Fun with YouTube: Cass Elliot, John Denver, and Maya Angelou

Hi everyone, here’s a blog where I’ll shut up for a change.

This old Cass Elliot song "New World Coming" has been on a loop in my internal soundtrack for the last several days. I can’t think why. Must be because we’re playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony this Saturday. I just can’t think of any other explanation. It's Been A-wRACKing the Ole BrAin of Mine A lot. 

Here’s Mama Cass herself singing one of her post-Mamas and Papas hits about music and individualism. Love the dress!

Here she is with John Denver singing an American standard and expressing some timely sentiments about the importance of voting:

And here she is as Witch Hazel in the classic children’s show H.R. Puf’N’Stuf:

Here’s an except from John Ashbery’s poem, “Episode,” that appeared recently in the New York Review of Books:

Yet I will be articulate

again and articulate what we knew anyway

of what the lurching moon had taught us,

seeking music where there's something dumb

being said

And here’s Maya Angelou back in 1993, speaking of the United States of America, of reality, and of hope.

DH