Recession Sessions: Music for the Great Recession

• Tweet

• Tweet

Reces­sion Ses­sions is an album of eco­nom­ics-themed songs ded­i­cat­ed to the Great Reces­sion. It’s pio­neer­ing the genre of “finan­cial folk”, and rais­ing mon­ey for the Somerville Home­less Coali­tion, a home­less­ness activism group in Mass­a­chu­setts.

After all the seri­ous­ness on this blog, I’m glad to have some artis­tic com­men­tary on the Great Reces­sion. Often our trib­al mem­o­ries of events like this are stored in music rather than analysis–remember “Hey Bud­dy, Can You Spare a Dime?”:

They used to tell me I was build­ing a dream
And so I fol­lowed the mob
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
I was always there right on the job

They used to tell me I was build­ing a dream
With peace and glo­ry ahead
Why should I be stand­ing in line
Just wait­ing for bread?

Once I built a rail­road, I made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a rail­road, now it’s done
Broth­er, can you spare a dime?

Or my per­son­al favourite, “Six­teen Tons”:

Some peo­ple say a man is made out of mud
A poor man’s made out of mus­cle and blood
Mus­cle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong

You load six­teen tons what do you get
Anoth­er day old­er and deep­er in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the com­pa­ny store

I can’t say whether Reces­sion Ses­sions will burn into the con­scious­ness as deeply as those clas­sics, but it’s the first music for our times that has been brought to my atten­tion. The trail­er below explains where the idea came from, and gives a sam­ple of some of the music. If you’d like to “try before you buy”, 6 of the 16 songs on the album are avail­able for stream­ing.