John Gorka Home videos
41th homemade video (Januari 10, 2020)

"Oh Abraham"
On January 10, 2021 John wrote: Home Video #41 and this week’s One Song Concert is Oh Abraham* which first appeared on my 2001 CD The Company You Keep.
I hope you like it!

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John Gorka published "Oh Abraham" four days after this...


Thousands of Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol. Members of Congress hid under desks, stripped their identification pins from their lapels to avoid being attacked and escaped into secret passageways. Rioters ransacked the office of the House speaker. Flag-waving protesters smashed windows and assaulted police inside the nation’s iconic symbol of democracy.

The process of affirming the next president was halted by mob violence.

Time will decide whether Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol was a riot, an insurrection, a last gasp of a renegade president or an early skirmish in a civil war organized on far-right social media, but it was already clear that Jan. 6, 2021, would go down in history as one of America’s ugliest days.

The other 'one song concerts':

- Click here for Red River Valley (April 5, 2020)
- Click here for Better times Will Come (April 12, 2020)
- Click here for Polly Wally (April 19, 2020)
- Click here for Soap Opera (April 26, 2020)
- Click here for Maya May I, (May 1, 2020)
- Click here for My Creole Belle (May 10, 2020)
- Click here for Careless Love (May 17, 2020)
- Click here for You Can Run (May 24, 2020)
- Muting the Sea (May 31,2020)
- Click here for Ignorance and Privilege (June 7, 2020)
- Click here for The Mercy of the Wheels. (June 14, 2020)
- If I Could Forget To Breathe (June 21, 2020)
- Let them in (June 28, 2020)
- Unblind The Referee (July 5, 2020)
- The Dutchman (July 12, 2020)
- Morningside (July 19, 2020)
- Cowboy Song (July 26, 2020)
- That's How Legends Are Made (August 2, 2020)
- If Not Now (August 9, 2020)
- Arroyo Seco (August 16, 2020)
- Shenandoah (August 23, 2020)
- Outside (August 30, 2020)
- Outnumbered (September 6, 2020)
- Brown shirts (September 13, 2020)
- Jack’s Crows (September 20, 2020)
- Where No Monument Stands (September 27, 2020)
- Blue Chalk (October 4, 2020)
- Zuly (October 11, 2020)
- The Sentinel (October 18, 2020)
- Where The Bottles Break (October 25 2020)
- If I Could (November 1, 2020)
- Particle & Wave (November 8, 2020)
- True in Time (November 15, 2020)
- Edgar The Party Man ( November 22, 2020)
- The Water is Wide (November 29, 2020)
- The Streets of Laredo (December 6, 2020)
- Spanish is the Loving Tongue (December 13, 2020)
- Christmas Bells (December 20, 2020)
- Riverside (December 27. 2020) Recorded earlier
- Auld Lang Syne (January 3, 2021)

Click here to go to the John Gorka "Home videos homepage"

Scenes of violence at US Capitol shock world. Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.

'Oh Abraham' (2021) Lyrics
*new lyrics

I see a penny and I pick it up
If not the money
I could use the luck
And if it's face down
I turn it over Head for Wood Avenue
Between Inman and New Dover
Back in my home town

Gas is cheaper where I'm from
But the driving's not so good
People go and stay where they should not
And they don't do it like I would

Work is not the same as before
More soft wear hands in the hardware store

Oh Abraham look at all the money now
Oh Abraham good night It's your party but
I'll cry if I want to I wouldn't care how much they have
If they would only do what's right, not far right

I was born by a Kerouac stream
Under Eisenhower skies
They saw freedom as a big idea
Now it was right before my eyes

They said Jack helped to build the Pentagon
And Ike built this interstate that we are off and on

Oh Abraham was it all about the money then
Oh Abraham good night
It's your party but I'll cry if I want to
All powered up and charmed with might
So we are right, we're always right, right

We're right, they're wrong
Let them get their own song (2X)
I see a penny and I pick it up
99 more and I have a buck
Abe you were born in old Kentuck'
But we still miss you here

The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep is the eighth studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. It was released on March 13, 2001, by Red House Records.

The album debuted at number two on the Folk Music Radio Airplay Chart for March 2001 and was ranked sixth on the year-end chart for 2001.

The tracks receiving the most airplay were "What Was That", "Oh Abraham", "Let Them In", and "People My Age". Consistent with previous albums, many of Gorka's musician friends join him on various tracks.

His guests include such talents as Ani DiFranco, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucy Kaplansky, Rich Dworsky, Patty Larkin, John Jennings, Dean Magraw, and Peter Ostroushko.