`Ballad of John Garfield'

(chorus)
They crushed John Garfield because he wouldn’t inform
They drove him from the screen and he lost his livelihood.

(verses)
A funeral was held on the Upper West Side
Ten thousand people mourned and cried
An actor was gone at the age of 39
John Garfield of The Group Theatre had died.

He was born in 1913 on the Lower East Side
In a factory, his father worked all day
Paychecks were small and the tenement halls
Were filled with many worried souls. (chorus)

His mother passed away when he was just a child
And up to the Bronx, his father moved
He played hooky too much and got expelled from some schools
And he always seemed in a troubled mood.

But then he found a friend in the middle of the rules
A man named Angelo Patri
And Patri helped him out and he boxed and did act
And he hitchhiked across the country. (chorus)

And then the Thirties came and jobs were hard to find
And around The Group Theatre he hung
They taught him there his craft and he learnt some politics
And from their stage, he went to Hollywood.

His screen intensity caused him to steal the scenes
And he soon achieved great popularity
Among his movies: “They Made Me A Criminal”,
“Gentleman’s Agreement” and “Body and Soul.” (chorus)

Off-screen, he was restless and felt chained by his wife
And his family still left him unfulfilled
His rise up from the depths to fame and great success
Made some people nickname him “Prince Bart.”

His friends were on the Left who worked for peace and justice
So when the Red Scare came, they got repressed
And John had signed too much to protest Wall Street’s lust
And so his name got smeared by the blacklist. (chorus)

Although he was still young, his last eighteen months
They would not let him even make one film
To stifle all dissent, John Garfield, Wall Street crushed
For he symbolized resistance to their will. (chorus)

To listen to the Ballad of John Garfield, you can go to following music site link:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+A.+Feldman/Biographical+Folk+Songs/Ballad+of+John+Garfield

The Ballad of John Garfield biographical protest folk song was written deep in the heart of Brooklyn during the early 1980s, after I read a biography of John Garfield.

To listen to some other biographical protest folk songs, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society" site at the following link:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

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