This song suits my mood tonight. I think perhaps it suits the state of our nation tonight. I have played this before, at least twice, and a total coincidence, but the last time I played it was on this exact date last year, following a mass shooting in Virginia Beach. Tonight, it isn’t a mass shooting, but it is a nation on fire that has my angst meter running at high speed. It makes that one line, “When will we ever learn?” all the more meaningful. I think, perhaps, the answer to that question is “Never”.
Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014)
Pete Seeger, who died in January 2014 at the age of 94, wrote this song, and the following is his story of how the song came to be:
“I had been reading a long novel—”And Quiet Flows the Don”—about the Don River in Russia and the Cossacks who lived along it in the 19th century. It describes the Cossack soldiers galloping off to join the Czar’s army, singing as they go. Three lines from a song are quoted in the book: ‘Where are the flowers? The girls plucked them / Where are the girls? They’re all married / Where are the men? They’re all in the army.’ I never got around to looking up the song, but I wrote down those three lines.
“Later, in an airplane, I was dozing, and it occurred to me that the line ‘long time passing’—which I had also written in a notebook—would sing well. Then I thought, ‘When will we ever learn.’ Suddenly, within 20 minutes, I had a song. There were just three verses. I Scotch-taped the song to a microphone and sang it at Oberlin College. This was in 1955.
“One of the students there had a summer job as a camp counselor. He took the song to the camp and sang it to the kids. It was very short. He gave it rhythm, which I hadn’t done. The kids played around with it, singing ‘Where have all the counselors gone? / Open curfew, everyone.’
“The counselor added two actual verses: ‘Where have all the soldiers gone? / Gone to graveyards every one / Where have all the graveyards gone? / Covered with flowers every one.’ Joe Hickerson is his name, and I give him 20 percent of the royalties. That song still brings in thousands of dollars from all around the world.”
The song has been recorded by many, including Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, Olivia Newton-John and even Dolly Parton, but the one that surprised me was Bernie Sanders! Yep, the one and only Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont apparently produced an album in 1987, 20 years before becoming a senator, titled We Shall Overcome. Who knew?
My favourite version of the song has always been Peter, Paul & Mary’s, but tonight I came across a version Seeger did sometime late in life, playing banjo and singing, and I found it moving. So, I am including both here, and you can pick one or listen to both. Or neither, I suppose, but then my feelings would be hurt, so listen to at least one, ‘k?
Where Have All the Flowers Gone
Pete Seeger/Peter, Paul & Mary
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
Songwriters: Peter Seeger
Where Have All the Flowers Gone lyrics © The Bicycle Music Company
So, how was your weekend? Do anything fun and exciting? Nah, me neither. I’m sorry there are fewer snacks on the table this morning, but hopefully you can find something to your liking, so grab a cuppa something and a bite, and let’s try to get this week off on the right foot … with a smile. 😊
Jack’s mother, Ru Andrade, said she knew her son was special ever since he was a young boy. When Rico was about to turn four, she asked him what he wanted for his birthday. While other boys his age might have asked for toys or a trip to Disneyland, Rico said he wanted to see the White House.
Any idea what it is? Turns out it is a cat with a heck of a lot of matted fur! Two pounds of matted fur, as it turned out. The Arizona Humane Society (AHS) received a call that the cat’s owner had died and the cat had nobody to care for her. Her name, appropriately enough, is Fluffer.
The team at the Humane Society removed some 2 pounds of matted fur, while Fluffer patiently cooperated. Says Bretta Nelson of the AHS …
This story has a happy ending, though. After Fluffer’s grooming, Fluffer was adopted and now lives with her new owners in her forever home.
“Let me tell you something, I am standing here because what I saw was my people face to face with this crowd and everybody’s thinking ‘how can we use force and diffuse this’ and I’m not having it. I’m not having that. You have a right to be upset, to be scared, and to want to yell. And we’re going to have everybody doing what they need to do and we’re going to do it safely. That’s my first commitment. And I hear you. I have heard from so many people that cannot sleep, they’re terrified, they’re crying, they’re worried for their children – there’s a problem.” 
The solutions to these problems will not happen overnight, and they will not happen at all as long as we have people in the upper echelons of our government who simply do not care. Until the very real concerns are taken seriously, until there are steps made toward real solutions, not band-aid fixes, the protests, riots, and violence will continue. In September 2016, San Francisco 49ers football player Colin Kaepernick chose to take a knee rather than stand for the national anthem. He was protesting the exact same thing the protesters today are protesting: police brutality and murder of black people. Yet, his very peaceful protest was met with derision, insults, and eventually loss of his job. Since then, police killings of blacks have continued and now people are tired, they are sick of protesting peacefully and nothing changes. Until this nation makes changes, there will be protests, some will be violent, some people will die. It’s a fact, not a speculation. I don’t condone the violence, but I do understand it and I fully support their cause.
In between, all around the country, journalists were harassed. In Louisville, a police officer shot pepper balls at a local TV reporter, Kaitlin Rust while in Denver, police fired paintballs and tear gas, hitting a news photographer and his camera. The seeds for these incidents were planted long ago, when Donald Trump declared the press the “enemy of the people”, but this is only the beginning, my friends. According to Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, the nonprofit organization devoted to free expression …
Donald Trump, in pulling out of WHO, is putting the entire world at risk, and for only one reason that I can see. He failed miserably at being a leader when the pandemic hit the U.S., and his failures have significantly reduced his approval rating … just a few short months before the November election. As is Trump’s way, he must find someone else to blame, and in this case it is WHO. He has turned the health and well-being of every person on the planet into a political tool to save his own carcass. Senator Chris Murphy says it well …
