Pete Seeger, “Living In the Country”

Here’s a lovely Seeger fingerpicker my dad likes to play, in honor of the late great singer-songwriter-activist. My mom used to put us to bed with Abiyoyo (and this Reading Rainbow clip is pretty fantastic) and “Home on the Range,” none of which are really on the same page as the political work that so defined his career, of course. From a 1971 Penthouse interview, via Max Linsky:

Penthouse: To accomplish this planned America, to change it into a more sympathetic society, won’t students and concerned people have to get inside the system rather than drop out?

Seeger: America is full of people trying to work from within the system, and I wish them the best. But I think some people can also work outside it. My guess is, looking at history, that this has always been so. Abraham Lincoln worked within the system. He did his best to try and abolish slavery. He didn’t get rid of racism, but he made a step forward. Only he could not have made that step forward, had it not been for a lot of people who worked outside the system-people like John Brown, who was considered an outlaw, Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists.

Penthouse: So there is a role that some can play outside the system, even antagonistic to it?

Seeger: Absolutely — that’s why I admire people like the Black Panthers, people like Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. I may not agree with them completely, but I admire them tremendously. Nowadays, I admire women struggling for women’s rights, women who are trying to figure out how women can be liberated while they still love men.

Seeger was 94. [Penthouse, New York Times]