I raptly listened to Sammy Walker's "Song for Patty" about 5 times in a row, blissfully ignorant of any larger world being hinted at and quite happy to just take in a somewhat mysterious love song by a folk artist who did happen to sound like Mister Bob Dylan. Then I opened up the liner notes to the Broadside boxset from whence the song had come only to discover that the Patty being sung about had Hearst as a last name. I was puzzled, for the Patty Hearst I'd heard tell of was kidnapped, stuck in a closet, beaten, brainwashed, and then caught on camera with a rather badass looking gun, working for the revolution. Walker's song comes across as a love story about a girl who turns her back on money and family to stay with her boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks. That's fertile ground for lefty folk music social portraiture, and within the genre Walker does pen some memorable lines -- "the wealthy strings of life were always pleasing" & "the avaricious scorpion is begging you to stay." That Stockholm Syndrome Patty would only 2 years later reveal during her trial that she hadn't actually gone ultra-leftist but instead been brainwashed by the SLA, doesn't for a moment diminish the power of Walker's song. Song for Patty - Sammy Walker [buy]
