For Sasha by Joan Baez

Learn from the horrors in history. Don't repeat them.

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for this Sunday Special commentary. The song is For Sasha by Joan Baez, written in 1979.

A thought before we begin…

I usually write these posts a couple of weeks before they are published. This article was written at the beginning of October, before the most recent events in Israel/Palestine.

On Wednesday of this week, I will include a song called They’re Building a Wall. Next Sunday, I will post some comments on Patti Smith’s song, Peaceable Kingdom. There are views on both sides of the conflict. There are also voices calling for a more humane resolution.

With all of the songs covered here at Social Issues in Song, I encourage my readers to read a wide variety of sources of history written from many viewpoints, and then to come to your own conclusions.

Below, you’ll find my interpretation of the lyrics (written in italics). Synonyms/definitions are given below for the words in bold. As with most everything, there are many ways to interpret things. Comments and questions are welcome. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.

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For Ruth

The Song

(420 words)

The song begins one morning. The singer looks out the window and sees a bird flying past and imagines that there is a yellow star on his wing. The star is the Star of David, the symbol that Jews were forced to wear on their clothes to identify them during the Holocaust.

She sees the lights are on in the factory, probably in a town she is visiting. The frost is hung on the linden tree. This tells us that it is probably late autumn or winter.

A linden tree (Photo by Rbakovsky, Wikimedia Commons)

She remembers that this was one of the places where so many people were forced to leave their homes, families torn and the borders crossed, or were rounded up and taken to death camps under the Nazi regime.

I believe she sings this song in memory of a person named Sasha*.

She imagines a scene in one of the camps. A young German soldier lies in his bed, bandages from toe to head, a prisoner of the camps draws nigh. The soldier then speaks to the prisoner, saying that they are on two sides of the conflict. If you are Abel and I am Cain refers to a story in the Bible in which two brothers fight and one, Cain, kills his brother. Here, the soldier asks forgiveness for something he has done.

He explains that he had told other soldiers to set fire to a building where Jews were living. As the building was burning, he looked up and saw a father holding his son. The father leaped (jumped) from the window, killing himself and his son.

The singer then talks to the memory of the people of the city of Heidelberg in Germany long before the war. Here, she sings poetically of the young people who weren’t old enough to shave, who went to the university there. The years were long but the spirits free. Time goes slowly for young people. They are energetic, curious and hopeful but are discontented, sometimes not satisfied with the way things are. They went to the taverns to drink and talk and debate, or, in a beer garden under the old chateau. The singer says that the memories of those people are still alive, see the memories how they shine.

Through this song, Joan Baez keeps alive memories of the people who lived the Holocaust.

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Mass killing, wiping out or forcibly removing entire populations, whether it is threatened or put into action, can never be condoned or pardoned.

We can change. We can do better.

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(Read the UN Charter: Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect at:

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml )

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Question:

One line of the lyrics says, the ghosts of the past are kind. What do you think this could mean?

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*Sasha is the name of either a man or a woman. It originally came from the Greek Alexander or Alexandra. It used among Slavic peoples (Russians, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians Slovaks, Belarusians, etc.).

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VOCABULARY (definitions or synonyms)

Jew - a person who follows the Jewish religion

frost - small white ice crystals that form on the ground or other surfaces when the temperature falls below freezing

regime - a government, especially one that does not allow much personal freedom

draws nigh - comes close/near

tavern - bar, pub

threaten - to say that you’re going to do something to harm someone or something

condone - accept and allow to continue

pardon - to forgive

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For Japanese speakers, this song has been translated and briefly discussed at:

https://british-791.blogspot.com/2019/05/joan-baez-for-sasha.html

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From a distance