R.I.P. Pete Seeger

in memoriam

During one joint appearance, Arlo Guthrie made reference to his friend and fellow folk musician Pete Seeger's penchant for encouraging the audience to sing along by quickly supplying them with the words in the few fleeting beats between lyrics.  To paraphrase Guthrie: "Pete's the only guy I know who can sing a song twice the first time through."

Somehow, it seems appropriate to reproduce here the lyrics to my favorite Pete Seeger recording.  It is a new-twist rendering of "Old-time Religion," performed at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1980.

(It opens with the chorus, as follows)

Give me that old-time religion.  Give me that old-time religion.
Give me that old-time religion.  It's good enough for me.

We will pray with Aphrodite.  We will pray with Aphrodite.
She wears that see-through nightie and it's good enough for me.

(chorus)

We will pray with Zarathustra.  We'll pray just like we use-ta.
I'm a Zarathustra booster and it's good enough for me.

(chorus)

We will pray with those Egyptians, build pyramids to put our crypts in,
cover subways with inscriptions, and it's good enough for me.

(chorus)

We will pray with those old Druids.  They drink fermented fluids,
waltzing naked through the woo-ids, and it's good enough for me.

(chorus)

We'll do dances to bring water, sacrifice animals for slaughter,
sacrifice our sons and daughters, and that's good enough for me.

(chorus)

I'll arise at early morning, when my Lord gives me the warning
that the Solar Age is dawning, and that's good enough for me.

(chorus; chorus)

So long, Pete.

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P.S.... Dan "To Everything There Is A Season: A Time To Be Hired,
A Time To Be Fired" Hicks must go.