Hang around people in the music business long enough, and you’re sure to brush up against the conventional wisdom: The best songs are apolitical and ambiguous in meaning. Topical material may make a splash when it’s released, but it quickly becomes dated, and then forgotten. The very worst thing an artist can do is preach.
Pete Seeger proved that’s all a pack of lies.
Seeger, who died in New York on Monday at 94, spent nearly seven decades in the public eye, strumming his banjo for everybody willing to listen. A titanic figure in American folk music, Seeger always knew exactly what he was singing about — and made sure you knew, too.
His deep discography is a testament to his motivation, and his prescience. He wanted racial integration and fair treatment, better conditions for laborers, an end to the Vietnam War, a cleaner and safer environment, and a hundred other things he never stopped fighting for. Music was his tool to raise consciousness and change the world, and he refused to lose his faith that it could. Today you know his songs by heart not because of heavy rotation or a marketing strategy that presented him as all things to all people, but because he wrote and sang with such conviction that he seared his words into the pages of the American history book.
His courage was never in dispute. History has validated his judgment, too. With his first groups, the Weavers and the Almanac Singers, he took the side of racial equality and organized labor. In 2014, these positions don’t seem controversial. In the 1940s, they were enough to get him into hot water with authorities.
Seeger helped popularize "We Shall Overcome," and lent "If I Had a Hammer" to union organizers. At the height of the McCarthy Era, Seeger, a member of the American Communist Party in the ’40s, stood up to the bullies determined to silence artistic expression in the name of misguided patriotism. In 1968, network censors blacked out his performance of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," a critique of the Vietnam War, on the Smothers Brothers’ TV show. Well before it was fashionable, he embraced environmentalism, committing himself to the cause of cleaning up the Hudson River. Two summers ago, he marched with Occupy Wall Street.
It is possible to trace the history of America in the 20th century just by listening to his body of work — a staggering achievement for anybody, let alone a writer who faced political opposition at every turn. And his artistic fingerprint hasn’t faded a bit. Although he’d likely blanch at a term so loaded with class connotations, Seeger was a terrific composer — a musician who always knew how to highlight a hook, frame a found melody, and extend it over a pleasing chord progression.
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" "Turn! Turn! Turn!" "Kisses Sweeter than Wine," "Guantanamera" and others could never be called Seeger originals. They’re popular surfacings of sounds and ideas as old as America itself. Still, it was Seeger who took these ideas and forged them into songs that played for proletarians and presidents alike; Seeger who applied the heat of these folk melodies to contemporary controversies; Seeger whose name is invoked by artists like Bruce Springsteen, trying to recapture the freewheeling spirit of music on the barricades.
Many times during his career, Seeger chose integrity over quick gain. When the Weavers were considering doing a cigarette commercial, a smart manager would no doubt have advised him to take the money and enjoy the exposure. Instead, he left the band. During the Red Scare, his own record label turned on him. Nevertheless, he never repudiated his causes, and came through the storms of the 20th century with his reputation intact. In his final decades, he was recognized even by political adversaries as one of the pillars of American music.
There’s a lesson for all artists: If you have the goods, you don’t need to compromise. You don’t need to be afraid of specificity or controversy. Don’t worry about the discomfort of your adversaries. Instead, do as Pete did. Learn your song well; sing it with everything you’ve got. Pick your target, and fight like hell.