Happy Birthday, Thomas Paine
January 29, 2005
8:55 a.m., MT
I imagine most visitors to this site were already aware that today is the anniversary of the American revolutionary's birth. Uncharacteristically, I shan't expound at length on Tom Paine or his work. Instead, I'll offer a musical tribute that brings me to tears every time I hear it (and I bought the CD containing this song over a year ago): Tom Paine's Bones. The (now-inactive) link is to an MP3 file of the song. It's a large file, but worth the download time, in my opinion. (Please do download it, then listen to it, to minimize the load on my server.) The song will be available through the weekend; after that, it'll be removed from my server.

If you like it, I highly recommend supporting the artist, Dick Gaughan, by purchasing the CD that contains this song -- Outlaws and Dreamers. It has other, similarly inspiring songs as well. (Links are to Amazon, and I make no money from them.)

Tonight I'll be celebrating the birth of this singular man, who continues to be an inspiration for me. I hope many of you join me in spirit.

Sunni

Replies: 5 individuals have opined

On Wednesday, February 2nd, charley said:

"ask" for paine day? man, did you stumble into the wrong blog! we had a paine day already this year in maryland. no permission slips. no commands. i don't know what others did on that day, but i danced to some bones. in boots.

so you can check maryland off your list. and i know there was a paine day in wisconsin as well. and in auburn, alabama.

today also is ayn rand day right here where i'm typing this. mr. paine would be proud of her, i think.

On Tuesday, February 1st, Robert N. Walsh said:

If you and/or any of your members are truely interested in Paine, check the sites noted and contact me. We need residents, to ask for Paine Day in several states. Try 'thomaspainefriends.
org' for details. Thanx

On Tuesday, February 1st, charley said:

thanks for the offerino, slither girl. i'm a little funny about getting too many free music downloads though; i'll let the urge push hard enough to buy one of his CDs. it's my free market anarchism at work.

On Tuesday, February 1st, Sunni said:

You're very welcome, Salty. There are a couple of other songs on the CD that aren't as overtly political as TPB, but are powerful to me. And I'd say this song is typical of the engineering throughout it. I'd be happy to burn you a copy of it ...

On Tuesday, February 1st, charley said:

keeping that wonderful MP3 on my desktop for inspiration, even though i don't usually like acoustic guitar / vocal stuff. thanks, sunni.

don't know about the rest of the album, but whoever engineered Tom Paine's Bones gets a nod from me -- honest distance miking (with hints of direct, i suppose) that take you right there. balls are needed these days for a producer, or whoever's responsible, to leave in those artifacts of humanity.