If I Had a Hammer


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My brain is always forming "Non Sequiturs."
Therefore, this creation is dedicated to Wiley Miller.



After twenty-five years in the same parish, Father O'Malley was saying his farewells at his retirement dinner. An eminent member of the congregation - a leading politician - had been asked to make a presentation and a short speech, but was late arriving. So the priest took it upon himself to fill the time, and stood up to the microphone:

"I remember the first confession I heard here twenty-five years ago and it worried me as to what sort of place I'd come to... That first confession remains the worst I've ever heard. The chap confessed that he'd stolen a TV set from a neighbor and lied to the police when questioned, successfully blaming it on a local scallywag. He said that he'd stolen money from his parents and from his employer; that he'd had affairs with several of his friends' wives; that he'd taken hard drugs, and had slept with another woman and given her a disease.

You can imagine what I thought... However I'm pleased to say that as the days passed I soon realized that this sad fellow was a frightful exception and that this parish was indeed a wonderful place full of kind and decent people..."

At this point the politician arrived and apologized for being late, and keen to take the stage, he immediately stepped up to the microphone and pulled his speech from his pocket: "I'll always remember when Father O'Malley first came to our parish," said the politician, "In fact, I'm pretty certain that I was the first person in the parish that he heard in confession....."



Hell Has a Two Party System

A wordly, ruthless politician died and went to hell.   When he got there, he saw one sign that said Capitalist Hell, and another that said Socialist Hell.

In front of the Socialist Hell was an incredibly long line, while there was no-one in front of the Capitalist Hell.

So the politician asked the guard, "What do they do to you in Socialist Hell?"   "They boil you in oil, whip you, and then put you on the rack," the guard replied.   "And what do they do to you in Capitalist Hell?"   "The same exact thing," the guard answered.

"Then why is everybody in line for Socialist Hell?"

"Because in Socialist Hell, they're always out of oil, whips, and racks!"









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If I Had A Hammer

  • (Pete Seeger / Lee Hays)

    If I had a hammer I'd hammer in the morning
    I'd hammer in the evening all over this land
    I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out warning
    I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
    All over this land

    If I had a bell I'd ring it in the morning
    I'd ring it in the evening all over this land
    I'd ring our danger, I'd ring out warning
    I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
    All over this land

    If I had a song I'd sing it in the morning
    I'd sing it in the evening all over this land
    I'd sing out danger, I'd sing out warning
    I'd sing out love between my sisters and my brothers
    All over this land

    When I've got a hammer, and I've got a bell
    And I've got a song to sing all over this land
    It's a hammer of justice, it's a bell of freedom
    It's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters
    All over this land

    (as sung by Peter Paul & Mary)


Susanne´s Folksong-Notizen

  • [1980:] Lee Hays and I wrote Hammer in 1949. It was the very first song recorded by the Weavers. A collectors item. ("No one but collectors ever got it.") But nine years later a brand new group of singers, Peter, Paul and Mary, put it on every radio in the country. They rewrote my melody slightly, and most people nowadays sing it as they heard it on PPM's record. I made an interesting discovery, though: both versions can be sung at the same time, and they harmonize with each other. A moral there. (Notes Pete Seeger, 'Singalong')

  • [1980:] For the old-timers, the feeling [in the early days of People's Songs] was something on the order of a class reunion. At one of the first board of directors' meetings, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays entertained themselves by passing a sheet of paper back and forth, gleefully collaborating on the lyrics for "If I Had a Hammer ..." (Klein, Woody Guthrie 316)

  • [1985:] [Detailed story of Peekskill incident (see below, 1989) cf. Dunaway, Seeger 18ff.]

    [The right-wing magazine] 'Counterattack' and the FBI succeeded in blacklisting the Weavers, but If I Had A Hammer was unconquerable. The song had a specific radical message in 1952; when Seeger suggested the Weavers perform it on bookings, one of them answered, "Oh no. We can't get away with anything like that."

    "Why was it controversial?" Pete reflected. "In 1949 only 'Commies' used words like 'peace' and 'freedom'. ... The message was that we have got tools and that we are going to succeed. This is what a lot of spirituals say. We will overcome. I have a hammer. [...] No one could take these away." The Weavers never had the opportunity to make a hit of this - that honor fell to Peter, Paul and Mary - but they had the satisfaction of seeing that no edict and no committee could kill [the] song. (Dunaway, Seeger 157)

  • [1989:] It was becoming dangerous to be a performer if you were suspected of having left-wing views, and the following year Seeger and [Paul] Robeson faced their most dangerous concert of all. The venue was Peekskill, New York State, where on 4 September 1949 they both appeared at an outdoor show that turned into one of the most terrifying and violent events in the history of pop music.

    The concert had been planned for the previous month, when it was advertised in a Communist newspaper, but crowds had blocked the roads, beaten up some of the organizers, and it had to be called off. But the performers, and the Communist Party, decided that the show should still be held - this time on Labor Day. Supporters provided protection around the site, and the performance actually went ahead. Paul Robeson sang [...] Old Man River, and Seeger sang If I Had A Hammer.

    Fifteen years later (after first being revived by Peter, Paul and Mary) the song became a nightclub favourite, and the sing-along, Latin-tinged version by Trini Lopez sold 4 1/2 million copies around the world. In 1949 it was considered dangerously political, with highly controversial lyrics.

    Only when the concert was over did the trouble really start. The performers were ambushed as they left the show, for the residents had been whipped up into an anti-Communist fervour [...]. Seeger escaped, covered in glass, his car dented with rocks. (Denselow, Music 13)

  • [1993:] Peter, Paul and Mary [...] changed my melody of that song (and only then did it "take off".) (Seeger, Flowers 13)

    Us Weavers recorded it [...] in the fall of '49, for a microscopic label, Charter Records. Lee Hays used to say, "It was a collector's item - nobody but collectors ever bought it." A year later, when the Weavers were temporarily "on the charts", our manager wouldn't let us perform it. ("I'm trying to cool down the blacklisters; that song would encourage them.") But nine years later [Peter Paul and Mary] had a surprise hit with the song. [...]

    It was a young radical activist, Libby Frank, in 1952 who insisted on singing "my brothers and my sisters" instead of "all of my brothers". Lee resisted the change at first. "It doesn't ripple off the tongue as well. How about 'all of my siblings'?" He finally gave in. It was sung in Europe and elsewhere in the '50's, sometimes with variant melodies, sometimes with added verses [...]. Victor Jara, the great protest singer of Chile, made up a version in Spanish. (Seeger, Flowers 38)