Beth Lomax Hawes–Alas, She’ll Never Return

Beth Lomax Hawes, folklorist, member of the great Lomax family of musical anthropologists, member of the Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, among others, and most memorably, co-author of amusing song “M.T.A.”, died November 27 at the age of 88. In 1949, borrowing the tunes from two old folk songs, “The Ship That Never Returned” and “Wreck of the Old 97,” Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner wrote the song to back the mayoral campaign of the Progressive Party candidate, Walter A. O’Brien Jr. A decade later, The Kingston Trio had a major hit with the merry, banjo-driven song, although to avoid charges that they were “glorifying a communist” (that would be Walter), they fictionalized the name of the candidate to George O’Brien–an early example turning leftism into a viable commercial brand. A couple of years ago, Boston named its commuter transit card The Charlie Card. Hawes received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton in 1993. Thanks, Beth, for your droll, amusing contribution to pop culture.