Pete Seeger and Me: Some YouTubin and reminiscin

Dave Anians - February 6, 2014

The news of Pete Seeger’s death came through a random tumblr post I managed to catch right before going to sleep. Right away, so many different feelings came into my head in a way that may not happen again, from initial shock to sadness to happiness to inspiration. While I have only known of Pete and his work for about four years, the mark he has left on my psyche and soul is something to always hold close. Written are just a few different aspects of Pete that I find inspiring and contribute to the person I try to be (and hopefully never stop trying to be).

I first learned about Pete from my great friend Dave Green, who also makes wonderful folk tunes (http://davidgreen.bandcamp.com/). Here were these videos of a lone man with a super long banjo entertaining a massive crowd with stories and songs about a shared human experience of struggle, culture, and hope. This was while I was first learning about folk music and its awesome power. (Thanks Dave!)

---My favorite recording of Pete in the whole world is him retelling a story of a Civil Rights march that used song to be brave, funny, and beautiful in the face of terrifying conditions. Try listening to this without getting the chills---

For me, politics and music have almost always been intertwined. Coming from a punk background, the first bands I learned to love like The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers started the process that would later be the foundation of my political leanings. Looking back, it’s funny I didn’t get into folk music earlier (Joe Strummer’s old nickname was Woody. Come on!). In college, as I started to learn more about history and current world problems, the themes of many old punk and folk songs started to become more and more powerful to me. And then I had the world of folk punk thrust upon me by wonderful friends. And well, shit, I don’t know if Pete knew about folk punk, but I can imagine we could win him over pretty easily.

---Here’s Pete covering an old Malvina Reynolds song. You might know it as the theme song for that show Weeds. Bomb the Music Industry! has an excellent version of it as well. But for real, this is THE predecessor of anti-suburbia punk songs. We’re all singin’ about the same shit, just in different ways and in different times, my friend---

Also, a big theme in my music, which I have gotten from many of my inspirations (notably Evan Greer:)

is that of friends not fans. (AKA the idea that the audience is just as important as the performer and performers and businesses that take advantage of their supporters need to shove it) Pete Seeger comes from a culture that is FULL TO THE BRIM WITH THIS! The old folk style involved people borrowing/copying songs, melodies and lyrics from each other in a natural spread of culture. People were encouraged to learn all the songs and sing them for themselves in their own way. I’m oversimplifying it to an extent, but folk music was a stance against the money making machine that so much art in our society becomes trapped in. In addition, Pete spread songs from all over the world, always giving credit where it was due and knowing the history of tunes and how they relate to where we were today. He was someone who said that these were our songs, not his, and that they are bigger than all of us and, at the same time, as big as we make them. People took these songs as symbols for their movement and spread them in so many cool ways. They used them to influence culture and fight for civil rights. The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Freedom Singers is a great example of this. This group, from 1963 to 1964, traveled to northern college campuses to sing civil rights songs and teach lessons about the current state of African Americans in the South.

“Thousands were educated through those concerts; many of the hundreds of volunteers who later went south to register voters in the Freedom Summer of 1964 had seen the Freedom Singers in the North, ‘an initiating experience’ of education that lead, eventually, to active involvement…When the SNCC Freedom Singers toured…their most important message wasn’t that segregation was unfair, but that there was a vibrant movement of resistance to segregation sweeping through the South” (Rosenthal, R. & Flacks, R. (2011). Playing for Change: Music and Musicians in the Service of Social Movements. Colorado: Paradigm Publishers.)

Another cool thing: I wrote a research paper about the role of technology on music in impacting American social movements for my college undergrad thesis. I ended up narrowing down three movements: the early 1900s labor movement, the 60s counterculture movement, and Occupy Wall Street. While doing some of the coolest research ever, I came across one remarkable fact: Pete Seeger is all over the damn place. In all three of these movements, you can find Pete somewhere with his guitar or banjo. His presence during a night of music at Occupy Wall Street was used as a huge symbol of the way that progressive social movements in this country relate and share history and solidarity.

----Pete at Occupy Wall Street, tying the old and new together as always---

With this research and through other classes and lessons I’ve learned over the past few years, I have discovered just how important it is that this history and solidarity remain entrenched in the minds of people working for change. Every move you make towards social justice is a part of a beautiful, inspiring, shocking, and huge history of other people just like you. We are nowhere near alone in this seemingly uphill battle and we have roots that extend far and wide. Pete spread that message wherever he went and we must carry that torch. I want to be so much like Pete Seeger. I don’t think that’s a weird or vain thing to say. I really hope many of you feel the same way. By dedicating ourselves to our causes, our health, our families, our planet, and our freedom, we can use the art we make as hammers for pounding in new ideas and prying out what stands in our way.

---a nice short one---

---AND here’s a Hudson River cleanup organization Pete helped start, check it out for cool resources and all that: http://www.clearwater.org/ ---