Rarely has the physical appearance of a singer so fundamentally contrasted with the message and the spirit of their music as did Pete Seeger’s. He looked harmless, he looked frail even in his youth, he looked bland and non-offensive, he looked like generic folk singers that we think of from the early 60’s. The extremely white, almost academic, “navel gazing,” hokey, image of a kindergarten teacher with a guitar.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com
In actuality Pete Seeger was Che Guevera, Michael Collins, Sitting Bull, and Karl Marx set to American folk music and writ large. His thin voice only rarely hinted at the full measure of the revolution so many of the songs he sung described. He was a leader of people, and the best musical demonstration of what righteous and noble leadership looks like. His best recordings are some of my favorite recordings of all time.
For me though he could rarely tap into his most vital and potent current alone in the studio, his most inspiring and moving recordings are from live performances. A crowd singing along has never felt so beautiful and world changing as it did on Pete Seeger’s live records. It was the voice of what’s noble and good in the world, brought to life by Pete as it’s progenitor and director. It was the sound of revolution kindled in the purest strains of the folk tradition. Popular singers are cowards now; Pete was not afraid.
[ new page = Oh Freedom ]
10) Oh Freedom
A traditional folk song, sung in 1963 at Carnegie Hall in New York and released on his We Shall Overcome album that same year. The lyrics of old folk songs have more heart than the overwhelming majority of everything that’s come after them. “And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave.” The poetry and beauty and fire eyed defiance can be overlooked in those lines if you don’t stop to listen and repeat them over slowly. You will have to bury me before you make me a slave again. It’s revolution, it’s the dropping of chains, it’s the American experiment, it’s the “I will die on my feet” clarion call. In the early 60’s, in the Civil Rights era, it was a statement that could put you in physical danger in the United States.
[ new page = If You Miss Me At the Back of the Bus ]
9) If You Miss Me At the Back of the Bus
Another traditional Civil Rights anthem. This song is not peace and love, it’s not bland hippy platitudes. This is concrete change, these are concrete things we want, this is what we want changed. This is the times they are a changin’ but with less space to get lost in the words. If you miss me in the cotton fields, come on over to the court house, I’ll be voting right there. And that should scare you Bull Connors, and that should scare all the racists who heard it.
[ new page = The Water is Wide ]
8) The Water Is Wide
An ancient English folk song as beautiful as any hymn or psalm ever chanted or sung. The melody of this song is achingly pretty. The voices together, and Pete directing them, is a capsule of the pure magic and poetry in folk music. Folk songs are like polished pearls. To last that long down through time all the rough spots get sanded off until there’s only the purest, most moving gem remaining.
[ new page = Down by the Riverside ]
7) Down by the Riverside
Another classic traditional song, this one a duet with the great Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. It has that beautiful, old time vernacular phrase “I ain’t gonna study war no more” that has such a poetic flow and sweep to it. This song is brimming with beautiful images, central among them is that mythic Edenesque “riverside” the singer promises to lay down their sword and shield down by. Pete had a way of singing high above the song, directing it, cueing what the lyrics would be so you could sing along, but not in a pedantic way. Here he’s almost like a soul singer singing above his background group, there was certainly a similar soul fire in Pete when he would jump out and up like that.
[ new page = Wimoweh ]
6) Wimoweh
Another track with Pete full of soul, if there was any doubt to his being simply just a pure white, stiff and up tight singer then this track should speak in his defense. Pete looses himself so deeply in the music here that he’s almost speaking in tongues. This song would eventually be known as the Lion Sleeps Tonight, most famously known in a version by recorded by the doo wop group the Tokens in 1961. Pete and his folk group the Weavers sang this song in the 1950’s though and were the first group to popularize it.
[ new page = Amazing Grace ]
5) Amazing Grace
“I once was lost but now I’m found.” So much power and magic in those words. Besides the normal verse everyone knows Pete sings all the other verses in this song, the verses that you never hear. “Shall I be wafted to the sky on flowery beds of ease.” Pete’s voice doing the Wimoweh staking out in front of the pack thing here, the chorus of voices around him like the sonic expression of humanity unbeatable and undiminished.
[ new page = How Can I Keep From Singing ]
4) How Can I Keep From Singing
From an album that Pete made jointly with Arlo Guthrie, the son of Woody Guthrie, Pete’s fellow musician and contemporary during the 1940’s. This song’s music dates from the late 1800’s but it’s unclear who wrote the words, with the exception of one verse which was contributed to it in the 1950‘s. It’s a beautifully poetic and pure song, it’s melody rising and dipping like a river, it’s lyrics written in a biblical style with the cadence of an ancient psalm.
[ new page = L’ Internationale ]
3) L’ Internationale
This is a famous liberal anthem written in the late 1880’s. Pete sings this song first in the original French it was written in and then translates it into English after every verse. It’s just about as radical a left wing song as has ever been written. You can hear the echoes of the French revolution in it, although it was written almost a century afterwards. The spirit of justice here is not a peaceful justice, and as described as marching on and getting closer it should strike fear into the hearts of all who would oppose it. Certainly more Malcolm X than Martin Luther King, and a grave warning to be afraid of those who you have oppressed.
[ new page = This Land Is Your Land ]
2) This Land Is Your Land
Woody Guthrie wrote this, his most famous song, in 1940. He wrote a number of versions of it, with different lyrics and different verses, some less well known than others. Pete knew Woody very well and was well conversant in all of the different iterations of this song. For Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 Pete sang this on stage with Bruce Springsteen and a choir of singers behind him. Woody Guthrie was a communist, as was Pete. In the heart of America’s capitol, on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, in front of the President of the United States Pete chose to sing the lines that were Woody’s most radical indictment of the entire system of capitalism itself. “A great high wall there, tried to stop me. A great big sign there said private property. But on the other side it didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me”
[ new page = Bring ‘Em Home ]
1) Bring ‘Em Home
Pete wrote this most beautiful of protest songs himself. Bruce Springsteen did a cover of this song around the time of his Seeger Sessions album in 2006. He changed a lot of the lyrics though, Bruce sings that bringing the troops back from overseas will “make the politicians sad” while Pete sings it will “make the generals sad.” This song has one of the best protest song choruses ever written, “bring ‘em home, bring ‘em home”, easy enough to be sung by everyone and powerful enough to mean something.
Zak Smith is an alternative/Americana rock singer songwriter from New Jersey. His latest release is the Precambrian Age. Find out more about him and listen to some of his music on his website ZakSmithBand.com.
Photo by Josef SCHWARZ (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons
