Tuesday, January 28, 2014

THE Un-American American

I really am saddened by the passing of Pete Seeger, he was part of my childhood. The first songs I learned on the guitar were the songs he played. I remember my parents singing along to Guantanemara. Everyone wanted to join in and sing with Pete Seeger. He had a special gift. The songs that he sang and the music that he played inspired me to teach myself to play, a twelve string like him, eventually I joined a band.
There are few singers I know of that are like him, Tom Morello, is one that comes to mind. Hopefully he will never be called before some kind of "UnAmerican Acitivities" witch hunt the way Pete Seeger was. All because of Communism and Socialism. We still hear the utter B.S. of God forbid, socialized medicine over 50 years later,. When will we ever learn? Not anytime soon..
 Pete Seeger always seemed so happy and had such great energy. For me, I knew him as a children's singer, I guess that was after he was blacklisted.

We live in a time where Americans are seen as red neck, gun totin' hillbillies. Unable to string a cohesive sentence together. Everyone is so divided by the economic injustices meted out on the middle class and the poor. Americans are so polarized by their own politics, that coming together the way Pete Seeger brought people together singing "We Shall Overcome" seems like a fantasy. Maybe that's the point, as long as we fight each other we will never come together. We aren't going to overcome anything, anytime soon.
Pete Seeger exited this world on the eve of President Obama's 5th State Of The Union address. I don't know if he will acknowledge the passing of this great American icon and hero. What he needs to address are the issues that Pete Seeger raised decades ago. I don't see that happening. I just see the status quo being maintained at all costs, that cost is hardship for almost every American I know.
I don't know if there is anyone like another Pete Seeger, waiting in the wings to help us get moving and clean up the mess of this Capitalist, "Free Market", War Mongering Culture. I am not sure if anyone would even listen, since we are so caught up in tech gadgets, the new Pete Seeger is going to have to text or tweet us on an iPhone. Bring it, it's long overdue.
RIP Pete Seeger, a great American. Who's going to pick up the hammer now?

3 comments:

  1. "I don't know if there is anyone like another Pete Seeger, waiting in the wings to help us get moving and clean up the mess of this Capitalist, "Free Market", War Mongering Culture..."

    They always come, often just when and where you least expect them. They may come in a different form, with music that seems unfamiliar to the Seeger generation [for example, Pussy Riot in Moscow] but music is the best medium of protest and it won't go away.

    I dearly loved Pete, but although "Where have all the flowers gone?" was a nail in the coffin of the Viet Nam War effort, as was "Knee Deep In Big Muddy" and "Blowing In The Wind," "You don't need a weather man to see which way the wind is blowing," the hammer was Arlo Guthrie singing "Alice's restaurant" – the 20-or-so-minutes-long musical narrative that had to be a solo number (although the audience could sing the Chorus.)

    And once it gets out there it will spread, via all the media that at the moment seem to be siphoning off potential interest – the laptops, cell phones, tablets, and social media. Good things may happen less often these days. But they do happen and they go viral fast. Hang in there.

    Yours crankily,
    The New York Crank

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  2. You're right about Arlo Guthrie, I play that song every Thanksgiving, much to my daughters annoyance.. lol. I can't wait for the next musician that inspires us all. That's going to be amazing.

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  3. Just read a biography of Norman Rockwell. Apparently he lived in the same small town as Arlo Guthrie during the 1960s. It's unknown whether he ever ate at Alice's restaurant, which was a real place. Amazingly, the author neglects to mention Guthrie's father. Kind of complimentary to Arlo in a way. He made it on his own.

    Though I agree with his (and, for that matter, Rockwell's) politics, I didn't do any tribute to Pete Seeger on my own blog. I haven't listened to him all that much, and felt there were others who could do one better than I could. And, what do you know, it turned out to be you, Patricia!

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