We dreamed we saw Earl Robinson last...

We dreamed we saw Earl Robinson last night.

The balladeer of the working folk, who was killed in a car accident near his native Seattle earlier this year, was standing in our living room, as big as life, and we had to tell him that for people who wanted to be free, the news still wasn’t good in the world.

Tanks were rolling again in the streets of a city.

“When’s it going to get better, Earl?” we asked.

Robinson was looking pretty good for a man who wasn’t drawing breath anymore. He was taking a hard line with us, though, choosing to stay silent.

Then he disappeared, and with him, the dream.

The next morning we started to sing “Joe Hill,” a song about a martyred labor organizer written by Robinson from a poem by Alfred Hayes, but suddenly we remembered Joan Baez’s exquisite, plaintive rendition at the Woodstock festival and stopped. Who could even approach that?

In “The House I Live In,” written together with Lewis Allan, Robinson celebrated an America rich with ethnic diversity. His “Hurry Sundown” was made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary. Likewise “Black and White,” by Three Dog Night.

But it was “Joe Hill” that placed Robinson alongside the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night

Alive as you or me

But, Joe, I said, you’re 10 years dead

I never died, said he . . .

How sad, we thought. One of the few bright spots that we could think of was the memorial tribute planned in honor of Robinson, being held Sunday at 1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 2936 W. 8th St., Los Angeles.

And when we heard that in a troubled corner of the world, the tanks and oppression were in retreat, we could almost hear Earl Hawley Robinson whispering in reply:

“I guess things just got better.”