RotD/Cover Me: How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?

Stocks fell on September 4, 1929.

Stocks fell, and with only a few exceptions they continued to fall, accelerating through the rest of the month and through October. Finally, on October 24th, they plunged in what remains the biggest sell-off in U.S. history.

The crash wouldn’t bottom out until mid-November, and by then the Great Depression was underway. The unemployment rate doubled in the final weeks of 1929 and would rise as high as 23% in the 1930s.

The Great Depression devastated American families and society, and protest art emerged almost immediately. One of the very first songs to chronicle the impact of the emerging Depression was Blind Alfred Reed’s “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?”, recorded on December 4, 1929, with Reed accompanying himself on violin.

“How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live” is quite the protest song: over the course of its eight verses, Reed rails against inflation, expensive health care, the state of public education, overzealous policing, overreaching clergy, and more.

Reed’s lyrics are clever, biting, and still sadly resonant today. But his song might have been long since forgotten had Ry Cooder not unearthed it, arranged it as a rock song, and recorded it for his 1970 eponymous album.

Cooder kept only three of Reed’s verses, re-ordering them so that the song now started at the end…

Well, the doctor comes around with a face so bright.
And he says in a little while you’ll be all right.
All he gives is a humbug pill,
A dose of dope and a great big bill.
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

…before circling back to the top, and then skipping to the fifth verse.

It’s Cooder’s cover rather than Reed’s original that most likely inspired Bruce to include the song at the center of his nightly Seeger Sessions Tour in 2006 and as a bonus track on the American Land edition of his We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album.

We know this, because Bruce arranged his version similarly to Cooder’s (although Bruce’s is more brassy and biting), and he retained the same opening verse–the only original verse to appear in his “cover.”

I qualify the term “cover” because while Bruce’s track is clearly based on Reed’s conceptual chassis and Cooder’s arrangement, Bruce wrote completely new lyrics after the opening verse.

If it was simply a matter of updating Reed’s lyrics for modern times, it might be easier for us to consider this a true cover. However, Bruce completely changed the meaning of the song. Reed’s version was a wide-ranging polemic; Bruce’s re-write is a sharp, finely honed criticism of the Bush Administration’s atrocious handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, starting with the president’s infamous flyover, belated on-the-ground visit, and tone-deaf remarks:

I believe the town [of New Orleans] where I used to come from, Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself — occasionally too much — (laughter) — will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to. That’s what I believe. I believe the great state of Louisiana will get its feet back and become a vital contributor to the country.

Bruce took that comment and accompanying photo-op, and he built a verse around it:

“Me and my old school pals had some mighty high times down here
And what happened to you poor black folks, well it just ain’t fair”
He took a look around, gave a little pep talk, said “I’m with you” then he took a little walk
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live

Over the days that followed, residents of New Orleans found themselves isolated, stranded, and struggling to survive. Many were homeless and felt abandoned by their government. Bruce gave voice to them in his remaining two verses:

There’s bodies floatin’ on Canal and the levee’s gone to Hell
Martha, get me my sixteen gauge and some dry shells
Them who’s got got out of town and them who ain’t got left to drown
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live

Got family scattered from Texas all the way to Baltimore
Yeah and I ain’t got no home in this world no more
Gonna be a judgment that’s a fact, a righteous train rollin’ down this track
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live

Bruce reaches back to another Depression-era song in his last verse: Woody Guthrie’s “I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore,” which chronicles the plight of refugees from a different American natural disaster–the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Bruce started performing his new edition of “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” from his early Seeger Sessions rehearsal shows in Asbury Park, well aware that his tour would kick off properly in New Orleans itself. That Jazz Fest show would go down in history as one of Bruce’s most powerful performances ever, and his new song was one of the show’s many highlights.

To make sure absolutely no one missed the message of the song, Bruce introduced it with some sharp commentary and dedicated it to “President Bystander.”

Bruce gave a fiercely impassioned vocal performance of “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” each and every night, and for a such short-lived tour we have a surprising number of professionally filmed performances to enjoy–from a late-night television appearance…

…to a video included with the DualDisc version of the album…

…to a live concert video of the tour’s final stand.

The problem with writing a song so timely and topical, though, is that it quickly becomes dated. As both Katrina and President Bystander faded in the rear view mirror, so did the relevancy of “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” Bruce brought it back only three times after the Seeger Sessions Tour, two of which were encore Jazz Fest appearances. At this point, it’s likely to remain in the past, although Reed’s original lyrics might make for an all-too-relevant set list addition today.

How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?
Never recorded
Released (live): We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (American Land Edition) (2006)
First performed: April 20, 2006 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: May 6, 2014 (Houston, TX)

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