As a member of The Weavers, Seeger had a string of hits, including a 1949 recording of Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" that topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. He was formerly a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America and was a major contributor to folk and protest music in the 1950s and the 1960s.
Perhaps best known today as the author or co-author of the songs Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I Had a Hammer, and Turn, Turn, Turn, songs that have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and which are still sung all over the world. Flowers was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962), Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962), and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn" in the mid-1960s.
Early work
Seeger dropped out of Harvard (where he had been studying journalism) in 1939, and he took a job in Washington, D.C. at the Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress. In that capacity, he met and was influenced by many important musicians such as Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. He met Woody at a "Grapes of Wrath" migrant workers concert on March 3, 1940 and the two thereafter began a musical collaboration.
In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of his now-classic How to Play the Five-String Banjo, a book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on the instrument. He went on to invent the Long Neck or Seeger banjo. This instrument is three frets longer than a typical banjo, and slightly longer than a bass guitar at 25 Frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal 5-string banjo.
As a self-described "split tenor" (between an alto and a tenor), he was a founding member of the folk groups the Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie and the Weavers with Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman. The Weavers had major hits in the early 1950s, before being blacklisted in the McCarthy Era.
On August 18, 1955, Pete was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) where he refused to name personal and political associations stating it would violate his First Amendment rights... "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this." Seeger's refusal to testify led to a March 26, 1957 indictment for contempt of Congress; for some years, he had to keep the federal government apprised of where he was going any time he left the Southern District of New York. He was convicted in a jury trial in March 1961, and sentenced to a year in jail, but in May 1962 an appeals court ruled the indictment to be flawed and overturned his conviction.
Seeger started a solo career in 1958, and is known for songs such as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "If I Had a Hammer" (co-written with Lee Hays), "Turn, Turn, Turn," adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and "We Shall Overcome" (based on a spiritual and later became the unofficial anthem for the civil rights movement). Seeger became influential in the 1960s folk revival centered in Greenwich Village. He helped found Broadside Magazine and Sing Out!. He was strongly associated with Moses Asch and Folkways Records. To describe the new crop of folk singers, many of whom were politically minded in their songs, he coined the phrase "Woody's children", alluding to his former bandmate Woody Guthrie, who by this time had become a legendary figure. He has often sung and is associated with the song "Joe Hill".
In the mid-sixties he hosted a regional folk music TV show called Rainbow Quest which featured folk musicians playing traditional folk music. Among his guests were Johnny Cash, June Carter, Mississippi John Hurt, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Roscoe Holcomb, The Stanley Brothers, Doc Watson, Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, Richard Fariña and Mimi Fariña, and many others. Thirty-eight hour-long programs were recorded at new UHF station WNJU's Newark studios in 1965 and 1966, produced by Seeger and his wife Toshi with Sholom Rubinstein.
An early advocate of Bob Dylan, Seeger was supposedly incensed over the distorted electric sound Dylan brought into the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, especially with the inability to clearly hear the lyrics. There are many conflicting versions of exactly what ensued, some claiming that he actually tried to disconnect the equipment. He is often cited as one of the main opponents to Dylan at Newport 1965, but claimed in 2005:
"There are reports of me being anti-him going electric at the '65 Newport Folk festival, but that's wrong. I was the MC that night. He was singing 'Maggie's Farm' and you couldn't understand a word because the mic was distorting his voice. I ran to the mixing desk and said, 'Fix the sound, it's terrible!' The guy said 'No, that's how they want it.' And I did say that if I had an axe I'd cut the cable! But I wanted to hear the words. I didn't mind him going electric.
Later work
Seeger achieved some notoriety in 1967 and 1968 for his song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy", about a captain—a "big fool"—who drowned while leading a platoon on maneuvers in Louisiana during World War II. Seeger performed the song on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour after some arguments with CBS about whether the song's lyrics were objectionable. Although the song was cut from the Smothers Brothers show in September 1967, Seeger returned in January 1968 and sang the entire song. It was clearly an allegory about the U.S. under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson which was in over its head in the Vietnam War.
Another slight against Lyndon Johnson can be heard in his singing of Len Chandler's seemingly juvenile song, "Beans in My Ears" from his 1966 album Dangerous Songs!? in which he accuses "Mrs. Jay's little son Alby" (Alby Jay is meant to sound like LBJ) of having beans in his ears, or of not listening to the people.
