Music Review: Pete Seeger, At 89

By Steve Morley

During his nearly 70-year career, folk music legend Pete Seeger has made the once-unthinkable transition from blacklisted Communist sympathizer to American musical treasure, writing songs like “This Land is Your Land” and “If I Had a Hammer.” Along the way, he helped spearhead the 1950s folk music revival and the subsequent protest song movement, cementing his status as a socially conscious voice of popular music. His latest collection, At 89, demonstrates that Seeger’s life story is still unfolding.

The 32-track collection spans nearly 60 years of music-making—more, if you count Seeger’s adaptations of traditional songs and older compositions from all over the world. “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena,” an Israeli folk song that Seeger helped adapt into a version incorporating Hebrew, English and Arabic, demonstrates his use of music to encourage unity between ethnic groups. More typical are the sing-alongs based on Seeger’s belief in the power of community to create social change. (“There’s no more Hudson fishing, not for a long, long time/ The poison’s in the riverbed, no matter whose the crime/ But how are we gonna save tomorrow?”)

Seeger’s own efforts to restore the industrially polluted Hudson River inform a cluster of tracks, while “If It Can’t Be Reduced” puts music to a 2007 Berkeley, California zero-waste proposal. (“If it can’t be reduced/ Reused, repaired/ Rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted/ Then it should be/ Restricted, redesigned/ Or removed/ From production.”)

“Or Else,” which denounces the prioritization of military funding over items like public health and improved education, uses disarming wit to hit its intended target: (“Our school will get the money it needs for smaller classes/ And the Navy will hold a bake sale to build a battleship.”)

The tone turns grim on his pointed protest of America’s Vietnam War involvement, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.” With its key line “the big fool said to push on,” the 42-year-old song could easily stir controversy regarding the U.S. presence in Iraq, which just might be why Seeger re-recorded it.

The folksinger’s radical past still echoes in his outspoken and liberal politics, but the album’s broad approach affords a softer, more rounded view of the man that mainstream America once considered subversive. On “False From True,” Seeger admits his limitations while affirming that truth-seeking is a lifelong mission. (“When I found tarnish on some of my brightest dreams/ When some folks I’d trusted turned out not quite like they seemed/ Then I got to start the job of separating false from true...”)

Once a self-described atheist, Seeger now includes elements of the divine in songs like “Arrange and Rearrange,” which offers prayers for the world as well as for his beloved, syrup-bearing maple tree. More characteristically, he points to the Creator’s intelligent design as a reason why we need to get about the business of creating change. (“God only knows what the future will be/ But God gave us brains/ He meant us to use ‘em”)

Though some may consider his brand of spirituality unorthodox, even most Christian believers would likely find common ground in the compassionate lyrics to “We Will Love or We Will Perish,” sung to the tune of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” (“We will love or we will perish/ We will learn the rainbow to cherish/ Dare to struggle, dare to danger/ Dare to touch the hand of a stranger.”)

On the sweet and salty mixture assembled for At 89, Pete Seeger proves that his body of work is not only capable of cutting across political and theological lines, but that age has only sharpened his axe.

Audio Clips

"False from True"

"Now We Sit Us Down"

"Visions of Children"

"Wonderful Friends"