Pete Seeger and pals attend NY protest action
NEW YORK (AP) -- Folk music legend Pete Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City's tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores.
The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram, and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out a verse as the crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted.
They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines.
USA Today
At the circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant of "We are the 99 percent" and "We are unstoppable, another world is possible." Seeger stopped to bang a metal statue of an elephant with his cane — to cheers from the crowd.
At the center of the circle, Seeger and Amram were joined by '60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie in a round of "We Shall Overcome," a protest anthem made popular by Seeger.
Enjoy one of his oldies:
The Banks Are Made Of Marble
I’ve travelled round this country
From shore to shining shore.
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw.
I saw the weary farmer,
Ploughing sod and loam;
I heard the auction hammer
A-knocking down his home.
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the farmer sweated for.
I saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore.
I heard the bosses saying:
‘Got no work for you no more’.
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the seaman sweated for.
I saw the weary miner,
Scrubbing coal dust from his back;
I heard his children cryin’:
’Got no coal to heat the shack’.
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the miner sweated for.
I’ve seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land;
I prayed we’d get together,
And together make a stand.
Then we’d own those banks of marble
With a guard at every door;
And we’d share those vaults of silver
That we have sweated for.
Words and Music by Les Rice
What a joy to see the folk songs of the past revisited!