I doubt “The Highwayman” is taught in high school or college anymore. And we are all the poorer for it.

(Though I too was bothered that the HighwayGuy went back and died pointlessly afterward, as AesopFan complains.)
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The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

–Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”
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Chills.

RIP Phil.

“Edgar Allan Poe’s The Bells sung by Phil Ochs”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3FzveBu_34

Since I’m on a Jim Carroll kick, here’s Jim on Phil Ochs and “The Bells”:
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Then a surprise to make my evening, Onto the stage, grinning sheepishly as is his way, steps Phil Ochs, guitar in hand. He hasn’t performed in a while, and he seems nervous and tentative. I scan the room … if these people do not cut the cocktail-chatter scene, I’m not going to silence them with a polite finger to my lips but something more in the line of a baseball bat.

–Jim Carroll, “The Downtown Diaries 1971-1973”

This is the song version of “The Highwayman” with which I’m familiar.

I never did understand why the highwayman went back after she (spoiler alert) sacrificed herself for him. One of my more romantic sons had to explain that feeling to me. I got the theory, but still don’t agree with the practice.

A lot of the “romantic” stuff in movies affects me the same way (e.g. “Titanic” – don’t get me started!)

I first imagined Joan Baez had romantically risen up from a poor migrant family doing stoop labor in the fields — Mexican cousins in effect to the Joad family in “The Grapes of Wrath.” I later discovered her father had a Ph.D in physics from Stanford and had taught at MIT. Baez started her singing career in the folk clubs of Boston and Cambridge.

In my high school Physics class I saw a short instructional film that had a Dr. Baez as the film’s creator or narrator. My teacher informed us that Dr. Baez was Joan’s father. So, I knew early on that Joan was a faculty brat.

And an angelic voice. Coincidentally, I recently have been listening to a 3-CD compilation of Joan’s songs.

While one may poke fun at Joan’s peace-love approach to politics, at least she was consistent. She denounced the genocide in Cambodia, and got a fair amount of flack from the left for that.

Joan’s first album wasn’t a solo. Among the other singers/guitarists on her first album was Bill Wood, then a Harvard undergrad. Joan Baez with Bill Wood – Kitty This was from the first Joan Baez album my family had, though I had also heard her sing on a 4-record compilation of folk songs.Bill Wood went on to a productive career as a biologist at CalTech and U Colorado. Rather impressive.

AesopFran: That’s from my favorite Baez album. She was stretching beyond standard folk to folk-rock with fancy orchestral arrangements. Her “Annabel Lee” is quite wonderful.

I first imagined Joan Baez had romantically risen up from a poor migrant family doing stoop labor in the fields — Mexican cousins in effect to the Joad family in “The Grapes of Wrath.” I later discovered her father had a Ph.D in physics from Stanford and had taught at MIT. Baez started her singing career in the folk clubs of Boston and Cambridge.

Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not exactly the leftie narrative. I still like Baez.

God bless singers who have set great poems to music. McKennitt particularly stands out. She’s also done, as you know, Yeats’ “Stolen Child,” Blake’s anti-war “Lullaby,” and Noyes’ “The Highwayman.”

A poem-setting and vocalist who had a similar effect on me many years before McKennit (who is a favorite of all our family, and I am very familiar with her Lady) was Joan Baez singing Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAtSCz9ixWs

That’s a poem by Lord Tennyson about a woman condemned to weave and weave in a tower above Camelot but never, never look down upon life there, lest she fall to a curse.

But one day she catches a glimpse of Sir Lancelot riding and she must look.
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She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces taro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
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One of the most gorgeous, heartbreaking poems in the English language. Loreena McKennit put it to music and, I swear, matched Tennyson beat for beat for beauty. And somehow her label rose to the challenge with a music video, which I never saw until tonight.

I’ve loved this poem and this music for twenty-five years.

–Loreena McKennit, “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRIHzr3Pxhc