BELLOWS FALLS — Folk-music icon Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary, will bring his signature blend of music and social activism to the Bellows Falls Opera House on Thursday, Dec. 8.
The 78-year-old musician caught up with Mark Piepkorn of WOOL in advance of the musician's visit with a wide-ranging discussion from the crossroads of artistic expression, political activism, and social justice.
“This man is still firmly planted in the activist folksinger garden, and I suspect we're all better off for it,” Piepkorn writes.
To listen to the full interview, visit www.mixcloud.com/monstersandhamsters/wool-fm-interview-peter-yarrow.
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Mark Piepkorn: I understand that in all your years you managed to never have visited the sprawling Bellows Falls metropolis.
Peter Yarrow: Tell me about Bellows Falls. I assume that there is a remarkable waterfall there. Is that the case?
M.P.: There is a nice waterfall. I don't know that I go to “remarkable.” It's very remarkable when the water's running high. There's a beautiful stone bridge over it. It's a former industrial town like so many little river towns in the Northeast. It's managed to save a lot of its architecture, and there are a lot of good people here.
P.Y.: That's wonderful. At this point in my life, I love playing at the small-town venues that are very precious to people and are kind of the center of town culture.
And particularly in this post-Trump-being-elected time with him being the president-elect. I've found in the concerts that I've done since he was elected there's a real bewilderment and fear on the part of the majority of people that are coming to the concerts.
They see the development of what is going on, and being able to sing the songs together like “Blowing in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer,” and reasserting the ethical and moral perspective that we have shared is very, very soothing and very helpful and very energizing, because a lot of people are just so dislodged.
As a folk singer, I'm not just saying, “OK, let's go back.” It's also a matter of moving forward.
I wrote “The Children Are Listening” in the midst of the Republican primary and I will sing it at the concert: The children are listening./If we say something cruel and harsh, they will do the same./The children are listening./If they grow up to be bullies, we'll have ourselves to blame.”
It is one of a few songs that I'm going to be doing that actually came out of this period, and for me I have found the audience is very grateful to hear. As well as “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “Blowing in the Wind,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
Not all political stuff. But when people in the audience sing together, they come together.
M.P.: I read a quote you said about your songs: “The songs invite participation. It's the difference between poetry and didactic writing. One tells you, 'This is it,' and the other says, 'Let's find this together.'”
P.Y.: And that's the whole nature of the community that creates the folk-music experience. It's not as if you're hearing a lecture and you walk out of there saying, “Hmm. That's interesting. I found those words moving or inspiring.” You're saying at the end of a folk concert, “I was part of creating an evening tonight.”
That means something very special to me. It is not terribly dissimilar from the kind of exchanges that went on in the march from Selma to Montgomery, at the March on Washington in 1963 where Peter, Paul and Mary sang “Blowing in the Wind” and “If I Had a Hammer.”
Everybody sang, and the sound that was created was a powerful sound that united people in their hearts to say we we will pursue this and this is something we will do together and we never wavered from that.
And as John Lewis said at the Selma–Montgomery March 50th anniversary where he spoke and I sang - we were the only two who were there at the original one - the civil rights movement without music would have been like a bird without wings.
The music was not just symbolic or entertaining, it was part and parcel of the energy that validated people's commitment to one another and brought them in this extraordinary long-term commitment to make the progress that has been made on many levels, because it's not only about civil rights.
The civil rights movement really signaled the beginning of contemporary America's understanding that if people stand together they can indeed change history.
And once we understood that, it was on to the anti-war movement, it was onto the women's movement, and now here, you know - Standing Rock!
While the world is sitting there looking at the realities of Trump and Trumpism and the people that he's gathered around him, something else is going on at Standing Rock that feels very much like the birth of the civil rights movement.
The vast majority of those people who voted for Trump either could not abide Hillary for reasons that I think (to consciously use a term) trumped up. I don't think it was just, I don't think she deserved it. I think she's like other people in politics - compromising, that is the nature of the political world - and I don't think she's perfect. But she is a good, dedicated, principled human being in my opinion.
But notwithstanding that, you're entitled to your opinion about her, but let's not hate each other. And let's not believe that Donald Trump is the paradigm of virtue. Let us not kid ourselves into thinking that he is anything other than a very skillful guy. A populist, and like many before him, who managed to acquire power through the generation of division and hatred.
