I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Pete Seeger since he died. I took some time to wander back through my memories. I visited my childhood, listening to my parents sing “Where Have All the Flowers gone.” The soundtrack of my youth included Peter Paul and Mary’s version of his song “If I had a Hammer.”  At any significant gathering of family or friends my father could be found with his Banjo singing Pete’s version of “Hobo’s Lullaby.” The kids all knew if they were patient they’d get treated to my dad’s rendition of Pete’s story of the giant Abi Yoyo.

Pete once said in an interview “I lost my heart to the old-fashioned five-string banjo played mountain style.” That happened to me when I pulled open one of Pete’s LP’s I’d found in a dusty box somewhere and first heard him play East Virginia. I decided I had to learn the banjo. My dad loaned me his Seeger style long neck banjo and the banjo instruction book (by Pete Seeger) that he had used. It was the one where Pete included a section on cutting the neck on the banjo and whittling a new piece to insert so you could add three frets.

Over the years I’ve watched Pete sing with everyone, and listened to almost everyone singing his songs with him from all over the place. On his banjo he wrote “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”  He felt the boundaries we erect between us could be removed through music. He said “It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.” And he made that possible by giving us songs we could all sing together. He said “I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.”

Pete once said “I feel that my whole life is a contribution.” He lived according to that motto, giving the country he loved, the planet he loved, the human race that he loved, so much. Thinking of all this, I was keenly aware that for all these ways in which Pete had shaped and touched my life, I had never met him in person. That in fact, although Pete was gone from his body, he was still very much present in my life. Inspired by that, I wrote a song in memory of Pete Seeger, and everyone else… because I think Pete would like it that way.  Travel on Pete! And thanks for showing us the way!

Travel On

When I lay my body down
You won’t find me underground
Won’t be singing praises above
I’ll live on through those I love
Hallelujah! When I’m gone 
That’s how I will travel on.
Hallelujah! As I go
Back from the part into the whole.

When I lay my day to rest
I hope I have done my best
To give my heart to those in need
Like others did for me.
Hallelujah! When I’m gone 
That’s how I will travel on.
Hallelujah! As I go
Back from the part into the whole.

When I’ve said my last farewell
Here’s where I’m going to dwell
I will nestle like a dove
In the hearts of those I love. 
Hallelujah! When I’m gone 
That’s how I will travel on.
Hallelujah! Do your part
Hallelujah! As I go
Back from the part into the whole.

When I lay this body down
You won’t find me underground.
Won’t be missing when I’m gone
I’m going to travel on.

©2014 Otter Creek Music LLC, all rights reserved.

All my life I’ve harbored the not so secret aspiration of being a hobo. It goes right along with my love of the outdoors and trains and travel. I don’t know where I first picked up the desire, but in order to keep my wife, Mary, from pointing her finger at me I’ve given it considerable thought.  I initially assigned blame to the movie “The Journey of Natty Gann” which I saw when I was 12 or 13 (I mean, what’s cooler than riding the rails with a wolf at your side) but more often than not over the years I’ve blamed the banjo. I also blame the banjo for my love of boxcars, beans cooked in a can over a fire under a bridge, and the wild crazy idea I have of running all across the country to play music. There’s something about all those things that just seems to fit with the banjo. 

My introduction to the banjo came before I was born. My father was a folksinger, and although his professional performing days were mostly over before I came along, he often sang for family and friends (or more often just to please himself). Most of his songs he accompanied with the guitar, but when it came to homeless tramping or trains he generally pulled out the banjo. There were just a few of these songs but they seemed so perfectly suited for me. The plucky tone of the banjo, along with my father’s rich baritone spoke to me of letting go of attachments and fear, of letting the wind and the rain and the rails carry me far from home. They taught me of the wistful longing of lost innocence and the sweet lullaby of a long journey, and the wonder of belonging to the wide, wild, flabbergasting world we live in.  

Click to listen to a recording of my father singing “Hobo’s Lullaby”

That was a long time ago. I’ve had plenty of times in my life where I’ve done the opposite, where I tried to hide from my wild wandering self, times of fear and loneliness, denial, and clinging. I’ve fought change till my knuckles were bloody and I was exhausted.  But somehow, when the time came, I’ve always heard the sound of the banjo and the train as a summons to let go and move on.  I started playing the banjo at a time like that, a time where I was hanging on for dear life and at the same time afraid of where that life might take me.

My father wasn’t performing much anymore so he loaned me his banjo for a while when I said I wanted to learn. When I came back playing tunes he’d never heard before, he generously told me that since I could play it better than he could, maybe I better keep it. Doc Watson once told an interviewer that his first real instrument was a banjo his father made for him. Doc said “one day he brought it to me and put it in my hands and said, son, I want you to learn to play this thing real well… it might help you get through the world.” In a very real way, my dad did the same for me.

Over the years, I’ve generally kept the Banjo to myself more than my other instruments, I get it out when I’m feeling the wistful pull of the road, or when I’m feeling a little stuck, or need to connect with the wild untamed being I am inside. Recently I began teaching a beginning banjo class for the University of Utah. Although I’ve taught before, I was really struck while preparing lessons just how deep down the banjo was in my soul. I teased the members of the class that they should enter the novice division of the State Banjo Championship, and they in turn challenged me to enter the open division. It was something I’d never really considered too deeply before. I finally decided to give it a go. Knowing that my old-timey clawhammer pieces might not be quite what the judges were looking for I didn’t expect to win, but Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson had just died, and in some way, this was my way of letting them go. They are both on that last train over the River Jordan, and I guess, in that way all of us are just hobos passing through.