Malvina was one feisty lady – way ahead of her time. Her songs sound simple but WOW!!! They’re not. She stood up to the Ku Klux Klan. She speaks her mind. Politics, ecology, sexual politics, the modern world. What a songwriter.
The Malvina Reynolds Story
What have we done to the world?
What have we done to the world?
Just a little tree
Standing on its own
Sending lonely roots
To where others have grown
Just a little tree
Shimmering in the sun
What have we done to the world?
Just a little field
A uniform green
No hint of colours
Where flowers should have been.
Just a little field
Sprayed twice a week
What have we done to the world?
Just a little patch
Where a pond once sat
No room for frog
Or poor water-rat
Just a little patch
Of insignificant crop
What have we done to the world?
Just a lonely boy
In the midst of the wild
Playing on his tablet
An impoverished child
Just a little boy
That nature’s passed by
What have we done to the world?
Opher – 16.6.2021
I pay homage to the great Malvina Reynolds and her song What Have They Done To The Rain.
That was a song written in 1962 that highlighted the danger of radioactive fall-out – in particular strontium 90 – from nuclear tests.
My version extends that to a global view of the devastation we humans are causing to the natural world.
A forest is an interconnecting web of roots and it is now being revealed how much trees communicate with each other. They are meant to be together.
Nowadays our ponds are being filled in, our hedgerows grubbed up and our fields sown with monoculture and sprayed with herbicide and pesticide. They have become green deserts.
Our children do not get to play in nature and learn its ways, to enjoy and respect it. They are impoverished and isolated.
What have we done to the world?
What Have They Done To The Rain – The Searchers/Malvina Reynolds
The Searchers were a great little band. They started out like all the others doing covers of R&B but they were the band that introduced the jangly guitar that the Byrds later built on. They also were the band who developed that more thoughtful interest in the Folky songs with some social impact. In fact they can make a good claim to have invented FolkRock.
This was an early song of their which was written by the great Malvina Reynolds. It is a gentle understated song yet it carries huge weight – and still does.
It asks that simple question – What have we done to the rain?
Well what have we done to the rain, the soil, the air, the seas, the rivers and all the creatures on the planet?
This is a poignant reminder of the damage and slaughter we are thoughtlessly carrying out.
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO THE RAIN (written by Malvina Reynolds) Performed by the Searchers
Just a little rain falling all around
The grass lifts its head to the heavenly sound
Just a little rain, just a little rain
What have they done to the rain
Just a little boy standing in the rain
The gentle rain that falls for years
And the grass is gone, the boy disappears
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears
And what have they done to the rain
Just a little breeze out of the sky
The leaves nod their head as the breeze blows by
Just a little breeze with some smoke in its eye
What have they done to the rain
Just a little boy standing in the rain
The gentle rain that falls for years
And the grass is gone, the boy disappears
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears
And what have they done to the rain
What have they done to the rain
Malvina Reynolds Quotes – a woman who stands her ground.
Malvina is quite a feisty woman. She stood up to the Ku Klux Klan and drove them off. She wrote Little Boxes – which is no twee song – it’s a song about the way our society is crushing individuality and putting everyone in boxes. We are being numbed and programmed. She also wrote ‘What Have They Done To The Rain’ which was a hit for the Searchers and one of the first environmental protests I can remember hearing.
She looks like a dowdy old granny. She sings folk songs. But appearances are deceptive. She was a political activist and a straight speaking lady who despised what people were doing to the world with their greed and selfishness.
Love is something, if you give it away, you end up having more.
Love is great. I love love.
God Bless the grass That grows through the crack They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back The concrete gets tired of what it has to do It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows through. God bless the grass
One day all of our crap will be covered in grass again and the animals will be back in numbers too. Nature will fill the gaps we have punched in the ecosystem and the world will thrive again.
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
We are all pressured into conformity. Resist! Think differently!
I’m so respectable I’m getting scared … I must be doing something wrong.
Me too!
Celebrate my death for the good times I’ve had, For the work that I’ve done and the friends that I’ve made. Celebrate my death, of whom it could be said, “She was a working class woman, and a red.”
Right on!!
Just a little rain falling all around The grass lifts its head to the heavenly sound Just a little rain, just a little rain What have they done to the rain? Just a little boy standing in the rain The gentle rain that falls for years And the grass is gone and the boy disappears And the rain keeps falling like helpless tears And what have they done to the rain? Just a little breeze out of the sky The leaves nod their heads as the breeze blows by Just a little breeze with some smoke in its eye And what have they done to the rain?
One of the first environmental epics!
If you would like to purchase my books on Rock Music here’s a few:
In the UK:
In the USA –
Malvina Reynolds – Little Boxes – barbed observation couched in pretty music from an old lady.
Malvina Reynolds was a feisty old lady who wrote brilliant astute and perceptive songs. I love her.
Little Boxes was covered by Pete Seeger and on the face of it is a nice little sing-a-long which could feature on the radio without a mention. Look at it a bit deeper and you see it is a revolutionary indictment of Western Civilisation.
We all get put in boxes, live our little lives doing as we are instructed and then get put in boxes. We live in boxes, work in boxes and die in boxes.
Well I’m all for kicking the sides of my little box in. I want out!!!
Little Boxes
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there’s doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same,
There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Malvina Reynolds – Opher’s World pays tribute to a genius.
Malvina is another of those quaint Folk singers who produce the songs that we all take for granted. She penned Little Boxes. On the face of it a simple little ditty but when you think about the content it has real barbs. Pete Seeger made it famous.
Malvina was a feisty little old lady who stood for fairness and equality. I can’t imagine her ever being young but she must have been quite a force to reckon with. She stood up to the might of the Klu Klux Klan. She wrote songs against the inequality of the capitalist system.
On the surface she was a quaint, soft-spoken, polite old lady. Underneath that façade she was a passionate social revolutionary.