Customer Reviews

Dangerous Songs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

JFK, Lyndon Johnson, The Establishment, The Vietnam War . . . Pete Seeger was a well-known artist/folksinger, his mother a composer of quality and renown. And when the era of hootenanny of the fifties and early sixties were gone, and Pete Seeger was no longer one of the Weavers, he challenged the American conscience with these "dangerous songs." And why dangerous? We must not forget that in an age of McCarthy and his witchhunts, people like Pete Seeger were in danger of being labeled communists and being persecuted whenever they gave a wake-up call to common sense, social responsibility and budding eco-awareness. One of the songs,DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI (thoughts are free) an adaptation of a song long used among German-speaking cultures (German, Austrian, Swiss, South Tirolean, German-speaking and -singing Jews) has been around since the 16th or 17thcentury (country or time of origin not entirely clear), needed only to be whistled or hummed to indicate to others that the whistler was a freedom-seeker.What a fine choice of a song to bring to the "silent majority" opposing war in general, and the Vietnam War in particular.

Pete's politics are hardly outdated. Anyone who thinks so never listened to "Dangerous Songs". making thr connection may be difficult for some and they are in the greatest danger.
Musically, they are as tuneful, musical, and provocative as all of Pete's performances. Buy It.

Pete Seeger, refuting the charge that political songs are somehow dangerous, notes that all songs are political; all songs have a message, and the degree to which we object to them depends on our own political position. He has a great line, something like, "To a four year old, a lullaby is propaganda."

Bought this album for just one song on it. Found I enjoyed several others, too. I was looking for "Draft Dodger Rag" - loved this song I heard back in the '60s. My gut tells me we are probably headed back to a draft system.