It was a time, it was a time… hard rain’s gonna fall,.. but don’t think twice it’s alright, it’s all gonna be alright babe…

Mary Travers, has passed the bar at age 72 from leukemia after a bone marrow transplant gave her three more years.

The long blonde-haired original was the female contralto voice in the American folk group, Peter, Paul and Mary which rose to prominence in the civil rights decade, the 1960s.

Miss Travers sistered her ‘brothers by another mother,’ Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey and together they sang and played acoustic guitar… and became a significant part of the rhythm section of tired feet marching, hands praising, voices raising to sing the old traditional hymn, not with cynicism, but because many people who marched, believed all was possible: We Shall Overcome.

Miss Travers, Mr Yarrow and Mr Stookey made a music that was part of the backdrop and the tears, as three civil rights workers were slaughtered by members of the KKK, as Kent State witnessed the shooting of students by state militia, and later then still, as Martin lay in his pool of blood… Martin who had sung with Mary, marched with Mary and Paul and Peter… and they sang this version of If I Had A Hammer….

Imagine Martin, beefy and brown and from poor town, Mary the fair Nordic-like blonde who would live in Conn., Paul and Peter, both like their name-sakes’ in features, everyone beautiful but no one ugly with hate. And, so they sang…

If I had a hammer,
I’d hammer in the morning
I’d hammer in the evening,
All over this land

I’d hammer out danger,
I’d hammer out a warning,
I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

It’s the hammer of Justice,
It’s the bell of Freedom,
It’s the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

This seeming simple song, words by Lee Hays, music by Pete Seeger ©1939, was originally sung by the Weavers.

Though some in our time have forgotten, and only hammer each other and hold little understanding of Justicia, not even realizing they have a noble song to sing… this folk anthem is still carried in the souls of many. ‘If I Had A Hammer’ is about the archetype of the Forge and the anvil, the muscled and strong maker of Love and Justice in the human soul, the one who can see and lift the iron, the durability in matters, the one who can stand the heat of the fire and not douse it, nor back away…

the song is about the one who can bear the smoke off the water, the hard work of hammering out Love and Freedom and Justice. With love magnified and muscular. Between Brothers and Sisters. All over the land.