Posted on 02/20/2007 3:23:59 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Paul Stookey aims 'hammer of justice' at North Korea
Mon Feb 19, 9:53 PM ET
Paul Stookey, who has sung about a "hammer of justice" in the US folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary for four decades, is now taking aim at North Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Jong-Il.
He has written a song about Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped by North Korea in 1977 at the age of 13, and the agony of her ageing parents who believe she is still alive in the communist state which has declared her dead.
"I'm holding out hope that somewhere in an automobile in North Korea, Kim Jong-Il is listening to the radio and thinks of his own family," 69-year-old Stookey said ahead of the song's release in Japan on Wednesday.
The song marks the latest global attention to the abduction row, which rouses deep passions in Japan.
Japan refused to fund last week's breakthrough six-nation deal in which North Korea pledged to shut key nuclear facilities in exchange for energy aid due to the abductions, a position that has annoyed China and South Korea.
But Stookey said he was so moved by the kidnapping that his song "wrote itself."
"When I read what has been done to this young girl and the emotional result to her family, I decided to do what folk music has always done," Stookey said.
"And, if I hadn't written it, in another week, another month, maybe in another year, someone else would," he said. "Old folk singers never die -- they just do benefits."
In September 2002, Kim Jong-Il admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly by sea, to train spies in Japanese language and culture.
Pyongyang insisted that eight of them were dead with Megumi having killed herself due to depression after marrying a Korean and bearing a child. But her parents believe their daughter is alive and kept under wraps, probably because she knows too much about the secretive nation.
Stookey, a tall, balding figure, joined Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers in the band best known for the 1963 track "Puff the Magic Dragon." The group marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War in a career marked by songs about humanity, hope and love.
The Megumi song, accompanied by Stookey's acoustic guitar and a violin, does not directly point its finger at North Korea or abductions.
"You were a young girl when your dreams were broken. No time for goodbyes and no words were spoken," goes a line in the mournful ballad.
Stookey cries out in the refrain: "Return, Megumi, to me across the waves of the sea. Send me your spirit. My heart will hear it and lead you home to me."
Awareness over the abduction issue has been expanding worldwide thanks to a documentary film "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story" made last year by a US-based Canadian couple, Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim.
Stookey, a born-again Christian, learned about Megumi's tragedy through the movie and contacted his longtime Japanese friend and producer, Yasu Nagai.
Stookey and Nagai approached the Yokotas last September to approve the project's release the CD, which is raising funds for a committee supporting efforts to bring back the kidnap victims.
"The lyrics show the tears I have shed for all these years," Megumi's mother Sakie, 71, said while crying after hearing Stooker play the song live for the first time Sunday at a Tokyo club.
"I hope that people in many countries sing this song and that somehow the people in North Korea will hear it," said Sakie, who last year met with US President George W. Bush.
Her husband Shigeru, 74, said, "A movement always invites an opposing force. But no one opposes such a song of love and they listen. I hope this will help solve the abduction issue."
Stookey followed up "Megumi" with "If I Had a Hammer," a folk classic of activism written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, and Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."
Stookey plans to produce a full CD in May for worldwide sales, including "Song for Megumi" and new tunes ranging from one on the Holocaust to a bossa nova love song.
He also plans some 20 concerts this year alongside Yarrow and Travers, who underwent a bone marrow transplant in April 2005 for leukemia.
"If people say, 'Who's Megumi?', then 'What has happened to her, could that happen to someone I love?' If I've done that, I've done an amazing service," Stookey said.
Ping!
Yeah. I'm positively floored. How very un-PC of him.
I wonder what it'd take to get the rest of the aging hippie faction to take on a communist monster - besides free cheese, of course.
I'm from Maine, and grew up in the same town where Paul Stookey raised his family... went to school with his daughters Anna and Kate, been to his home, etc. He was never that much of a radical anti-American (like the idiot Chomsky); however, he certainly has spoken out on the side of the peace movement. Glad to hear he's speaking out for real justice this time.
However,that child molester (pardoned by Jimmah),Yarrow is,IIRC,still active in a far leftist organization to combat US hegemony (or something like that) that was organized by one of the grandkids of.....Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
But then,Stookey can't be held responsible for the actions (or attitudes) of others.
He became a born-again Christian years ago, attempting to witness to the other two, with no visible success so far. He is at very least middle-of-the-road these days.
Once while channel surfing (an activity to be avoided) I happened to catch him on Jim Bakker's old PTL Club. He was very gracious and did his hit "Wedding Song". I bet his trendy-set friends gave him a tough time when the PTL scandal hit the big news.
Saw PP&M back in the sixties. Stookey had the best "impression" of a toilet flushing, using a microphone, that I have ever heard. heh, heh
Stookey's done several wonderful faithful albums, but has never achieved the success or profitability he has when he is on stage as part of the trio. This one is my favorite:
---------------------------
My Father's House - Noel Paul Stookey
The way to my Father's house when I was just a boy
Lay through fields of innocence
Near bubbling springs of joy
And when I'd lay me down to sleep
I'd pray the Lord my soul to keep
The road was never very steep
On the way to my Father's house
The way to my Father's house when I turned seventeen
Wandered through inviting hills
Beside a tumbling stream
Sometimes in prayer upon my knees
I would feel a distant breeze
The road was winding now through trees
On the way to my Father's house
The way to my Father's house at the age of twenty-nine
Led over a mountain that
I would seldom climb
Except in times of great despair
When I'd be looking everywhere
And then one morning He was there
On the way to my Father's house
Glory! What a refreshing story
I was so blind before He
Opened my eyes restoring me to
The way to my Father's house at the age of thirty-one
Was a ride on a rainbow;
My new life had begun
And every evening I could look
Through the pages of His book
And recognize the paths I took
On the way, on the way ...
I go to my Father's house in these troubled days
The Spirit is moving in
Mysterious ways
Reminded when old doubts appear
That perfect love casts out all fear
In thanks, I tend the garden here
On the way, on the way...
On the way to my Father's house
See Elani the film made of Nicolas Gage's book of the same title about his mother who was murdered by Communists for having saved her son from kidnapping. They would steal Greek children and move them to Albania for indoctrination as communists.
The harm wreaked by Marx and Engels is incalculable.
Nice of him to bring attention to this.
Unfortunately, he's, "" holding out hope that somewhere in an automobile in North Korea, Kim Jong-Il is listening to the radio and thinks of his own family," 69-year-old Stookey said"
> The harm wreaked by Marx and Engels is incalculable.
While I share your perspective and fully concur with your remarks, the past tense of "wreak" is "wrought", not "wreaked".
...brought to you by your local grammar police.
.
My view on grammar: Whom cares?
What? Someone not singing about the evils of America?! How refreshing.
Now lets see if the Dixie Chicks and John Mayer will write sing something about the horrors of Saddam Hussein, Ahminadinejad, Hamas, Castro or various terrorists/despots.
Not holding breath.
> My view on grammar: Whom cares?
Your leftist opponents care. They will grasp at any uneven surface to portray you as a knuckle-dragging, pie-eyed, mouth-breathing drooler.
The less ammo we give them, the better.
So buck up, friend, and utilize the best articulation of your worthy thoughts that you can muster.
A good articulation adds power to the point being made.
.
You're welcome.
"Usage note ... The past tense and past participle of wreak is wreaked, not wrought, which is an alternative past tense and past participle of work." ...American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition, 1992 p 2060
I stand very humbly corrected!
Did somebody change the language behind my back?
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