I got word today that Pete Seeger is no
longer with us. He was 94.
The sad thing isn't that he died. He had a life that was far longer and richer than most of us have any right to expect, and he was active right up to the end. The sad thing is that he will never get the Nobel Peace Prize that he richly deserved, for showing us how music can bind the peoples of the world together, and demonstrating how humanity's common traits overshadow our differences.
After his blacklisting in the fifties and sixties cut him off from earning a living in the United States, he traveled around the world, sharing the richness of American song and harvesting the richness of the songs of other cultures and bringing them to us. In particular, he brought home a song written by a Russian child, and a marching tune of the Red Chinese army, and included them in his concerts. For him, there were no important national boundaries. He was not the first musician to cast himself as a good-will ambassador, but he was arguably one of the most effective ones, and the one most willing to cross hard political boundaries. Who else could bring to a concert audience the feeling that people all over the world were just like them in most respects, loving their children and worrying about tomorrow and ready to repay goodwill with goodwill?
Another thing about his concerts come to me. He wanted people of all ages to come to them, from toddlers to grandparents, and he made sure that there were children's songs to round out his repertoire. That was a part of his vision of music as a unifying force. “Young and old” was just another meaningless distinction to be erased, like “black and white” or “American or Russian” or “male and female.”
He changed American popular music in more ways than people realized. He was responsible for the resurgence of the twelve-string guitar after World War II, he pretty much invented the long-necked banjo, he changed one word of the Baptist hymn "We Will Overcome" to "We Shall Overcome" and converted it from a hymn to an anthem, he wrote or co-wrote "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "If I Had A Hammer," and "Turn, Turn, Turn" ... and the list goes on.
I wonder if his kind will ever come again. His champions, who include Arlo Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen, are themselves getting older and less relevant to the musical community. Are there young people now willing to take up the torch, and use music and love as a way of bringing people together, fighting social ills, and celebrating our common humanity? I won't say that we need them more than ever, because we have always needed them and we will always need them. But when we see these young talents coming forth again, it will be like seeing the first flowers after a long winter. And it wouldn't be soon enough for me.
Pete was intensely political, but he wasn't dogmatic, and wished for dialogue between people who disagreed with each other. Asked if he read the Communist Daily Worker, he said, "Yes, I do. And I also read the Wall Street Journal. And what I'd really like to do is get the writers of both newspapers together in the same room." At the end of his life, he had plenty of adversaries, but no enemies. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, that.
The sad thing isn't that he died. He had a life that was far longer and richer than most of us have any right to expect, and he was active right up to the end. The sad thing is that he will never get the Nobel Peace Prize that he richly deserved, for showing us how music can bind the peoples of the world together, and demonstrating how humanity's common traits overshadow our differences.
After his blacklisting in the fifties and sixties cut him off from earning a living in the United States, he traveled around the world, sharing the richness of American song and harvesting the richness of the songs of other cultures and bringing them to us. In particular, he brought home a song written by a Russian child, and a marching tune of the Red Chinese army, and included them in his concerts. For him, there were no important national boundaries. He was not the first musician to cast himself as a good-will ambassador, but he was arguably one of the most effective ones, and the one most willing to cross hard political boundaries. Who else could bring to a concert audience the feeling that people all over the world were just like them in most respects, loving their children and worrying about tomorrow and ready to repay goodwill with goodwill?
Another thing about his concerts come to me. He wanted people of all ages to come to them, from toddlers to grandparents, and he made sure that there were children's songs to round out his repertoire. That was a part of his vision of music as a unifying force. “Young and old” was just another meaningless distinction to be erased, like “black and white” or “American or Russian” or “male and female.”
He changed American popular music in more ways than people realized. He was responsible for the resurgence of the twelve-string guitar after World War II, he pretty much invented the long-necked banjo, he changed one word of the Baptist hymn "We Will Overcome" to "We Shall Overcome" and converted it from a hymn to an anthem, he wrote or co-wrote "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "If I Had A Hammer," and "Turn, Turn, Turn" ... and the list goes on.
I wonder if his kind will ever come again. His champions, who include Arlo Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen, are themselves getting older and less relevant to the musical community. Are there young people now willing to take up the torch, and use music and love as a way of bringing people together, fighting social ills, and celebrating our common humanity? I won't say that we need them more than ever, because we have always needed them and we will always need them. But when we see these young talents coming forth again, it will be like seeing the first flowers after a long winter. And it wouldn't be soon enough for me.
Pete was intensely political, but he wasn't dogmatic, and wished for dialogue between people who disagreed with each other. Asked if he read the Communist Daily Worker, he said, "Yes, I do. And I also read the Wall Street Journal. And what I'd really like to do is get the writers of both newspapers together in the same room." At the end of his life, he had plenty of adversaries, but no enemies. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, that.
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