This Old Man, He Played

And he played and he played.

Continuing to play music, he celebrated his 90^th birthday earlier this month.

I returned to my old haunts and dug up an interview done in the mid 1980s during a song fest in Quito:

Please click here to listen to the 7-minute interview.

Ken: I’ve been a fan of yours for 20 years. I remember the music during Vietnam and the civil rights struggle. Do you feel that music – that 'protest music' as it was called – made any impact on policies and decisions of governments? Or was it a way to vent frustrations for those who found themselves opposed to policies?

Pete: I don’t think I could say for sure. If I didn’t think that music did something I wouldn’t still be singing. I love to sing but I would rather be home with my family o n the beautiful Hudson River where I’m fortunate to live.

But I do believe songs can help pull this world together. I think of music in the broadest sense – lullabies and love songs, and various sorts of hymns and serious songs, blues and laments.

It’s hard to say though exactly what effect they have. Of course one can go into history and find people saying they have an effect. Plato is supposed to have said way back . . . he’s the old Greek philosopher … that it would be very dangerous for the wrong kind of music to be used in the republic. It could destroy the republic.

Here’s my favorite - not original with Pete. He set it to music 50 years ago though.

A video version

Text is here.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep.

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together.

A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing.

Turn, Turn, Turn.

Turned 90 on May 3. Pete Seeger.