There's a song that's been running through my head of late, and a search of the archives shows I'm not the only one. What does inspire me to my first diary is a little poking around on the tubes that revealed someone recently uploaded YouTube video of Pete Seeger doing his "Waist deep in the big muddy," which I link to after the break.
It makes for a pretty good internal soundtrack for whatever tasks you undertake to Stop the Madness. Treat yourself to one of my heroes.
A little background for you whippersnappers: Seeger was invited to perform music of his choice in 1967 on the Smothers Comedy Brothers Hour (no, that's not a typo) on CBS. The Smothers Brothers--Tom in particular--were continually pushing the limits with the censors, and Seeger's new song got axed as overly critical of Lyndon Johnson and his conduct of the Viet Nam war.
In this interview with Seeger he related how he was invited back in January, 1968 to try it again.
On 48 hours' notice I flew out to California, taped the song, and this time 7 million people saw it and even got some extra newspaper publicity. Only one station, I think, in Detroit, scissored the last verse out of the tape.
Did the song do any good? No one can prove a damned thing. It took tens of millions of people speaking out, before the Vietnam War was over. A defeat for the Pentagon, but a victory for the American people.
Of course, a song is not a speech, you know. It reflects new meanings as one's life's experiences shine new light upon it. (This song does not mention Vietnam or President Johnson by name.) Often a song will reappear several different times in history or in one's life as there seems to be an appropriate time for it. Who knows.
It would seem this song's time in the sun has, sadly, come again. I recall watching that television show at the age of 16 and feeling electrified at the raw power of Seeger's performance. I heard in a recent Bob Edwards interview with Dick Smothers that Seeger's appearances on their show were the first he was on television since being blacklisted in the early 50's.
This video of Pete Seeger appears to be footage from the CBS show. It is not dated or otherwise labled, and I don't trust my memory enough to endorse it on that basis...but it is consistent with my recollections, and he appears the right age.
I also found an excellent audio download of a cover by Richard Shindell from the Vuelta album that he offers on his web site.
Great minds thinking alike dept: pkgoode posted the lyrics this morning after my first search for recent relevant posts. Cogitator saw the writing on the wall in December, and others have cited the lyrics in their posts in recent months. Still, I'll post this in the hopes that you will enjoy watching Seeger perform.