Pete Seeger

It was some time in 1967 that we crossed the Iron Curtain as a family to visit members of our family whom World War II had left behind the Wall. This was one of the most memorable trips we’ve ever taken—and it so happened that we “encountered” Pete Seeger there for the first time, at least consciously. Seeger was 48 that year and had already achieved worldwide fame; without doubt we’d heard many of his songs already, but not quite consciously.

During that trip I took part of a morning to visit a bookstore in the town of Weissenfels (around 40,000). The store, to my amazement, featured literally scores of American writers of a left-leaning persuasion, all in translation—so much so that I needed the clerk’s help to find a book actually written by an honest-to-God East Germany author. Having found that, I chanced across a large American album. It was Pete Seeger’s “We Shall Overcome,” first published in 1966. I bought it right then and there.

What we did not know, when visiting there, was that Pete Seeger had performed in East Berlin early in January of 1967—which, perhaps, explains why his record would have been selling in Weissenfels. At any rate, that album became our introduction to this quite phenomenal figure in popular culture and, in our hearts, a close and valued friend. Later on, we once actually heard him perform in an outdoor venue somewhere in the Washington, DC area—and by that time our girls were lustily singing right along with him, having learned all the word from that East German album.

Who killed Norma Jean?

I, said the City, as a civic duty,

I killed Norma Jean.

Who saw her die?

I, said the Night, and a bedroom light,

We saw her die.

  [Norman Rostan, “Who Killed Norma Jean”]

Now Pete Seeger passes too—and time will silt him over, as it has silted over his album, which is around here somewhere, fossilizing slowly without a machine any longer available to play it. He died last Monday—and is probably tuning up his banjo somewhere beyond the Borderzone.

Musical Memories—with Twist

Sometime a chance stimulus leads to a string of associations—and they produce new, and amusing, insights. Here is such a case. I am quoting here from a letter I received this morning from my old friend Philip Cavanaugh:

A couple of days ago I heard the recording “Goodnight Irene” on an internet music site. I remembered this silly song from my high school days and remembered that it had been composed and sung by Peter Seeger, my favorite American Communist. 

I met Seeger twice, once in 1965 when I was working at the New Windsor Cantonment in Newburgh, NY. You once visited there in our 1725 house; we drank a lot of Ballantine Ale that night. The museum hosted a group of Czech students and invited Pete Seeger to come over from Poughkeepsie to their campsite and sing. Seeger is a delightful and sharp guy. That was the first time I had heard the song “Die Moorsoldaten,” and he sang some of the songs of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of Spanish Civil War-fame. I met him again a couple of years later aboard his reconstructed 19th century Hudson river schooner “The Clearwater”; he was then active in creating awareness of the terribly polluted Hudson river.

Anyway, after hearing his song I looked him up on Wikipedia, knowing he was in his 90’s and wanted to see if he is still around. He is, but while reading about his life I encountered the name “Hanns Eisler”; this jumped out at me, as this name appears on the dust jacket of a recording of the DDR national anthem I had bought in East Berlin in 1957. Reading further I found Eisler was indeed a Seeger friend. Eisler, Brecht, Kurt Weil were émigrés in the 1930’s who came to the US to get away from the Nazis. Eisler and Brecht ended up in Hollywood and Eisler composed music for American films during the war; in fact, he was nominated for an Oscar for his film score for “None but the Lonely Heart” starring Cary Grant. He had a bad time in the late 40’s and 50’s with the House Un-American Activities Committee and left the country, eventually ending up in East Berlin. He composed “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” [“Risen from the Ruins”] and it became the official East German anthem. He remained a staunch communist and defended not only the regime against the demonstrators of the 17th of June but also defended the construction of the Berlin Wall. So a one time American Oscar-nominated film music composer wrote the DDR’s Nationalhymne? Is that cool or what?
                      [Philip Marshall Cavanaugh, private communication]