No doubt many of you in my generation who stumbled about with a guitar [mine was a sunrise red and yellow Gibson that I worked months to pay for] and calloused fingers, adored this kindly subversive who sang about LAND belonging to EVERYONE, the United States belonging to EVERYONE, [bear with, I think I can pull it all back from memory; we all sang Seeger’s songs so often…
“This land belongs to you and me… ” is the radical refrain… written at a time [by Woody Guthrie] in the 1930s and revised in the 1940s [we sang it beginning in the early 1960s and Seeger singing this and other songs created its iconic image in the 60s] when immigrants, Blacks, Chinese, the soverign First People nations, the Japanese and poor Whites and the common farmers and workers were looked down upon “from California to the New York Island, from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters …”
and yet Pete Seeger sang on anyway– and kept singing this refrain: “This land was made for you and me!”
The old lyrics we resurrected and sang: [there was more than one version, this one below has the missing stanzas we had learned, intact]
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters,
[This land was made for you and me.]
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway,
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
[This land was made for you and me.]
I roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts,
And all around me, a voice was sounding:
[This land was made for you and me.]
[the next verse and the last verse were recorded by Seeger but left out of some subsequent recordings, but us kids of immigrant, refugee, factory and farmworker families who loved the music of ‘justice a ‘comin”… sang them out ‘loud and proud.’
Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing —
[This land was made for you and me.]
When the sun come shining, then I was strolling
In wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling;
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting:
[This land was made for you and me.]
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
[This land was made for you and me.]
CODA
‘The Relief Office’ handled many things, but it particularly helped people through the Great Depression, men and women workers laid off from their jobs in the sudden crash, working class persons who had no safety net whatsoever. No medicaid, no aid to dependent children, no food stamps, no women and children nutrition program, no unemployment insurance, no workman’s comp, no loan deferment for going to college, no medical care, no decent and safe shelter for those out of work, communication about maybe-jobs or slim opportunities –only via letter writing, newspaper and radio, and only later, television, and if you had the bread, a party line phone.
Pete Seeger, many wanted to gentrify him or else make him into a gelding. He’d be neither. When we heard him and met him, he had the demeanor of many of our fathers: decent, quiet in tone, thoughtful, not a seeker of slimelight, but not meek and mild, rather a strong man who spoke in farm-time cadences, had good humor… and sang utter fire. Fire to set fire to the young of our time.
One more song [that was Seeger’s] and there are many many other songs so very well known: This one “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” became one of our strongest anthems against sending more and more of our brothers and cousins, uncles, fathers, and neighbor boys and our sweethearts to Vietnam for so many we knew personally had already died, and no one who was in charge seemed to listen to reason about the ‘un-win-ability’ of a war that was also not a full out war in several ways and that appeared to be NO direct threat to the USA.
In our time, every young male before graduating from high school had a draft number on his back, except for some and many who were not CO’s but who took certain deferments offered, such as belonging to a certain higher econ class and having the money to enroll in college or getting married and immediately having a child… some faked to have a ‘disability’ and some were in an actual condition disallowed from military service: a 4F strike [meaning, unable for mental or physical or sexual reasons to be considered fit for combat], while other peers lied about nothing, bravely stepped up… and went to war, and came home… or didnt. The major tragedy of our time as teens and young adults was not the assassinations of leaders, John, Martin and Robert and others, although that was cause for so much grief. Rather for many of us, it was the loss of our brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins, neighbors and sweethearts. It was in every rural and county landscape, like a once proud house, now with so so many of its beautiful windows broken out. And no way to repair or replace.
And Pete Seeger gave us this song, and we sang it for all we were worth, on coffee house stages, in high school gymnasiums, in any folk venue that would have us.
Because so many of our boys waded or waited or had to take shelter, or died in an ambush in the mud rivers of Viet Nam– Seeger’s song [about a misled military training of troops in prep re WWII] was like hitting a toothache with one’s tongue. Something so painful, yet had to somehow, somehow be ridden out, remembered, never forgotten. I know you’ll get the gist of what he is saying here, what we were singing back then… and still… And Still.
WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY
It was back in 1942.
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in Lou’siana one night
By the light of the moon.
The Captain told us to ford a river.
That’s how it all begun.
We were knee deep/ in the Big Muddy,
And the Big Fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, “Sir, are you sure
This is the best way back to the base?”
“Sergeant, go on, I’ve forded this river
About a mile above this place.
It’ll be a little soggy/ but just keep sloggin’.
We’ll soon be on dry ground.”
We were waist deep in the Big Muddy,
The Big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, “Sir, with all this equipment,
No man will be able to swim.”
“Sergeant, don’t be a Nervous Nelly,”
The Captain said to him.
“All we need is a little determination.
Men, follow me. I’ll lead on.”
We were neck deep in the Big Muddy,
And the Big Fool said to push on.
All at once the moon clouded over.
We heard a gurglin’ cry.
A few seconds later the Captain’s helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, “Turn around, men!!
I’m in charge from now on.”
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the Captain dead and gone.
We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn’t know that the water was deeper
Then the place he’d once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
About a half mile from where he’d gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the Big Fool said to push on.
Now I’m not going to point any moral —
I’ll leave that for yourself.
Maybe you’re still walking/ you’re still talking,
You’d like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers/ them old feeling come on,
We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the Big Fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy,
The Big Fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy,
The Big Fool says to push on.
Waist deep, neck deep,
Soon even a tall man will be over his head.
We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy,
And the Big Fool says to push on.
CODA
you can also see Pete Seeger singing this song at youtube here. I believe from the sound of it, such a magical ‘slight time-delay behind the melody’ sound, he’s playing a fine 12 string. Rest in peace dear friend Pete. Some will call you a folkie or try to make you into a nice obedient doily, or just a folksy old guy. As we used to say back to home Pete, you were a real tail gunner. Hitting hearts straight on, blasting away hypocrisy, saying it. And saying it again. Clear. Needed. Just. Strong. Merciful. The mark of a great warrior: Merciful.