FolkWorks<\/a> March-April 2017<\/p>\nMildred: What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?<\/em>
\nJohnny: Whaddya got?<\/em>
\n~ Marlon Brando in \u201cThe Wild One\u201d, 1953<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0Marlon Brando<\/strong>\u2019s reply to Mildred\u2019s question suits Malvina Reynolds<\/strong> to a T: but unlike Johnny in The Wild One<\/em>, Singer-songwriter Malvina Reynolds (August 23, 1900\u2014March 17, 1978) was a learned rebel. She got her Ph.D. the old-fashioned way\u2014she earned it, in the UC Berkeley English Department in 1938. She never used it to teach, however, because her first act of rebellion was to refuse to sign the California loyalty oath when she was accepted for a teaching position at Berkeley. Faced with Robert Frost<\/strong>\u2019s life-changing choice at the fork in the road she took the one less travelled by\u2014\u201cof whom it could be said: She was an artist, and a red<\/em>.\u201d (MR)<\/p>\nHer rebellious songs reflect not only a thoughtful but an educated mind, one that transformed her knowledge into the art of song. It is nowhere on better display than in her trenchant anti-propaganda song No Hole in My Head<\/em>. She opens with
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