This website and most of the work I'm doing is non-commercial, non-monetized, and freely shareable. Additionally, you don't have to sign up, leave an e-mail address or anything else to access downloads.

HOWEVER -- It would be GREAT if you considered subscribing to the Ridge Kennedy Substack. That's where most of this work appears first. 

Click here to see some sample posts. It's free. It would be a privilege to share my work with you, and have you tell me what you think about it. 

There are no strangers here; only friends we haven't met yet.

-- A Modern Folk Aphorism
frequently incorrectly attributed
to William Butler Yeats

I don't have music for this song. Hey, it's four chords. Even I could figure it out from hearing it a couple of times.

Here's the Link to the Words. Feel free to make up verses of your own.

Click here to open downloadable PDF of music and lyrics.

Click here for "demo recording" of Good Trouble.

The Hills of Athenry by Pete St. John, an Irish folk song legend. Pete’s lyrics told about a man accused of stealing corn during an Irish famine. He’s caught and sentenced to deportation.

I’ve written new lyrics to make it a 21st-century song about a modern deportation with the title El Deportado.

This version is not what musicians would call a contrafactum — a new song written to an old melody (see Star Spangled Banner, My Country Tis of Thee, etc.). Nor do I think it is a parody. Rather, I think it’s a re-imagining of a sort, and done with full credit to the original author.

Here is a link to lyrics and music in a .pdf.