In 1998 a double-CD tribute album was released - "Where Have All the Flowers Gone: the Songs of Pete Seeger". It contained contributions from Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Ani DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Eliza Carthy, Bruce Springsteen, Roger McGuinn, Judy Collins, Indigo Girls, Dick Gaughan, Martin Simpson, Odetta and others.
Pete Seeger still performed occasionally in public until his death, and for a number of years appeared at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough Tennessee to tell stories, mostly children's stories such as Abiyoyo. He performed at MerleFest April 27-30, 2006 in Wilkesboro, NC.
On March 16, 2007, the 88-year old Pete Seeger performed with his siblings Mike Seeger and Peggy Seeger, and other Seeger family members at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., where he had been employed as a folk song archivist 67 years earlier.
In April 2006, Bruce Springsteen released a collection of songs associated with Seeger or in Seeger's folk tradition, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. Bruce Springsteen performed a series of concerts based on those sessions, to sellout crowds. Springsteen had previously recorded one Seeger favorite, "We Shall Overcome," on the 1998 "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" tribute album.
Seeger lived in the hamlet of Dutchess Junction in the Town of Fishkill, NY and remained very politically active in the Hudson Valley Region of New York, especially in the near-by City of Beacon, NY. He and Toshi purchased their land in 1949, and lived there first in a trailer, then in a log cabin they built themselves, and eventually in a larger house. Seeger joined the Community Church (a church practicing Unitarian Universalism), is considered a famous Unitarian Universalist, and often performed at functions for the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Seeger died in 2014 of natural causes.
Awards
Seeger has been the recipient of many awards and recognitions throughout his career, including:
A Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1993)
The National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts (1994)
Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Honor (1994)
The Harvard Arts Medal (1996)
Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1996)
Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album of 1996 for his record "Pete" (1997)
Garbage
Pete Seeger Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
(Then) he leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skin
The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it
(And he) puts it in a can with coffee grounds and sardine tins
And the truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away
A thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay
Oh, Garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage
What will we do when there's no place left
To put all the garbage
Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it down the freeway track
Leaving friends and neighbors in a hydrocarbon haze
He's joined by lots of smaller cars all sending gases to the stars
There to form a seething cloud that hangs for thirty days
And the sun licks down into it with an ultraviolet tongue
(Till it) turns to smog and then it settles in our lungs
Oh, Garbage, garbage
We're filling up the sky with garbage
Garbage, garbage
What will we do, when there's nothing left to breathe but garbage
Getting home and taking off his shoes he settles with the evening news
While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear
While Superman for thousandth's time sell talking dolls and conquers crime
(They) dutifully learn the date of birth of Paul Revere
In the paper there's a piece about the mayor's middle name
(And) he gets it done in time to watch the all-star bingo game
Oh, Garbage
We're filling up our minds with garbage
What will we do when there's nothing left to read
And there's nothing left to need
there's nothing left to watch
there's nothing left to touch
there's nothing left to walk upon
and nothing left to ponder on
nothing left to see
and nothing left to be but garbage
In Mr. Thompson's factory they're making plastic Christmas trees
Complete with silver tinsel and a geodesic stand
The plastic's mixed in giant vats, from some conglomeration that's
been piped from deep within the Earth, or strip-mined from the land
And if you ask them questions they say "why don't you see?
It's absolutely needed for the economy."
Oh, garbage, garbage, garbage
Their stocks and their bonds all garbage
What will they do when their system go to smash
there's no value to their cash
there's no money to be made
that there's a world to be repaid
their kids will read in history book
about financiers and other crooks
and feudalism and slavery
and nukes and all their knavery
To history's dustbin they're consigned,
along with many other kinds of garbage
The song Garbage is a commentary on the environmental degradation caused by humans through the excessive creation of waste. The song follows the story of Mr. Thompson, who represents the careless and apathetic behavior of humans towards the environment. Mr. Thompson's order of steak and baked potato leads to the generation of garbage, which is then dumped into the sea. The song suggests that humans are filling up the sea with garbage and contaminating it. The song also highlights how humans are polluting the air with the gases emitted by their cars and factories, leading to respiratory problems.
The song further suggests that humans fill their minds with garbage through their excessive consumption of media and other unnecessary things. Mr. Thompson and his family sit in front of the TV and consume meaningless content while the world around them is getting destroyed. The song ends on a pessimistic note, suggesting that humans are destroying everything around them, and will eventually have nothing but garbage left.
