Long time passing in the dark backward and abysm of time

[pameladean]

In the piecemeal, inexpert, largely intuitive country that has been my lifelong experience of music, Pete Seeger is like William Shakespeare.  He's everywhere.  If you come at things from a strange angle, as I did and do, a common thread over the years is thinking, every once in a while, variations on,  "Oh, he wrote that.  And that.  Oh, that's a line from Pete Seeger.  He wrote THAT?  Really, wow."  When I listened to Bruce Springsteen's album of Pete Seeger's songs, I felt quite a lot like the person seeing Hamlet for the first time who exclaimed, "But it's full of cliches!" Only that possibly-fictional person was disappointed, while, to my great good fortune, I was delighted.

His testimony before HUAC, which you can read here -- http://www.peteseeger.net/HUAC.htm -- if you haven't already, takes place against a horrible background and has sinister overtones.  In this it is not unlike certain strands of Shakespearean comedy, where the actual practices of torture and the myriad imperfections of Elizabethan and Jacobean justice are lurking.  Reading the increased exasperation of the committee, I was uneasily aware of the horrors in the background, not to mention their offspring sliming around this country and the world to this day; but mostly I was laughing far too hard to attend to them for more than a moment at a time.

I hope the two of them are collaborating on a musical, that's all.

Pamela

Comments

[thinkum]

What a lovely thought, and a pairing that would not have occurred to me. :-)

[pameladean]

I think it's one of those views you get that only occur if you are standing in exactly the right place, and it falls apart if you move your right eye. Very teasing, those views.

P.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

When I listened to Bruce Springsteen's album of Pete Seeger's songs, I felt quite a lot like the person seeing Hamlet for the first time

A deft and delightful comparison. I think Pete would have been very honored.

[pameladean]

We can probably know what Pete Seeger thought of Shakespeare, but I'd really love to know the reverse.

P.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I think Shakespeare would have trouble believing Pete Seeger's sincerity, while Pete would make allowances for Shakespeare's courtly cynicism. It would be fun.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Sort of a Gilbert-and-Sullivan partnership?

[pameladean]

Bwahahaha! Very like, very like.

P.

[pameladean]

Huh, I thought I answered this, but I can't find the comment. I said yeah, it wouldn't be an easy collaboration; there would be a lot of eye-rolling.

P.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

But it would be hilarious. And productive because both of them were pros.

[pameladean]

Oh, yes, it would be roll-on-the-floor funny. And neither of them would take his marbles and go home.

P.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

That's such a wonderful idea it's really difficult to think of something to say about it!

[pameladean]

8-) I have very seldom seen you at a loss for words.

P.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Now I'm waiting for the story.

[pameladean]

I almost started to write it when I was answering Lucy's comment, but I feel a bit queasy about the idea. It's not Shakespeare who gives me pause, but Seeger. He hasn't faded into history yet.

P.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

True, he hasn't. But that hasn't stopped people from writing other contemporary figures into fiction, even when living.

[pameladean]

Indeed not, but it would stop me, perhaps unfortunately, perhaps not.

P.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Perhaps someday...

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

That's a nice concept! My first reaction: Hm.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the mor-or-ning
I'd hammer in the eve-ning, all over this la-and

Yeah, iambic pentameter.

It's a bit of a stretch, and a lot of the rest of the song can't be bashed to fit, but still.

[pameladean]

I replied to this, but put it on the wrong level.

P.

[pameladean]

Shakespeare got quite flexible with his scansion in the later plays. And sometimes people talk in different kinds of verse. Even if they didn't while he was alive, there's no reason he shouldn't decide to try it later.

P.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

The natural meters of English are iambic and trochaic, and Shakespeare uses both fairly freely. Plus he throws a couple of others in, I'd swear.

[pameladean]

Oh, I would too. There are bits in The Tempest or The Winter's Tale that I can't even begin to pin down.

P.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

and the rest of the songs are by Shel Silverstein.

If you're interested in the Second Great Red Scare, there's a movie you want to see. Someone edited the kinescopes of the Army-McCarthy hearings into a movie, Point of Order (http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/129151/).

[pameladean]

For some reason LJ flagged this comment as suspicious.

I'm not so much interested as horrified, but I have put the movie on one of my many lists.

I am afraid, however, that a three-way collaboration that included Silverstein would break something.

P.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare & Seeger. That's like Bialystock & Bloom, only more surreal.