Sunday, November 30, 2003

50/50 Chance: A Sober Thought on the Present and the Future

The veteran folksinger, songwriter, labor activist, civil rights advocate and peacenik Pete Seeger at age 84 is still singing, putting out records and staying concerned about the state of the world.

His latest CD is the two-disk is called Seeds and it's the third installment of "The Songs of Pete Seeger" tribute series. On the first disk, Pete sings the lead on the songs. And the disk wounds up sounding like an antiwar rally. And that's a good thing. It's especially moving to hear "Bring Them Home," first performed in 1966 (in Berkeley) as an anti-Vietnam War protest, now acquiring new meanings and new words in the times of the Iraq War.

The last piece on the second disk is also a brief spoken piece by Pete. It's understated but very memorable. This is the full text:

I now figure, very seriously, that I think we have a 50/50 chance of having a human race here in a hundred years. This implies that any grain of sand might tip the scales in the right direction or the wrong direction, and each of us is but a grain of sand. So, in effect, I'm encouraging people to be active in some way.

Pete is a living link between the labor movement of the 1930s, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the antiwar movement the 60s and 70s and the antiwar movement of today. Plus he's a link for us to some of the best music in the American folk tradition. I'm told his 1966 album God Bless the Grass was the first American popular music album completely dedicated to environmental concerns.

Woody Guthrie's influence on popular music is arguably greater than Pete's. But it was primarily through Pete and his old group the Weavers that Woody's songs became widely known to the public.

These days, it seems to become harder and harder to separate politics and entertainment of any kind. And least of all with Pete's work. But even if you don't agree with his strong antiwar sentiments, his songwriting, his singing and the interpretations of his songs by other artists have a lot to offer.

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