[ Featuring Utah Phillips ]
(Holding on)
I was in Chicago several years ago
I was invited to play at a nightclub
(At a nightclub? Can you imagine that? Can you see me in a nightclub?)
It was the old Quiet Night up on Belmont Street, across from Cliff Raven's tattoo parlor
(Holding on)
Well, I went up to The Quiet Night at 3:00 in the afternoon, because I was scared
Fought my way past the guard dogs, got up there
And the janitor had taken the garbage out
He was in the big hall by himself
Sitting in the, just under the, just a nightlight up on the stage
An older man, he was sitting there playing the Moonlight Sonata, beautifully, quietly
I stood in the shadows, he didn't know I was there
A great shock of white hair standing back on his head
Lines on his face
I looked closely and saw that he was just playing with the one hand
The other was a stump off about here
(Holding on)
Well he began to pound the piano with the one good hand
And in a rumbling baritone voice started to sing Freiheit, freedom
The song of the Thälmann Brigade during the Spanish Civil War
The war that, if we had gotten involved in it, there might not have been a Second World War
He sang Los Cuatro Generales, The Jarama Valley, White Cliffs of Gandesa
Powerful music of the Spanish Civil War
Well, that was Eddie Balchowsky
Eddie Balchowsky had been a concert pianist, a brilliant pianist as a young man
But he went and joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and went to Spain
To fight against Franco and the fascists
Crossing the Ebro River he got his arm blown off
Well, they put him in the field hospital on morphine
Which turned him into a junkie for the next thirty years of his life
He haunted the alleys of Chicago, a mad poet, a derelict, a drug addict, an alcoholic
He began to put himself back together
Got the job at The Quiet Night
Got to practice the piano, Richard Harding was good about that.
And not just to learn the songs of the civil war
He learned Hayden's and Liszt's left-hand variations
He'd play Bach's Chaconne with one hand, it was beautiful
Hi daughter Rayna just sent me recordings, tapes that he'd made for her I'd never heard
Him playing the whole classical repertoire on the piano with one hand
Chopin, that was his favorite
Well he taught me powerful things about endurance, about holding on, about holding on
(About holding on)
I left Chicago
A week later I got a call, said Eddie Balchowsky had died
I sat down and I made him up a death song
A week later I got a call from Eddie
(Audience laughter)
First thing I asked him was, "Hey Ed, where you calling from?"
(Audience laughter)
Well, he said he was calling from Chicago
I said, "Hell, dead, or in Chicago, it's all the same to me, fella"
(Audience laughter)
And a week after that I was back at The Quiet Night
Sitting on a barstool with Eddie Balchowsky himself sitting across from me
Had us a chance to sing him his death song
He was amused
Well, it was just a while ago that Ed Balchowsky at the age of 74
Was found on the subway tracks in Chicago
They just had a museum show of his art and poetry and music and recollections
From old comrades all over the country
And then I sang his death song
(Holding on)
