General Music Chat

i don't know if this story is true but i sure hope it is....

In the 1970s, Pete Seeger was invited to sing in Barcelona, Spain. Francisco Franco's fascist government, the last of the dictatorships that started World War II, was still in power but declining. A pro-democracy movement was gaining strength and to prove it, they invited America's best-known freedom singer to Spain. More than a hundred thousand people were in the stadium, where rock bands had played all day. But the crowd had come for Seeger.

As Pete prepared to go on, government officials handed him a list of songs he was not allowed to sing. Pete studied it mournfully, saying it looked an awful lot like his set list. But they insisted: he must not sing any of these songs. Pete took the government's list of banned songs and strolled on stage. He held up the paper and said, “I've been told that I'm not allowed to sing these songs.” He grinned at the crowd and said, “So I'll just play the chords; maybe you know the words. They didn't say anything about *you* singing them.” He strummed his banjo to one song after another, and they all sang. A hundred thousand defiant freedom singers breaking the law with Pete Seeger, filling the stadium with words their government did not want them to hear, words they all knew and had sung together, in secret circles, for years. What could the government do? Arrest a hundred thousand singers? It had been beaten by a few banjo chords and the fame of a man whose songs were on the lips of the whole world.

- Scott Alarik, Revival

he was Communist before being a Communist was cool.. I was country when country wasn't cool..

That's awesome.

The romantic notion of changing the world with a song, is what keeps me dabbling in music.

I watched a youtube from 2008 the other night of him, with his grandson and Arlo Guthrie doing Where Have All the Flowers Gone (I'm going to do it next week), the whole audience peacefully singing along with him - awesome.

he was Communist before being a Communist was cool.. I was country when country wasn't cool..

and before it got you "blackballed" for being seen as less than a "true american" and so sent your career and ability to earn a living down the toilet. irony anyone?

check out this response of his before the House Un American Activites....

MR. SEEGER: "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you about my life if you want to hear of it."


"You see, sir, I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir."

I'd note that if the communists had won the Spanish Civil War and Seeger pulled a stunt like that - he would have been shot.

Talbot

Great story. Would love to be on stage for something like that.