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# Songs can be a powerful tool for change
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/songs-can-be-a-powerful-tool-for-change/
- Published: 2008-02-25T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:23:08.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By BYJACKNEWORTH CHANNELSURFING*

OFTEN, AS I TURN OFF THE TELEVISION after hours of watching, I have this odd sensation that I’ve somehow lost some I.Q. A doctor friend, with whom I jog, refuses to have a TV and believes reading any book is more mentally stimulating than watching any television. He hasn’t seen “The Power of Song.”

This Wednesday, as part of the PBS American Masters series, KCET will present “The Power of Song,” a documentary about the incredible life and music of legendary folk singer/composer, Pete Seeger. Directed by three-time Emmy Award-winner Jim Brown, it’s as moving a 90 minutes as I’ve spent in a long time.

Seeger, who will be 89 this May, is a banjo-playing Johnny Appleseed of sorts whose entire life has been devoted to the notion that music could help make the world a better place. And there’s no question that Seeger’s songs and spirit have helped change this country during some of our darkest days.

Many of Seeger’s (“If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and “Turn, Turn, Turn,”) have been covered by numerous artists and have inspired audiences worldwide. His popularizing “We Shall Overcome” led to its becoming an anthem of the civil rights movement. (Seeger played the song for Martin Luther King Jr., and the rest, as they say, is history.) are contagious. He carries himself like a man half his age. During the opening Bob Dylan comments, “Nobody can get an audience to sing like Pete Seeger.” And moments later we see Seeger telling an audience, “I can’t hear you,” as he finishes the first chorus only to be drowned out by the time the third chorus comes around.

Seeger’s music has inspired legions of musicians just starting out. In the film we see tributes from Bob Dylan, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Tom Paxton, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Bonnie Raitt, and Bruce Springsteen who recently put out an album in Seeger’s honor, “The Seeger Sessions.”

With access to remarkable archival footage, old TV shows, home movies and the family photo album, Brown leads us through Seeger’s life and that of his wife of 62 years, Toshi, who is a saint in her own right. Their life was never easy for them as Seeger had powerful enemies. During the McCarthy era he was blacklist-ed and called before the House Un- American Activities Committee. (Looking back, even the name of that committee seems un-American.) HUAC demanded that Seeger name members of the Communist Party. In evoking not the fifth, but the First Amendment, he responded that his political beliefs were his own business, not theirs. Seeger was indicted for contempt of Congress. He was convicted in March 1961 and sentenced to a year in jail. But in May 1962 an appeals court overturned his conviction. Much damage, however, had already been done.

After his appearance before HUAC, his hugely popular folk group “The Weavers” suddenly disappeared from the playlists of radio stations. Seeger was deprived of his livelihood and reduced to performing at children’s concerts. It’s ironic, because even today, children are his favorite audiences. “It’s hard not to have hope in this world when you see their faces.”

Seeger would not be allowed on television for 17 years until the Smothers Brothers courageously broke the boycott. The film goes from the depths of the blacklist to an emotional Kennedy Center honor presented to him by a beaming Bill Clinton.

The irony of the political attacks against Seeger was that he had always seen himself as “more conservative than Goldwater.” He just wanted to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other. He and Toshi reside in upstate New York, on a bluff above the Hudson River. Seeger built the log cabin with his own hands. At least in the beginnings, it didn’t have running water or electricity and yet he and Toshi managed to raise three children. (Did I mention Toshi is a saint?) Years later Seeger and some friends built an old-fashioned sailboat, Clearwater. By calling attention to the polluted disaster the Hudson had become, Seeger would spearhead a successful drive to clean it up, something thought impossible. As Arlo Guthrie says, “When Pete makes up his mind, nothing’s impossible.”

Seeger’s music is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago because, sadly, the causes he fought for are still unresolved. But Seeger is ever hopeful. He says of the joyful banjo, “It surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” The same could be said of his life.

“The Power of Song” airs on KCET, Wednesday at 9 p.m. Now I have to figure out how, after our jog, I can steer my doctor friend in front of a television.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 25, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)