Overall, the song is a call to action for humans to take responsibility for their actions and start taking care of the environment before it's too late.
Line by Line Meaning
Mister Thompson calls the waiter, orders steak and baked potato
A wealthy man orders an expensive meal at a restaurant
(Then) he leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skin
The man wastes a lot of food from his meal
The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it
The person who cleans up the table is sick and may spread germs
(And he) puts it in a can with coffee grounds and sardine tins
The food waste is thrown in with other items in a garbage can
And the truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away
A truck collects the garbage once a week
A thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay
There are many garbage trucks adding to the waste in the ocean
Oh, Garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage
The song emphasizes the amount of waste we produce
We're filling up the seas with garbage
The oceans are being polluted with waste
What will we do when there's no place left
A rhetorical question about the future of waste disposal
To put all the garbage
The song suggests that waste is becoming an overwhelming problem
Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it down the freeway track
The wealthy man drives a gas-guzzling car
Leaving friends and neighbors in a hydrocarbon haze
The car emits pollutants that affect those around it
He's joined by lots of smaller cars all sending gases to the stars
There are many other cars on the road doing the same thing
There to form a seething cloud that hangs for thirty days
The pollution from cars lingers in the air for a long time
And the sun licks down into it with an ultraviolet tongue
The sun's rays react with the pollution to create smog
(Till it) turns to smog and then it settles in our lungs
The pollution from cars is harmful to our health
We're filling up the sky with garbage
The air is being polluted with car exhaust
Getting home and taking off his shoes he settles with the evening news
The wealthy man returns home to relax and watch TV
While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear
The children are doing homework while being distracted by the TV
While Superman for thousandth's time sell talking dolls and conquers crime
TV shows are repetitive and promote consumerism
(They) dutifully learn the date of birth of Paul Revere
The education system may not be teaching children useful information
In the paper there's a piece about the mayor's middle name
The news may not be reporting important events
(And) he gets it done in time to watch the all-star bingo game
Everyone is more interested in entertainment than real news
We're filling up our minds with garbage
The song suggests that what we watch on TV and read is not useful
What will we do when there's nothing left to read
The song suggests that there will be a time when there is no useful information left
And there's nothing left to need
The song suggests that consumerism may lead us to buy things we don't need
there's nothing left to watch
The song suggests that entertainment may become meaningless
there's nothing left to touch
The song suggests that there may be a time when our world is destroyed
there's nothing left to walk upon
The song suggests that our environment may become inhabitable
and nothing left to ponder on
The song suggests that there may be no meaning left in life
nothing left to see
The song suggests that the world may become destroyed and barren
and nothing left to be but garbage
The song suggests that if we continue on this path, everything will become waste
In Mr. Thompson's factory they're making plastic Christmas trees
The song criticizes the manufacturing of unnecessary products
Complete with silver tinsel and a geodesic stand
The product is designed to be visually appealing rather than useful
The plastic's mixed in giant vats, from some conglomeration that's
The materials used in the product may be harmful to the environment
been piped from deep within the Earth, or strip-mined from the land
The materials used in the product may be obtained through destructive means
And if you ask them questions they say "why don't you see?
The manufacturers may be hiding the harmful effects of their products
It's absolutely needed for the economy."
The song suggests that the economy is prioritized over environmental concerns
Their stocks and their bonds all garbage
The song suggests that the financial system is also flawed
What will they do when their system go to smash
The song suggests that the consequences of waste and consumerism are inevitable
there's no value to their cash
The song suggests that money may be meaningless in the end
there's no money to be made
The song suggests that the pursuit of wealth may lead to destruction
that there's a world to be repaid
The song suggests that we must address the damage we have caused to the world
their kids will read in history book
The song suggests that future generations will learn from our mistakes
about financiers and other crooks
The song suggests that the wealthy have caused environmental damage
and feudalism and slavery
The song suggests that there are other forms of exploitation besides environmental destruction
and nukes and all their knavery
The song suggests that nuclear weapons are also a threat to humanity
To history's dustbin they're consigned,
The song suggests that those who cause harm will be forgotten by history
along with many other kinds of garbage
The song compares societal issues and environmental waste to each other and suggests that they are equally destructive
Contributed by Thomas I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.