As autumn arrives, the theme for FolkWorks this month is change.  The changes we see all around us come every year, so I’m thinking of the actual weather change this time, and how it’s reflected in a song I’ve recently learned.

This past year I’ve been performing the song “Rattle My Cage Little Birdie” from composer Chas Justus.  I was inspired by a great recording of the tune on Linda Rondstadt’s  final studio album from 2006 “Adieu False Heart.”  In it, the protagonist sings of being trapped in a cage and expresses passionately the urge for the “little birdie” to visit her and sing of happy times.  In the telling, the bird is the “only one” to understand that the singer is incapable of experiencing joy in this life.  All she wants to do is fly away, just like the bird.

Although the season of autumn is typically one that brings us all back home after travels and adventures abroad in the world, this is a lament about wanting escape, no matter the season.  At least in the autumn’s (and this song’s) sense of ennui, we can feel the melancholy of the dying all around us in a year that is coming to an end.

The change we see and feel is from the joy of summer to the poignancy of autumn and all the depth that it brings and offers us:  time for reflection and gathering, and, hopefully, a coming change for the better.

Rattle My Cage Little Birdie
By Chas Justus

Won’t you rattle my cage little birdie?                                                                               
Won’t you come to me and sing your happy song?
Make me feel I’m not trapped forever,
Make these winter days seem not so long.

Won’t you rattle my cage little birdie?
Won’t you come to my window if you can?
You’re the only one seems could ever free me,
You’re the only one that seems to understand.

That nothing in this world seems to please me,
No reason to even ask me why.
And if you see me looking like I’m dreaming,
I’m dreaming that I’m strong enough to fly.

All the leaves on the trees they are falling,
I can feel the season growing cold.
Outside another day is calling,
Outside another day unfolds.

Still nothing in this world seems to please me,
No reason to even ask me why.
And if you see me looking like I’m dreaming,
I’m dreaming that I’m strong enough to fly.

Won’t you rattle my cage little birdie?                                                                               
Won’t you come to me and sing your happy song?
Make me feel I’m not trapped forever,
Make these winter days seem not so long.

As always, thanks for reading!

Love and Blessings,
Susie
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Award-winning recording artist, Broadway singer, journalist, educator and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called “one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today” by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folk Scene.  LA Weekly voted her ensemble Best New Folk in their Best of LA Weekly for 2019, calling Susie “an incomparable vocalist.”  “A flat out superb vocalist… Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection.”  As an educator, Susie has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Cal State Northridge on “Balladry to Bluegrass,” illuminating the historical path of ancient folk forms in the United Kingdom to the United States via immigration into the mountains of Appalachia.  Susie has taught workshops since 2018 at California music camps RiverTunes and Vocáli Voice Camp.  She is a current specialist in performance and historian on the work of American folk music icon, Jean Ritchie.  Susie now offers private voice coaching online via the Zoom platform.   www.susieglaze.com