This article was written on Jan 27, 2024.
Ten years ago today, I woke to an unsettling phone call. At age 94, Pete Seeger passed away. It was also the 25th anniversary of the day I met Jennifer. What a way to ruin what should have been a day of celebration!
The last time I performed with Pete, the previous November, standing alongside him at the Cutting Room in Manhattan, I had a very clear revelation. It wasn’t that this would be the last time we played together. Instead, it was that I was smack dab in the middle of one of the highlights of my life. A strong nudge told me to take full measure of the moment.
Here I was standing ten feet away from the center of the universe! The universe of American folk music. I’ve been corrected, scolded, and ostracized for calling this style of music “American” folk music – even from within the depths of the folk music community. But when I think of America, I don’t think of a geographical location or a specific group of people. I think of an ideal – that “we” don’t need our lives to be directed by monarchs, popes, dictators, authoritarians, or other megalomaniacs who people believe speak for God.
Instead, we can find answers for ourselves by plumbing the depths of our consciousness. And we can find answers for society through the democratic process. I bring this up because I never knew a musician or any other public figure who embodied the ideal of America more than Pete Seeger.
Our very last conversation occurred in the basement of the Cutting Room a couple of hours before the show. We discussed what songs to play and a variety of other stuff including a little bit of philosophy. I found what Pete said to be so profound that afterward, before the show, I scribbled out the dialogue as best as I could remember in my little pocket booklet.
Here is an excerpt – starting in the middle of putting together a list of songs to play:
Spook: … Good. Let’s sing “Quite Early Morning.” I think this song is especially important. It sums up a big part of your “message” – if I may use that word. I think it is darkest before the dawn and it’s pretty dark right now.
Pete: If human beings are still around on this planet in any sizable numbers 50 years from now, it will be because we remembered how to cooperate.
Spook: Well, Pete, I can assure you we will be around in 50 years because I will be around in 50 years.
Pete: We’ve been turning this planet into a garbage dump for hundreds of years. But, whether in 500 years or 5 million years, long after human beings are gone, the rivers will run clean again. The planet will find a way to get back in balance.
Spook: I agree. We are only dancing on this earth a short while.
Pete: What do you suppose will happen in the next 50 years?
(I used this opportunity to run by Pete an idea I discovered recently while writing in my journal.)
Spook: I think we will make it through these dark times and see the dawn again. Because I think we have all the tools we need to shape ourselves and our world into what we wish them to be.
Pete (after a long pause): I wouldn’t say we have “all” the tools. There are people who don’t have enough to eat.
Spook: I thought you might say that. So, I added a couple of extra sentences: Some of us have these tools in the palms of our hands while others have them at arm’s length. And for some, they are beyond arm’s length, but they are still attainable if we all work together.
Pete: Can you say that in fewer words?
Spook: I’ll work on it. … What do you think will happen in the next 50 years?
Pete: (somebody whose name I don’t remember) said “First, we have to make sure people have clean water and enough food. Next, people need houses or huts or other types of shelter and good clothes to wear. Clothes to keep us warm.”
Spook: That’s why I think it’s important to keep singing. For years to come. For decades. About the tools we have to make this happen. That’s why I’m here tonight. Because you sing about those tools: The hammer of justice, the bell of freedom, the song we sing. That song about love for ALL of our brothers and ALL of our sisters, regardless of the shape of their eyes, the color of their skin, or the language they speak.
(Pete’s eyes locked hard onto mine. I am sure he knew that all of those words were words he spoke himself at one time or another. I just put them together in one cohesive sentence. I’m sure he also recognized that I’ve been doing my homework and paying close attention to his “message” and how to deliver it. After a short pause, I added two more lines I came up with myself.)
Spook: And regardless of who we love or how we identify.
Pete (after another long pause): Do you know the words to “Quite Early Morning?”
Spook: Yes, but I think you should sing it.
Pete: What key do you play it in?
Spook: The same key as you, Pete – E
The conversation continued. We talked about other tools we have. We ended with Pete insisting I sing all of the songs in the concert that night because he said he’d lost his voice, lost his memory, and couldn’t move his fingers. Of course, to everybody’s delight, especially mine, Pete ended up singing the songs and remembered all of the words - even if it took a couple of extra measures to remember them.
To this day, I agree with Pete: If human beings are still around on this planet in any sizable numbers 40 years from now, it will be because we remembered how to cooperate.
I was there right at the front table. I was also there in the men's room to overhear you and Pete rehearse the lyrics to Turn in one of the stalls an hour before the start of the show. A moment in time I will never forget! Thanks Spook!
Spook, this is perhaps the best of all your posts so far. Or perhaps a very close second to the story of how you met Jennifer. We all hope you keep writing!