FOR PETE'S SAKE

May 3, 2009—Pete Seeger turned ninety today. He’s robust for his age, but his voice has been shot for decades and neither his music nor his politics have been fashionable for quite some time. He won a 2008 Grammy on sentiment, but let’s face it—these days if people think of Pete Seeger at all, it’s with the sort of nostalgia one reserves for steam trains and manual typewriters. All the more reason to love the man. In an age dominated by cynics, trendoids, and schemers Pete is none of those things. Never was. Which is why he has been a personal hero for roughly half of his lifespan.

I hear the cynics’ metallic whine as they dismiss Seeger as yesterday’s news, a hopeless romantic, a self-righteous fool who still thinks songs, placards, and petitions can change society. There are even those who still hate him for having been a communist in his youth. But here’s what I remember. In 1980 some Vermont activists wanted to raise money for a Caribbean literacy project. The group asked Bob Marley, who demanded a $10,000 guarantee plus full expenses. So they called Pete and he did the show for gas money. What I cannot remember is a peace march, environmental rally, or human rights demonstration that took place without Seeger. The world should be cursed with such romance, folly, and foolishness.

I hear the au courant crowd yawn as they finger the latest shiny bauble or spin the hot CD from whatever Flavor of the Month is surfing the top of the pop wave. And as they do, I cannot imagine a world without “If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have all the Flowers Gone?” or “Turn, Turn, Turn.” I muse on the hundreds of folk songs and tunes that rest in musical archives because Pete put them there. I contemplate how little we’d know of Woody Guthrie or Lead Belly if Pete hadn’t made sure their songs remained sung. Ask a banjo picker what Pete Seeger did for their art. Ask the purveyors of world music about the days before global music was popular and Pete Seeger was a one-man Fulbright Program.

I listen to the schemers sing their atonal praises to individualism and then I hear Pete exhorting the world to sing, the many voices blending into a harmonic one. I read the news and witness another Big Plan gone smash, then hear Pete singing, “We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy and the damned fool says ‘push on.’” I hear self-styled realists say that idealism is dead. Then I recall civil rights warriors singing Seeger’s rewrite of “We Shall Overcome,” and I study how Seeger’s battle against the House Un-American Activities Committee helped discredit that Star Chamber. Ask people living along the Hudson River whether the sloop Clearwater was important. Then ask the trendoids and schemers to justify their amnesia.
When President Clinton bestowed a Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award on Seeger in 1994 he called Pete “an inconvenient artist.” Catchy, but I’d prefer the more plebeian “decent human being.” I suspect Pete would too. The true measure of the man? Woody Guthrie’s guitar bore the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists;” Seeger’s banjo said, “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces it to Surrender.” As Pete put it in a song, “Old devil hate, I knew you long ago/Before I learned the poison in your breath/Now when I hear your lies my lovers gather round/And help me rise to fight you one more time.” Happy birthday Pete. I cannot bear the thought of a world without you.