Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94

New York Times ^ | January 28, 2014 | John Pareles

[deks]

Pete Seeger, the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change, died Monday. He was 94 and lived in Beacon, N.Y.

Mr. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.

In his hearty tenor, Mr. Seeger, a beanpole of a man who most often played 12-string guitar or five-string banjo, sang topical songs and children’s songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always encouraging listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond. “We Shall Overcome,” which Mr. Seeger adapted from old spirituals, became a civil rights anthem.

Mr. Seeger was a prime mover in the folk revival that transformed popular music in the 1950s. As a member of the Weavers, he sang hits including Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” — which reached No. 1 — and “If I Had a Hammer,” which he wrote with the group’s Lee Hays. Another of Mr. Seeger’s songs, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” became an antiwar standard. And in 1965, the Byrds had a No. 1 hit with a folk-rock version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” Mr. Seeger’s setting of a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

[RobinOfKingston]

Although Seeger had a “decades-long personal dislike of communism in its Soviet form”, ...

That would be a little like differentiating between rat poison from Home Depot or the neighborhood hardware store.

[Fledermaus]

Because they buy the pretty cover (with rose colored glasses) and never bother to read the book on the atrocities.

They truly believe communism makes men more free than our system.

Their brains never really grow past childhood and they fall for the potemkin versions of communism instead of reality.

[Pelham]

Satan can also quote Scripture, as Pete Seeger is surely learning.

[rlmorel]

That is the thing about leftists. They have a vision of Utopia, and there is no sacrifice too great to achieve it...as long as it isn’t THEIR sacrifice.

Look at the leftist Weathermen. To them, killing 20 million Americans was something they thought they would have to do out of necessity, but...it was worth it to them.

So, yeah. I am sure Stalin and Lenin thought they were making the world a better place.

[rlmorel]

Well...thank you for your service, FRiend, and Welcome Home.

I can imagine that WAS the positive thing you got out of it. I will say, “One Day in the Life” didn’t really grab me, but...there was something about the way Solzhenitsyn wrote the Gulag Archipelago really engaged me. That book really hit home.

Perhaps it was the sweeping, grand totalitarian scope of the book, where “One Day” was more focused on a single man, but it did reach me.

[rlmorel]

JUST AWESOME!
Never heard it...like a mix between Devo and The Talking Heads! Thanks again for the link...:)

Oingo Boingo-Capitalism

There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry

There’s nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask, I’ll say it’s just fine
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
So tired of hearing you whine

About the revolution, bringing down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby

If it ain’t one thing, then it’s the other
Any cause that crosses your path
Your heart bleeds for anyone’s brother
I’ve got to tell you, you’re a pain in the ass

You criticize with plenty of vigor
You rationalize everything that you do
With catchy phrases and heavy quotations
And everybody is crazy but you

You’re just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And now you tell me that we’ve got to get back
To the struggling masses, whoever they are

You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about suffering and pain?

There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry

There’s nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask I’ll say it’s just fine
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
So tired of hearing you whine

You’re just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And now you tell me that we’ve got to get back
To the struggling masses, whoever they are

You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain

There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with capitalism

[Fiji Hill]

The best version of "If I Had A Hammer" was by Trini Lopez in 1963, reaching #1 in 36 countries and #3 in the U.S ,p> I like this version:

The Hammer Song--The Weavers (1949)

[Fiji Hill]

So we have a talented performer, much like covert Soviet asset Paul Robeson (CPUSA member too), whose support for the most genocidal ideology in man’s history, is given a pass by the liberals and the Left.

Here's Paul Robeson singing a famous Soviet patriotic song. Radio Moscow fans might recognize the first few notes as its call sign.

Shiroka Strana, Moya Rodnaya (vast country, my homeland)--Paul Robeson (1942)

[Fiji Hill]

"Little Boxes" was written by Malvina Reynolds, another Red.

When I was a senior in high school, it was played in our civics class. Several students commented that it sounded like Communist propaganda. Years later, I found out that it was.

Little Boxes--The Womenfolk (1964)

[Fiji Hill]

Even Commies can quote Scripture

Such as Matthew 16:23

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan--The Almanac Singers (1941)

[deks]

Yes, that’s quite good musically. I like harmony singing like that too...and his banjo alone is a very effective accompaniment.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

he only served in the Army in WW2 after the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, not before. A sunshine patriot on the Left.

If that's your criteria, the same can be said ofl millions of Anericans, since the Germans invaded Russia six months before Pearl Harbor.

[dfwgator]

"Little houses made of ticky tack,
little houses all the same."

Ahh because to Pete, this was so much better.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

You missed the history charade in my comment. Until the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, the cry from the Left was “No intervention” in European wars. “The Americans are not coming” (from a CPUSA poster). etc.

Once Moscow was threatened, American Communists enlisted in the Armed Forces. They were fighting to save the Soviets, not for European freedom.

This type of behavior marked the American Communists role in many activities. Always doing something to advance communism, not the actual “cause”.

[Impy]

I much rather hear Turn Turn Turn than something by the avowed anti-communists Justin Beiber or Gaga Gaga Gaga Lady or Kanye West or Jay-Z. I have it on good authority that Kanye despises communism but look where it got him and the rest of us who have to cover our ears when we hear is music in an elevator (perhaps)

Lady Gaga is avowed anti-communist? Justin Bieber is?

Anyway I'm familiar with some of these songs but I've never heard of this guy. Sounds like a jerk but RIP.

Re Kanye: "Gold Digger" is a masterpiece.

[dfwgator]

Until the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, the cry from the Left was “No intervention” in European wars.

Be fair, that also was the cry from many on the Right.

[dfwgator]

Re Kanye: "Gold Digger" is a masterpiece.

I preferred "Gay Fish."

[RightGeek]

Until the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, the cry from the Left was “No intervention” in European wars.

Be fair, that also was the cry from many on the Right.

----------------

Actually, it was Pearl Harbor not Germany attacking the Soviet Union that was the game changer for many on the right.

[dfwgator]

Well they were all fighting the Japs...but I am still curious as to what if Hitler did not declare war on the US.

Now I believe FDR would have just simply sent ships to Britain, knowing once the Germans fired on them, he’d have the Casus Belli to get us into the European war.

[ETL]

Communist Pete Seeger performed at Obama’s 2009 Presidential Inauguration:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3114687/posts?page=8#8