Light On Dark Water

Pete Seeger, RIP

Dead at 94. One of my early encounters with the folk music movement of the early '60s was this song by Tom Paxton, sung, unless my memory is playing tricks on me, by Seeger. There was a little clock radio in the room I shared with my brother at home in north Alabama, and I often listened to it at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I could pick up Chicago's WLS at night, and on Sunday nights there was a folk program. It's an extraordinarily vivid memory, of Seeger's clear simple voice and the poignant tune and lyrics sounding out in the dark.

 

Seeger's memory will always be a little tainted for me by his communism, and his clear sympathy for it that remained long after he had formally broken with it, something a wise man ought to have put behind him after the truth was known beyond any doubt. But he was like many, many others on the leftward end of the political spectrum in that. The music and his love for it remain.

Maclin Horton
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9 responses to “Pete Seeger, RIP”

  1. Pentimento

    Beautiful. Thank you, Mac.

    Reply
  2. Marianne

    In 2007, the NY Sun had a piece about Seeger — “Time for Pete Seeger to Repent,” saying in particular that Seeger “had supported Stalin’s tyranny for so many years yet had never written a song about the Gulag. Yet some acknowledgment of his former support would have been appropriate, especially considering the songs he has sung about the Nazi death camps, which he often introduces by saying, ‘We must never forget’.”
    The writer was very surprised when he got a letter from Seeger about it, in which Seeger said, among other things, “I think you’re right — I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in [the] USSR”. And he said he had actually written an anti-Stalin song, “The Big Joe Blues.”
    Not a heck of a lot, but something.
    The whole article is here.

    Reply
  3. Mac

    Thanks, Pentimento. Glad you liked it.
    Yes, I read some similar things earlier today when I first saw the news about his death, Marianne, including a reference to the “I should have asked…” admission. Yes, it’s definitely something. I think he still maintained that he was a communist with a little “c” or something. Plenty of naive people think the same.

    Reply
  4. Daniel Nichols

    I think it is easy to get self-righteous about the Left in the 20th century. A lot of very well-meaning people were attracted to communism in those days, and it is not hard to see why. Among other things communists were alone in fighting for racial equality; even the labor unions took too long coming to that battle. And communists were in the forefront of many struggles for justice. When tales of oppression began to leak out of the Soviet Union it was very easy to see it as disinformation, a not unreasonable suspicion. When it became undeniable all but the most intransigent left the Party. And it is common to emphasize the horrors of Marxist states while ignoring the real accomplishments they made. It was an ideal that appealed to a lot of good people, but it turned into a nightmare. But it is laughable to equate the whole thing with Naziism just because both ideologies ended in huge death counts. I’m sorry, it is evident to me that the one, with a racist and nationalist ideology, is rotten even in its dreams. It may be doubly tragic that the other, with dreams of equality and justice, ended up in horror, but to damn the dreamers for the nightmare that in fact came to pass is anachronistic.

    Reply
  5. Daniel Nichols

    And while I respect Mr Seeger, his music was never to my tastes. I like my folk music more primal, not sanitized by educated white people.

    Reply
  6. Mac

    So his politics can be overlooked but his music stinks? That’s…a point of view, I suppose.
    Seeger’s significance in the musical world is more for his advocacy than his personal performance, in my opinion. You’ll note that the song I discussed in the post is not a folk song, although it came out of the movement that is only half-accurately described as “folk.”
    As for the relative evils of communism and fascism, I can see there isn’t going to be agreement there, so I’ll let it go.

    Reply
  7. Daniel Nichols

    I didn’t say it stinks, just it is not my style. I do like Woody Guthrie a lot better, especially his children’s songs.
    You would really argue that an ideology that is racist and nationalistic and neo-Darwinian in its essence is the equivalent to one that envisions justice and equality (however violated in reality)?

    Reply
  8. Mac

    Really, it’s just not worth pursuing. I would have to spend a long time just untangling what you’re suggesting I think from what I actually do think, and that would only be a start. I’m sure we could both make better use of our time.

    Reply
  9. Louise

    Nice song.

    Reply

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