He is gone. When someone is 94, you can't call it a surprise. But when someone has always been there as a part of just about everything you cared about politically your entire life, it somehow is. We are much the poorer.
11 responses to “1919-2014”
-
I trust you won’t mind if I share my post on the man as well (if so, you can of course delete it): http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2014/01/pete-seeger-folk-singer-songwriter-and.html
LikeLike
-
Shows you what kind of blogs I read–three of the four I read regularly have posted on Seeger’s passing. I’ll spend the day listening to songs from Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Bigger Fishes. “The Foolish Frog” still gets stuck in my head regularly.
LikeLike
-
Sad day. Pete was one of the good ones, to be sure. Sort of ironic, though, that the link is to a Fox News obit.
LikeLike
-
Thanks so much Patrick. really appreciate the thoughts.
JWR: Yeah, one could see it that way. But here’s the thing: it’s a good obituary. It captures important features of his life accurately. I thought it was better than the NYT, which was the only other one that I’d read when I posted this. Put another way, what could be more subversive of the overall function of Fox News than to evaluate their content on a piece by piece basis and simply in terms of how good it is, rather than blanket dumping it all into some tidy ideological box?LikeLike
-
This is one of the few versions of this song with all the verses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-aeweP-BFULikeLike
-
This is a sad sad day, but a good day to remember all that he gave us.
LikeLike
-
Here is a wonderful discussion of his legacy.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/marina-sitrin/thank-you-pete-seegerLikeLike
-
I especially appreciate that he continued to participate in local struggles in his community. I wasn’t able to find it today, but some years ago there was a video of him singing protest songs on the corner of downtown Poughkeepsie (maybe even Fishkill) as part of a demonstration against the most recent Iraq war. The demonstration seemed to have about 30 people, but there was Pete Seeger, singing passionately on the street corner.
LikeLike
-
Yeah, he was one of the most down to earth guys ever. He famously showed up at Occupy protests walking with two canes.
A couple decades ago, when the person I’m now married to was an anti-nuclear power organizer she asked Pete to announce an upcoming fundraiser concert at one of his shows. He did talk a lot about the anti-nuke campaign in the area, but forgot to mention the concert. Later he sent her a personal note, with an autumn leaf carefully attached to the page, profusely apologizing for getting so caught up in himself that he forgot.LikeLike
-
Mark, One of my former teachers (I probably spent more time at his office hours than in class!) who lives not far from me downtown (SDS founder and sociologist), Richard (‘Dick’) Flacks, just posted on FB a link to a fine article he wrote in 2009 for Jewish Currents: http://jewishcurrents.org/pete-seegers-project-13929
LikeLike
New APPS 
Leave a comment