him in the bottom of his ramble in
gee we need whistle blows he’s got to go
Oh
Laurie well I guess he’s never going to
lose the freight train blues
[Music]
airplanes and autos always leave him
cold and the steamboat whistle never
stirs his the only thing that makes him
warm to navigate
he’s a wild can’t whistle on a
southbound frayed
well he rambles through the cities he
travels through the towns and he never
can’t find a place to stop and settle
down
every time he finds a place he wants to
stay then I whistle blows and he’s on
his way he’s got the freight train days
he’s got him in the bottom of his
rambling G when a whistle blows he’s got
to go
[Music]
well I guess he’s never going to here’s
the freight train
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
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