The power of music is often combined with the power of the message, and so when the two collide in a song of struggle, of freedom or of right over wrong there is nothing more powerful.
And so it is the music of the Clash, Christy Moore, Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan that has helped shape and inform my passion for music, politics and change.
And so when I found myself in New York in the year of both the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth and of the 10th year since the death of the great Joe Strummer, it seemed appropriate somehow that I mark it in some way. New York is where Woody lived in his later years and his family run a foundation in his name nearby at Mount Kisco. Joe also spent a lot of time here (inc the 17 consecutive performances which became the Clash on Broadway in 1981). Strummer called himself Woody in the days before the Clash and would sometimes introduce Clash songs with "this is a folk song from England".
Two days ago Pete Seeger celebrated his 93rd birthday. Pete is a New Yorker. A man of quiet dignity, a folk singer of sound and consistant political, social and environmental credentials. He has sung and written great American folk songs of protest and hard times all his long life. Was a friend and travelling companion of Guthrie's. He stood up for his beliefs through the crazy political turmoil of the McCarthy era. It was Seeger's song My Rainbow Race that tens of thousands of Norwegian's sang as a song of unity in Oslo a week or so ago.
And so it was an amazing thing to see Pete Seeger on stage at a Guthrie celebration a couple of Sundays ago, up in the Hudson Valley at Tarrytown. Pete talked about his time with Woody, and this is a little of what he said.
"on comes this little short fellow with a cowboy hat, and he tells a few jokes and sings a song. He was on the stage for about 20 minutes and captured the crowd completely, when he came off, Alan Lomax went to see him and said, you have to come to Washington and record your songs. Well Woody went down there, and I tagged along . Well I must have seemed strange to him he said 'that guy Seeger is the strangest man I ever knew, he don't smoke, he don't drink, he don't chase girls'. However, I had a good ear and could accompany him in any song he played, I could hear a chord coming and I didn't play anything too fancy. So he let me tag along with him when he went out to Texas to visit his first wife. He wasn't a good family man. His first wife, Mary said 'we were just too young I was sixteen and he was nineteen' and he was always running away from home. But I learnt all sorts of things from him he told me 'Pete, if you want to make a living, you won't get rich, but you'll make a living, go into a bar and buy a nickel beer and drink it as slow as you can, have your banjo slung over your back, sooner or later someone will say, 'kid you gonna play that thing' don't be too eager say 'a little' and sip your beer. Then someone will say 'kid, I gotta quarter for you if you play a tune' and you swing it around and play your best song'. He also told me how to ride freight trains. I didn't learn very well because the first one I jumped off I broke my banjo".
At the same show Woody's granddaughter Anna read some great lines that he wrote. I didn't record them, but I found some words that he wrote that sum up the power of words and song in the fight against injustice.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.
I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.
And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.
There is a great mural, a memorial to Joe Strummer in the East Village, and my plan is to start a bicycle ride from there on Sunday and then head up the Hudson Valley for a few weeks and see who I can meet. A kind of 'conversations on the river'. I'd like to make the first stop at Mt Kisco and take a look at some of Woody's writings and draw some inspiration before heading up the valley.