Big Joe Blues

I included Pete Seeger in my list of Ten Worst Americans almost twenty years ago, when I was still picking up this blogging thing.  I acknowledge that this seems unlikely and is likely colored by my worship of the man when I was a teenager. The disillusioned have a special hatred, perhaps.

But not Seeger, I guess.  Even while denouncing Stalin in 2007 by writing "Big Joe Blues" he was rather tepid about it, concluding that though he claimed he was bringing us to a new tomorrow, he ended up bringing us back to the same old place.  Sure, which of us hasn't killed millions of people, after all.  The problem was that Stalin was a disappointment. Michael Moynihan at Reason magazine does the takedown well, noting that even while apologising, Pete Seeger had to kick Christians and Americans and everyone else.

I can't find record of it ever being recorded. You can read the lyrics and read about it, but it seems that few people (if any) ever heard the song. If someone links to it being sung - by anyone - I'd be grateful. 

The Wikipedia article on Pete is a classic whitewash. The uncomfortable bits are included, so that everyone can pretend there's no censorship going on here.  But they are excused with mild words and swept into the corner, in order to get back to the real business of assuming the worst about his enemies and apologising for tyrants.

As I head out for my reunion, which will include daily music reminiscent of the time, I felt I should include where my musical head was at as I left on a bus for college, 12-string by my side. Yes, I had other luggage, but it got sent to Nashville by mistake, switched in DC, and I wore the same clothes for 3 days of August orientation in coastal Virginia. An inauspicious beginning, perhaps.