The reality of the Long Tail theory, the anachronism of display space in the age of the Internet and the fact that esoteric music can be worthwhile for a company to stock, have led to a reissuing renaissance. If my English major’s notion of arithmetic has led me to the belief that if a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, then two birds in the hand — or a double album re-release — must equal something special.

While that logic might not always stand, it does in the case of Ramblin’ Boy / Ain’t That News!, the 2001 British reissue of the first two albums Tom Paxton released on Elektra records.

This hefty album, all twenty-nine tracks of it, is still lively despite its newfound bulk and the passage of time. The fact that Ramblin’ Boy and Ain’t That News! were originally released within a year of each other probably helps the cohesion of the reissue. However, it is also greatly aided by the themes that run through Paxton’s work.

One theme in Paxton’s work is the portrait of the wandering man. Sometimes this aimlessness is theme enough, but other times it is adorned by its companion, the “fare thee well” love song. However, despite his roaming, the songs usually tell of women leaving him. 

“It’s a lesson too late for the learnin’ / Made of sand, made of sand,” Paxton sings, bemoaning his hastily given affection in “The Last Thing on My Mind.”

There are also a number of songs that reference the hobo life. When Paxton sings, “I ride the rods, trusting in God / And huggin’ my bottle of wine,” it is unclear if he’s depicting a lifestyle more than or as itinerant as his own, but it’s ultimately unimportant.

Ramblin’ Boy / Ain’t That News also contains a number of the children’s songs. Some of these songs are entirely lighthearted such as “Goin’ to the Zoo,” and are similar to the works of Burl Ives and Tom Glazer. 

Clearly, Paxton has frequent play-dates with his inner child and it is not surprising that he has authored a number of children’s books. Other songs such as “What Did You Learn In School Today?” are very much aimed at children with a darker truth, in this case the need for a grain of salt with your school lesson.

Despite his wistful and boyish turns, Tom Paxton truly shines in his political songs.  Heavily influenced by his military service and saturated with keen irony, songs like “The Willing Conscript” and “Buy a Gun for Your Son” condemn the motives and existence of war. 

Other songs catalogue distrust of and abuses by authority figures, such as “High Sheriff of Hazard” and “Daily News!” A real standout among great tracks, “Daily News!” addresses some specific fiascoes from Paxton’s day as well as issues that are still relevant:

“Seems like the whole damn world’s gone wrong / Saint Joe McCarthy is dead and gone / How do I know? I read it in the Daily News / Don’t try to make me change my mind with facts / To hell with the graduated income tax / How do I know? I read it in the Daily News.”

This timeliness, in the end, is the real key to Paxton’s endurance. Beyond the assortment of clever finger picking, haunting a capella, goofy scratching on the tautest of strings or nods to folk greats who preceded him like Cisco Houston and Woody Guthrie, is the fact that Paxton can adeptly take the pulse of his time. 

He modestly calls songs such as “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation,” possibly one of his most famous works, “short shelf-life songs” because they deal with events from a brief, specific period of time. 

He is still writing such songs, and more recent topics he has touched are as varied as Jerry Falwell’s take on Teletubbies, the Florida election, and September 11th. 

Pete Seeger probably puts forward the highest praise as well as indication of a legacy in an anecdote: “In a small village near Calcutta, in 1998, a villager who could not speak English sang me ‘What Did You Learn In School Today?’ in Bengali! Tom Paxton’s songs are reaching around the world more than he, or any of us could have realized.”