***
Alec Wilkinson’s fond New Yorker profile and the film “The Power of Song” draw to a close with similar images: an old man by the side of the road holding a cardboard sign that says “Peace” in the cold and rain. The only difference between the two images is that in the documentary the image is followed by a contrasting one: a black and white shot of a wild throng of people protesting nuclear arms in the late 1950s. The cardboard signs in the photo are of the same variety as those in the contemporary scene; they offer slogans like “All Nations Ban Bombs” and “Co-Existence Not No Existence” and “Stop Tests” and “[Peace sign].” The energy of the crowd vibrates from the photo even now. Pete is off to the right. He is about 40 and his hairline has already begun to recede, but the wind is lifting what is left on the top of his head up and away from his face. He is wearing a narrow tie and a collared shirt. His eyes are closed, his chin is lifted, he is playing his banjo, and his mouth is open in mid-song. The image could be saying two things. On the one hand, it could be asking how we have gone from being the passionate crowd of protesters in the photograph to the stragglers by the side of the road? On the other hand, it could also be telling us that whatever song Pete is singing has not ended and will never end so long as there are people around to open their mouths.
Whether or not Wilkinson or the producers of the film imagined that their images of Pete Seeger would in some way be the last we would have of him is also unclear, but Obama’s inauguration has ensured that neither will be his parting shot. Instead, the image of him we are now taking into the future is that of Pete—no longer a scarecrow by the side of the road so much as a phoenix rising up on the horizon—with his scraggly gray hair poking out from under an off-kilter, rainbow-colored Alpaca hat, performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Standing at the giant marble feet of our sixteenth president (another iconic log cabin dweller), he became the oldest person ever to perform on that national stage. While it was not the first time he had performed there (he performed at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and at the March on Washington of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971), it was the first time he had been invited to perform by the federal government, the first time he had been officially welcomed to the National Mall by his country. For this performance, Pete was front and center, flanked by two of his torchbearers, Springsteen on one side and Tao, on the other, and a young people’s choir in red and blue robes lined up behind him.
What the image does not show is that Pete and Tao and Springsteen were playing to a crowd of over 400,000 people who had come to the Mall to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. What the image does not show is how most—if not all—of the people out there in the cold knew the words to the song that was about to be sung. What this image does not show is that those people might just have to thank the man about to sing for the fact that they know these words at all. For a decade after it was written, “This Land Is Your Land” was not played on the radio; the song was printed in a children’s textbook and became popular by word of mouth. Pete (along with Woody Guthrie) is among the first in the world to have sung the song and shared it with others.
The image is of the “We Are One” concert on the Sunday before the inauguration. Springsteen leans into the mike and says, “We’d like you to join us for perhaps the greatest song ever written about our home with the father of American folk music, Pete Seeger.” Springsteen then looks over at Pete and says, “Lead us, Pete,” and Pete does.
“You sing it with us,” he tells the crowd, “we’ll give you the words! ‘As I went walking that ribbon of highway…’” He plucks four notes and launches into “This Land Is Your Land.”
As the choir—both the one behind him and the one sprawling out in front of him, the one that stretches nearly to the Washington Monument—begins to sing those words that they have known for as long as they can remember, Pete strums only a few chords before he takes his hands off his banjo and lifts them into the air. He waves them to the beat. He isn’t singing, doesn’t even appear to be trying. Maybe it’s too cold and his voice can’t handle it, maybe he just wants to listen this time, maybe singing isn’t his job at all anymore. He feeds the crowd the verses line by line, and everyone else does the singing for him. His hands return to the instrument. Even Springsteen and Tao are drowned out: the voices you hear most clearly are those of the choir. At one point Pete reaches his hand to his ear and cups it as if he can’t hear the crowd in front of him, and says, “Everyone sing it! Everyone!” The camera pans the crowd and there’s George Lucas singing along, is that Amy Goodman? And there’s President-elect Obama. Pete’s lyric cues become more insistent as he reaches the verses often left out of the version taught in kindergartens and Sunday schools.
“In the squares of the city,” he says.
In the squares of the city, we sing.
“In the shadow of the steeple,” he says.
In the shadow of the steeple, we sing.
“By the relief office,” he says.
By the relief office, we sing.
“I saw my people,” he says.
I saw my people, we sing.
“As they stood hungry,” he says.
As they stood hungry, we sing.
“I stood there whistling,” he says.
I stood there whistling, we sing.
“This land was made for you and me,” he says.
This land was made for you and me, we sing.
Pete does not even try to join in until final chorus, after all the verses have been sung. When he does try we cannot hear him. He does not appear to be making a sound at all. The only evidence we have of his effort is the sight of his mouth moving in the shape of the words. All we hear is everyone else. The last line of the song arrives, and he takes his hands again away from the banjo, lifting them up and out in front of him, above his head, punching the air: “This land was made for you and…” he opens his fists, holding in the palms of his hands the voices of nearly half a million people, “me.”
Our eyes then follow him as Pete, beaming, runs off the stage, a boy still chasing something we cannot yet see from where we are standing.
