Pete Seeger has died
I cannot believe this. I mean, I knew that he was old, but he has been such a permanent fixture of my life.
I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote a couple years ago in another context:
"These songs were the backbone of the soundtrack to my childhood. Labor songs, yes, but also peace songs, protest songs, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary, the Gospel according to Mahalia, the Carter family and Johnny Cash, songs "against poverty, war, and injustice". I'm ashamed that I never realized how truly radical my parents were (especially in our southern Midwestern environs); nobody talked about politics and social justice. Not even behind closed doors.
So the only legacy of my parents' ideals were the values they installed within me; deep, beyond conscious thought and memory, through the songs that were always playing on the stereo.
One of the most powerful images I retain of my mother was seeing her curled up in an armchair in a living room, broken down in tears. My mother was a strong woman, of great self control and discipline; she considered any display of emotion vulgar beyond expression. But here she was sobbing, in great gulping ugly gasps, like the world would end. On the stereo the Weavers were singing "We Shall Overcome."
It wasn't until many years later that I realized that this must have been early in April, 1968."
God rest you, Pete Seeger. Kick down the doors of Heaven, march up to the golden Throne, look God in the face, and demand to know what's taking so long.
I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote a couple years ago in another context:
"These songs were the backbone of the soundtrack to my childhood. Labor songs, yes, but also peace songs, protest songs, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary, the Gospel according to Mahalia, the Carter family and Johnny Cash, songs "against poverty, war, and injustice". I'm ashamed that I never realized how truly radical my parents were (especially in our southern Midwestern environs); nobody talked about politics and social justice. Not even behind closed doors.
So the only legacy of my parents' ideals were the values they installed within me; deep, beyond conscious thought and memory, through the songs that were always playing on the stereo.
One of the most powerful images I retain of my mother was seeing her curled up in an armchair in a living room, broken down in tears. My mother was a strong woman, of great self control and discipline; she considered any display of emotion vulgar beyond expression. But here she was sobbing, in great gulping ugly gasps, like the world would end. On the stereo the Weavers were singing "We Shall Overcome."
It wasn't until many years later that I realized that this must have been early in April, 1968."
God rest you, Pete Seeger. Kick down the doors of Heaven, march up to the golden Throne, look God in the face, and demand to know what's taking so long.