If I Had a Hammer and a Sickle
Kerfuffling the Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome CD/DVD.
Pete Seeger did write folk songs, such as the American communist anthem, “If I Had a Hammer”. However that song is not on the new Bruce Springsteen album, that seems to give credit to Pete Seeger for traditional American folksongs that have been handed down through the years by hard-scrabble pioneers who loved their God and their country. As is de rigor for American communists, their political beliefs are easily compromised where the rubber meets the road - when fame and fortune are within their grasps. Pete Seeger managed to take these traditional American folksongs that now appear on Springsteen’s album and pass them off as his own creations. Some of these musical inspirations of both Seeger and Springsteen are well over a century old. With Bruce Springsteen indeed “We Shall Overcome” the Seeger sessions. Good on ya, Bruce. These songs belong not to Pete Seeger, but to the early Americans who lived them. Thanks Bruce Springsteen for the “double entendre” that is the title of your album: We Shall Overcome Pete Seegar.
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If you cared to read anything more in depth on Springsteen’s forays into folk music, it would become abundantly clear that he is well aware that Seeger is not the author, nor did he claim to be. Springsteen was simply paying tribute through songs, that in Springsteen’s folk consciousness (as well as many others’), Seeger was instrumental in creating whatever zeitgeist existed around them.
Comment by Freddie — April 14, 2007 @ 2:02 pm