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I am ashamed to say that I have been a die hard P Head for 15 years now, and I don't know anything about the HWTP song. While I have always loved the song, and know the words, I never "really listened" to it.

For some reason, while on the car yesterday, it was playing and I found myself paying attention to the fact there is a story in there somewhere.

For all who know the meaning of the song, can you please tell me about it?? ie. Who is "HE" in He went to Paris, and what is his storey.

Thanks

I heard... according to an article in the Washington Post the story came partly from a friend of Jimmy's back in the day who was a Chicago nightclub janitor/wino who would sing songs and tell stories

a quote from the book that comes with "Boats Bars BEaches Ballads"
" Chicago is where I truly cut my teeth as a performer, working as the opening act at the Quiet Knight. I opened for a variety of people from Neil Sadaka to Bob Marley, and when I got frustrated with the crowds, the old one-armed clean-up man with the big German Shepherd always consoled me. It took me a few days of asking to find out that Eddie was more than a janitor. He was a gifted painter and a wonderful pianist. He would stay up after the club closed, and he would sing me songs from the Spanish Civil War where he had fought as a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against the Fascists. Eddie Balchowsky was indeed an inspiration. He was larger than life, and as Mark Twain said, "he'd gone out into the terrirtory". This song is a tribute to his spirirt."
JB

Its nice to see another Robert Earl Keen fan in the forum.

i found this online-


Eddie Balchowsky “. . . is a man who risked his life and lost his right arm in the noble fight against fascism” – Sgt. Stu McCarrell, ALB
Friends of the ALB held an Eddie Balchowsky Gravestone Kick-Off Event in the fall of 2000 to raise $5,000 for a proper tombstone for the former ALB member who died December 1989, and was buried without a tombstone in Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, IL.
Balchowsky, who had dreams of becoming a concert pianist, dashed by an enemy bullet in his inaugural battle as a soldier for the ALB. Before he lost his hand in battle, Eddie accompanied Paul Robeson as he entertained the men in Spain in 1937. Balchowsky had joined the international brigade largely to fight the anti-Semitic Franco insurgents. He himself noted, “I wasn’t that much into politics.” The anti-Semitic rhetoric touched a raw nerve in Balchowsky, whose family was the only Jewish family in suburban Frankfort, IL. The family was ostracized for flying an American flag outside their grocery store during WWI and kids taunted Eddie with racial slurs while walking to school. “It seemed like a perfectly natural thing. I knew what oppression was, I had it all my life when I was a kid. I didn’t need politics, they were oppressing the Spanish people and I knew what that meant. So I wanted to go and help.” Eddie once told a friend, “In Spain, I finally found a way to fight back.”

Thanks for the post!!! I knew the general story behind the song;but I learned a little more about one of my favorite songs.

luckyg71 wrote:Its nice to see another Robert Earl Keen fan in the forum.

Ive been a REK fan for years, and havent seen a fan on here until now...