The E Street Band played "We Shall Overcome" in Cape Town, South Africa last night,
and it was a tearjerker. Pete Seeger was 94 years old and lived a
remarkable life. There's a temptation to go, "Do not weep for Pete
Seeger." But I did weep for him, because we could use 94 more years of a
guy like that. Listen to Pete Seeger's 20 Essential Tracks. Pete was a friendly acquaintance of mine. I had the opportunity to
duet with him on his last record on a song called "A More Perfect
Union." Being able to stand on stage with him at the Newport Folk
Festival singing "We Shall Overcome" and "This Land is Your Land" are
moments now that I will treasure forever.
But my favorite Pete Seeger moment in history is when he was booked
on the Smothers Brothers Show. The network initially canceled his
performance because of his political affiliations. But the Smothers
Brothers stood up for him. Months later, they had him on to play "Waist
Deep in the Big Muddy." Check it out on YouTube: it is as angry as any Rage Against the Machine
song. With poetic, razor-like precision, he vivisects the cruel
foolishness of the Vietnam War – all with one banjo and one vision for a
better world that he was willing to put himself on the line for. It's
something that I return to for inspiration in my own work.
He sort of became this kindly grandfather figure of Sixties feel-good
nonviolence in popular culture, but Pete Seeger was a threat. He always
declared himself a communist with a lower-case "c." He was this sort of
gentle grandfather with a backbone of steel who was going to put a
chokehold on the powers that be until they relented. That guy was no
joke. He was a hardcore badass
when he stood up to House Un-American Activities Committee, saying,
"How dare you question my Americanism because I play music for people
whose politics are different than yours?" Yet he played lovely, gentle
songs at countless pre-schools for toddlers. He was a unique,
spectacular combination of things I doubt we'll ever see again.
In 2011, around midnight, Pete led a non-police sanctioned Occupy
Wall Street march for two miles across Manhattan. You couldn't hold him
down if he was walking with two canes! Pete never lost the fire, and
wherever there were voices raised, however few or many, Pete was always
willing to lend his voice, his banjo, and his spirit to the struggle for
a more just planet.
He's maybe a more forgiving soul than I am, and I hope to learn from
him to have less anger and more heart. Look at what's written on Woody
Guthrie's guitar and Pete Seeger's banjo. Woody's guitar says, "This
machine kills fascists." Pete Seeger's says, "This machine surrounds
hatred and forces it to surrender." That's a great soul.
At our first show in Cape Town, the E Street Band played "We Are Alive," a great song off Wrecking Ball.
Bruce references New England railroad workers, and people in United
States history that perished in the struggle for a better world and how
their voices stand shoulder to shoulder with the struggles of today. He
replaced those folks with the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and the
miners that were killed a couple of years ago in the labor dispute here.
Whether it's Pete Seeger standing in from HUAC committee in 1960 or a
Bruce Springsteen song in 2014, its important to keep the pressure on.
It encouraged me to re-double my efforts in that regard. I think that
there are artists of different genres whose calling is to use their art
to hope to affect and better the human condition – whether it's System
of a Down, or Rage Against the Machine, or Public Enemy, or the Clash,
Bruce Springsteen, or Pete Seeger. It's a group that I'm proud to be
counted among.
The bad news is that Pete Seeger's dead. The good news is that
there's going to be one spectacular hootenanny going on in heaven when
Guthrie and Lead Belly reunite with their bro Pete Seeger.
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