So when you hear this song, “Lift Us Up,” you will hear not an oppositional song to anybody - just the assertion of who we are and what we are.
And that's what we need to do. Let's be proud of each other.
M.P.: You used the word “together” when we were talking earlier, and that's a powerful word especially in such a divided society where the center is not holding. Did you ever in a million years think that we were going to slide so far backward so quickly?
P.Y.: No, but that was really my myopia. I, as well as so many others, simply didn't understand the painful lives that were being lived by people.
That's what we're talking about. We're talking about a cry of pain that was neglected, and I was part of that neglect, and I didn't know about it, but I cannot continue to be so.
Instead of saying, “I can't deal with it. I'm going to some other country, moving away,” now is the time for us to gird our loins and work harder and commit ourselves to knowing that every gesture on our part to open our minds and our hearts across the divide is important.
And that's the line from “The Children Are Listening”: “When we attack each other we play the enemy's game and fail to see that across the line the suffering is much the same.”
One alteration, one way of dealing with the suffering is to find a scapegoat and hate them. And see if you can immobilize them and crush them, and that will satisfy your anger. That leads to fascism.
The other way is to correct the injustice. That's what we need to do for everybody. And we have to thank the Native Americans at Standing Rock and everybody that's supporting them for saying, “Hey, you know, we are the most comprehensively genocidally attacked people in the world. We are here to save the whole world, to respect the Earth so we can survive.”
M.P.: When you come to town, are you bringing -
P.Y.: - hope, joy, determination, heart, pain, empathy. That's what it is all about. That's what it's always been about.
It is a joyous process working to counter these very destructive forces, but it can be painful. You lose your friends, you see people injured. Just talking to my daughter, who came back from Standing Rock, she told me of a young woman who is going to lose her arm in all probability from a concussion grenade.
We've got to take ownership of what we're doing. We can't continue to do this.
Pete Seeger tells us in the song “If I Had a Hammer” that the big danger is that if we don't really pay attention, if we don't hammer out a warning, and if we don't ring out a danger, justice and freedom will disappear.
He then says, well, here's how you do it: the love between my brothers and my sisters.
It's as simple as that. If we care about each other, we will prevail. If we don't, it's not going to work.
M.P.: Peter, I called you a folk legend. How does that sit with you?
P.Y.: Well, you know, I'm not all that impressed. I'm an ordinary human being, except when I'm doing my thing, and then I get into a zone, I really do, like a chess player or a basketball player. My best angels are functioning, and I am able to do some things for which I am extraordinarily grateful to be a catalyst for people coming together and doing it through music.
But when I'm not doing that, I'm just like everybody else. The “legend” label is helpful in terms of pursuing one's objectives like doing good things in the world or selling albums, but otherwise, I don't walk around with a sense of you know, here I'm going to put on my tag, “Peter Yarrow, famous icon.”
Because there's so much artificial worship about success and fame, being an icon or a so-called legend interferes with ordinary human communication. It's neither here nor there. It's just for me a bother. Not that I'm not grateful for the acknowledgements that come in, because they allow me to move forward, but in personal terms - believe me, I could do without them.
M.P.: Peter, Paul and Mary got together in 1961. The debut album spent almost a year in the top 10 on Billboard, two years in the top 20, two million copies - not bad for a first effort.
P.Y.: Well, there was a time when folk music dominated the airwaves and album sales. And it was a time in which that music became the soundtrack of the activism with much of America that was coming of age at that time.
And of that I'm very proud of the part that Peter, Paul and Mary played.
M.P.: Do you have any parting words?
P.Y.: Well, when you come to the concert, know that we are in this together, that this concert will be in word and song, that if you disagree with the things that I'm saying I'm going to be eager to hear about what you have to say after the concert because I want to be educated about the other points of view about which I have been in ignorance.
This concert will be longer than most because I'm going to be doing more talking about things that I care about and my path in life.
Come and sing, almost every song I sing you'll be invited to sing. When I sing “Puff the Magic Dragon,” I'm going to invite the children on stage, and if there aren't enough chronological children I'll invite the adults on stage, I'll redefine the word “child” to 40 and younger, or 50 and younger, or 70 and younger, depending on the distribution of who's coming!
We'll sing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” remember Mary, and look at our hearts together and prepare to work towards reconstructing the good will in America.