We Reap What We Sow

On Sunday, another musical milestone will be reached when Farm Aid celebrates its 20th anniversary in Tinley Park, Ill. with a lineup that includes Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, Wilco, Los Lonely Boys and Kathleen Edwards among many others. It's great that the annual fundraising concert and year-round charity are going strong. On the other hand, it's sad that after two decades family farmers still need the help.

It appears they need it now more than ever. According to an article in the Sept. 22 issue of Rolling Stone, there are 400,000 fewer family farms today than there were in 1985, the year Farm Aid made its debut on Sept. 22 in Champaign, Ill.

Whether or not you have farmers in your family, family farming once was this country's backbone and a proud part of its history. One of the first songs we learn is about a farmer and all the animals he keeps on that farm. It isn't until we become adults that we hear the rest of the story � that Old MacDonald probably was forced out of business by foreclosure or a corporate farm. Either way, the general public likely wasn't paying attention.

There are few days' work that are more honest than that of the family farmer. Year after year, generation after generation, they have honored their contract with the land to feed your family and their own. Most work every day, often daylight until dark. Many could sell their land and make more money than they could by farming. Still, they keep working the land. That dedication is worth our support.

For the 20th straight year, I won't be able to attend Farm Aid. To mark the occasion, though, here are a handful of my favorite farming-related songs, in chronological order, that I'm likely to be spinning on Sunday:

"Ballad of Hollis Brown," Bob Dylan � Any tribute to Farm Aid should include Dylan, whose comment at Live Aid that maybe "a little bit" of the money raised for starving Africans could be diverted to help struggling American farmers eventually led Nelson, Young and Mellencamp to start Farm Aid. Unfortunately, this song from Dylan's 1964 album "The Times They Are A-Changin' " is entirely too typical of songs about farmers. Which is to say it has a sad ending, although this one is even sadder than most. Hollis Brown is a desperate man scratching out a hardscrabble existence "with his wife and five children and his cabin broken down." His "children are so hungry they don't know how to smile." The animals all fall ill. The rats get the flour. Drought strangles the land. Ultimately he takes matters into his own hands, and it's chilling every time I hear Dylan sing the last few lines:

There's seven people dead on a South Dakota farm
There's seven people dead on a South Dakota farm
Somewhere in the distance there's seven new people born.

"Rain on the Scarecrow," John Mellencamp � Not only is Mellencamp one of the founders of Farm Aid, but as a native of Indiana he knows plenty of and about the people who work the land. His description of their plight became one of the best songs on his 1985 album "Scarecrow." Maybe it's because were talking about one artist's vision vs. a couple of all-star affairs, but farmers' struggles made for better songs than the other prevalent cause celebre of the '80s, African hunger. That effort produced "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are The World," but "Rain on the Scarecrow" and Steve Earle's "The Rain Came Down" hold up as better songs that can stand on their own when separated from the events that inspired them. It's due in part to the rich imagery. You can feel the desolation when Mellencamp sings "Scarecrow on a wooden cross/Blackbird in the barn/Four hundred empty acres that used to be my farm."

The chorus sums up the tide of helplessness that washed over so many in the Midwest:

Rain on the scarecrow, Blood on the plow
This land fed a nation, This land made me proud
And Son I'm just sorry they're just memories for you now
Rain on the scarecrow, Blood on the plow
Rain on the scarecrow, Blood on the plow.

"The Rain Came Down," Steve Earle � Earle is a Farm Aid regular, and he knows a thing or two about writing songs for the down and out. He also excels at painting a clear picture with his lyrics. They don't get much clearer than this cut from his 1987 album "Exit 0," in which he sings:

My granddaddy died in the room he was born in
Twenty-three summers ago
But I could have sworn he was beside me this morning
When the sheriff showed up at my door
So don't you come around here with your auctioneer man
'Cause you can have your machines but you ain't taking my land

And the rain came down
Like an angel come down from above
And the rain came down
It'll wash you away and there ain't never enough.

"Houses in the Fields," John Gorka � Some can't fight the system forever, though, and Gorka wrote about those folks on this track from his 1991 album "Jack's Crows." "Houses in the Fields" is about a stretch of farmland near Gorka's then-home between Easton and Bethlehem, Pa. His words describe it far better than mine ever could:

At first he wouldn't sell and then he would
Now there'll be children playing where the silo stood
The word came from the marrow of his bones
It was the last sure way to pay off all the loans

The new streets will be named for kings and queens
And a ransom will be paid for every castle's dream
The model sign is crested with a lion
And the farmers they will have enough to die on

There's houses in the fields
No prayers for steady rain this year
Houses in the fields
There's houses in the fields
And the last few farms are growing out of here

From our childhood ditties to the food on our tables to everyone wearing a John Deere hat (ironically or not), farming is part of the fabric of our land. Family farming is a tradition worth preserving, through the good work of Farm Aid and our decisions as consumers. Please give to Farm Aid if you can afford it. If there's an organic farm or family farm stand in your area, try to give them your business. I'd love to someday write about my favorite farming songs and mention a few with happy endings.