Program Notes for Dreaming Iowa
Dreaming Iowa is a year-long project exploring Iowa’s inspiring progressive and multicultural past and hopes for the future. We are merely dipping our toes in several of the many ponds and rivers of song that have made up Iowa’s history and present. Here is some background information on the songs we’re singing at our November 9, 2025 concert at the Englert Theatre.
The Power and The Glory
Phil Ochs’s mid-1960s ode to the natural wonders and inspirational ideals of America rings as true today as it did when he wrote it. When the political landscape gets you down, it’s helpful to turn to the natural landscape and to remember what’s good about our country and our state to remind yourself that those good things are worth fighting for. We set the scene for Dreaming Iowa with this song by reminding everyone of some of the brightest moments from Iowa’s history.
Ancient Light
Folk supergroup I’m with Her played at the Englert in June of 2025, and we’ve really enjoyed learning their song “Ancient Light” this fall. The song’s narrator is taking a journey to connect with the past, which is part of what Dreaming Iowa is about. “Ancient Light” won Song of the Year for 2025 from the Americana Music Association.
Archaeology of You/Thoughts of Childhood
Research for Dreaming Iowa began in 2019, and this song comes from a poem that FFMer Susan Stamnes found that year in the Special Collections archive at the University of Iowa. Edwin Ford Piper (1871–1939) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ford_Piper) was a folklorist and poet who taught at the University of Iowa starting in 1905, and “Thoughts of Childhood” is a lyric (with no musical notation) that Susan found in one the collections he made of folk songs from Iowa and the Midwest. Susan took this haunting poem, in which the poet dwells in sweet childhood memories, and added a frame from the perspective of the modern researcher trying to imagine the life of past Iowans.
Unser Quartett!
This rousing song celebrates the tradition of the German Männerchor, men’s choruses who would gather to sing (and drink) and socialize. Jean found the score for this song in the archive of the German American Heritage Center and Museum (https://gahc.org) in Davenport, where the story of German immigration to the Quad Cities in the second half of the nineteenth century is presented in rich detail. With translation help from Sebastian Sauder and versification by Alma Drake, we created an English-language version of the song that we could learn and sing (with some help from the altos covering the high tenor part!).
Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground
The FFM kids present this traditional song under the leadership of Nicole Upchurch, based on the version by Doc Watson. As part of our study of older musical traditions this fall, the kids built their own instruments with Nicole and Pappy Klocke, some of which will be featured in their performance.
John Henry
This traditional song celebrates the Black freedman and folk hero who beat the steam drill in a head-to-head contest. In our era, the song’s themes of the dignity of work in the face of automation resonate in new ways. We present this song as a tribute to the Black community that has been part of Iowa’s population since the earliest incursion of settlers.
Polly Ann’s Hammer
This song was released in 2019 by Our Native Daughters, a folk supergroup of Black female banjo players: Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell. The song takes up the verse of “John Henry” that mentions his wife, Polly Ann, and imagines her story. It’s an ode to the strength of Black women. You can watch the songwriters talking about creating this song in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0_zoaPdUmI .
Cucurrucucú paloma
We’re excited to welcome guest artist Eugenio Solis to the stage! Eugenio was born in Sombrerete in the state of Zacatecas, in Mexico, and moved to West Liberty in the 1990s. When he was a teenager, he started teaching himself to play guitar so that he could play Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. As he moved through his musical life, he has performed many different styles of music: he works as a church musician and has played in bands playing country music, rock music, and many types of Mexican folk music. In 1996, Eugenio was one of the featured artists for the Smithsonian’s Iowa Sesquicentennial project, representing Iowa at a celebration in Washington, DC and recording two traditional Mexican folk songs for the project. Cucurrucucú Paloma is a beautiful and beloved song in which the singer mourns a loved one who has died and hears their mourning echoed in the song of a dove.
Unsteady Youth
This song was released as part of the Englert’s 2012 “Iowa City Song Project” recording and has been an FFM favorite since we sang it at our first concert in 2013. The song celebrates that bittersweet part of Iowa City culture that is sustained by the students, and especially perhaps the artists and writers, who come to learn and create in this place but also take their leave.
Emma Big Bear
Songwriter and Folk Machinist Susan Stamnes started the lyric for this song after visiting Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast Iowa. The song celebrates the life and way of life of Emma Big Bear, who came from a long line of chiefs in the Winnebago Nation and lived in the area around Marquette and McGregor, Iowa. You can learn more about Big Bear’s story here:
https://www.emmabigbearfoundation.org .
Deportee
In 1948, a plane carrying migrant Mexican farm workers crashed in Los Gatos Canyon, California. When Woody Guthrie read the news report, he was rightfully indignant that while the crew who perished were named, the workers were not, but instead were simply lumped together as “deportees.” Woody’s song restores dignity to those workers, in the process critiquing an agricultural system that denigrates the people it relies on. Today we see continuing examples of the dehumanization of people who are working and trying to build a better life, and we align our voices with Woody’s in calling for a more humane approach.
You can listen to a recently released recording of Woody Guthrie singing “Deportee” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPtCU3mgs3I&t=2s.
It’s Time To
Svitlana Volkogon wrote this song about her experience of moving to Iowa from war-torn Ukraine in 2023 with her husband and two young kids. The song explores the difficulties of leaving the life you have created and also the hopefulness of starting again in a new place. Since Svitlana wrote the song, her family has been caught up in U.S. politics, since in January 2025 the U.S. government suspended the humanitarian parole program that brought them to Iowa. We are grateful to Svitlana for sharing her song with the Family Folk Machine, and we will heed the reminder that national policies have real consequences for people’s lives. You can read about the Volkogons’ story here: https://www.kcrg.com/2025/07/31/i9-ukrainian-family-fights-stay-iowa-humanitarian-parole-expires/ .
Czech songs
David Muhlena, librarian at the National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids, connected us with a collection of traditional Czech songs that were recorded on wax cylinders in the first decade of the 1900s. The recordings were passed down through a Czech-descended family that lived in Cedar Rapids, and the museum collaborated with the Rita Benton Music Library at the University of Iowa to digitize the recordings and make them available on the UI’s library website. Translations of the song texts were provided by the National Museum in Prague, and we took these translations and versified them so the FFM could sing the songs in English. Many thanks to the dancers who enhanced the last song! You can read about the recordings here: https://novyfonograf.cz/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Jedlicka-arsc-2020-katie-buehner-filip-sir-.pdf and listen to the originals here: https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/node/73535 .
World to Their Door (The Bily Brothers)
Dave Moore is a local legend, and we’ve really enjoyed singing this song about the Bily Brothers as his backup choir. The Bilys were a Czech-descended family who lived on a farm near Spillville, Iowa, and the brothers carved amazingly intricate clocks in the winter months. The song especially celebrates the strength of the family, caring for the brother who had physical and mental disabilities, and their lack of interest when Henry Ford offered them one million dollars to buy one of their clocks. You can learn more about the Bily family and see images of their clocks (or plan a visit for next summer) here: https://www.bilyclocks.org/visit-us. You can learn more about Dave here: https://www.redhouserecords.com/artists/dave-moore/ or come catch Magic Dust, a tribute show to Dave at the Englert Theatre on Thursday, Dec. 11.
Iowa Waltz
When Greg Brown wrote the Iowa Waltz, it was a different time, with different resonances for this sweet song. We sing it as part of Dreaming Iowa, including some new bits we’ve audaciously added (sorry! folk process!), in a spirit of aspiration.
