This is so cool!
Look at their faces yesterday!
Especially 89 yr old Pete Seeger’s beaming at the huge crowd on the mall and Tao smiling at Grandpa Pete—all the while singing their hearts out! (The “rest of the story” is the fact that Pete Seeger is the guy who sang “We Shall Overcome” to Martin Luther King which so impressed King that he adopted the song as the civil rights theme.)
Pete restored Woody Guthrie's original verses that have been censored from the song over the years to make it less political:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
Howabout more? How about Bob Marley's "One Love" (Let's Get Together)!Mr. President - We're "All Fired Up and Ready to Go"!
Thank you for this, Coleen. Everyone else: Turn up your speakers!
ReplyDeleteBut oooops, I made a mistake about Pete Seeger's age. As several people corrected me, he's only 89. No wonder he was able to jog off stage! (My own grandmother is 92 so I somehow got them confused.)
ReplyDeleteIf you check out Grandson Tao's "Gonna Reap Just What You Sow" performance in Beacon, you'll see me swaying to the music in the background--I got a little carried away. That particular "old timey" folk song would actually make a good send off for the Bush war criminals, wouldn't it?
Coleen, since I have no compunction about post-scripting posts and editing, I made the correction without so much as a New Yorker's moment of hesitancy!
ReplyDeleteWonderful!!
ReplyDelete