Folk Songs
James Keelaghan wrote a song about this fire entitled "Cold Missouri Waters" after being inspired by Young Men and Fire. The song was covered by Richard Shindell, Dar Williams, and Lucy Kaplansky on their album Cry Cry Cry. It was also covered by Hank Cramer in his album, Days Gone By. It is sung from the perspective of foreman Dodge, lying on his deathbed dying of Hodgkin's disease five years after the fire. It imagines Dodge saying of his decision to set the escape fire:
"I don't know why, I just thought it. I struck a match to waist-high grass, running out of time. Tried to tell them, 'Step into this fire I set. We can't make it, this is the only chance you'll get.' But they cursed me, ran for the rocks above instead. I lay face down and prayed above the cold Missouri waters."
Ross Brown, a musician/songwriter from Townsend, MT (about 35 miles south of Helena) wrote another song entitled "The Mann Gulch." A scratch version of this song is available on YouTube.
Read more about this topic: Mann Gulch Fire
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or songs:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Dylan is to me the perfect symbol of the anti-artist in our society. He is against everything—the last resort of someone who doesn’t really want to change the world.... Dylan’s songs accept the world as it is.”
—Ewan MacColl (1915–1989)