Song: If I had a Hammer; Writer/Singer: Peter, Paul and Mary
As a child I have grown up to the tunes of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Neil Diamond, Deep Purple… just to name a few. Everyone in my family was into music… all kinds of music – jazz, soul, rock, pop, Indian, western… whatever. Quite naturally, being the youngest, I picked up different tunes as I would leave one room and enter the next and never realized until much later how lucky I was to live in such a musically alive environment.
It was only when I went to school and then college that I discovered that there were actually people who had never danced to Aretha Franklin’s Respect or sung along with Simon & Garfunkel… it was unbelievable. But true. A lot of my peers were only tuned into the music of our times – the top 10 of the year. They’d sing and dance and make sure they had tapes and CDs of those singles and promptly after a month, when a new hit topped the charts, they’d switch loyalties just as easily.
That’s when I realized that not just was I lucky to have been exposed to all kinds of music from Kumar Gandharva to Bach to Frank Sinatra but also how rare it had become in recent years to score a big hit which was also a classic in the making. Songs today have barely a lifespan at all – for the most part, they all sound similar, indistinct, uninnovative and most importantly, dull in content. A song is something that goes beyond foot tapping and finger snapping. There is a whole body of words that makes a song and that body has a message to deliver. Bob Dylan would not be what he is if he had simply sung meaningless tunes – its what he said that mattered more than his nasal rendition of it. But today, there is no message or if there is one, it is so pretentious, that the basic element is completely lacking – that which makes it eternal. The title track of the film Chariots of Fire is etched in the memory of anyone who has seen the film – its unforgettable. That is an eternal piece of music. Presley’s Love me Tender and Jailhouse Rock can never be forgotten just as The Beatles cant ever really die. And the list is long but strangely, nearly all these artists and performers and composers lived a long time ago. Why speak of only western music – take even our own Indians – today we shudder to think of Indian classical music without Jasraj, Bhimsen Joshi and Zakir Hussain. We don’t know who would step into Bismillah Khan’s shoes. Kumar Gandharva left this world and since then none have come to take his place. Gulzar and Akhtar are the saving grace of an obscene bollywood…
And so I come back to the subject of being eternal – I feel a song or tune or melody from any genre of music cannot be lacking in substance if it wants its stamp of eternity. If we at least realize that that very substance is sorely lacking today, then perhaps we may be able to take the next step of trying to remedy this.
Here’s an old time favourite sung by Peter, Paul & Mary, a trio of folk singers from Greenwich Village who became legends early enough in their career and delivered some of the most amazing and utterly simple songs sung as ballads and folk tunes. They expressed their anguish and their aspirations through every song they wrote, delving into issues of gun violence and homelessness and the longing for peace and equality, brotherhood and love… they have given to this world songs of hope, freedom and all that makes man a better man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKB3PxG-0E
If I Had A Hammer
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 a 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 out danger, I’d ring out a 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 a warning
I’d sing out love between my brothers and my sisters,
all over this land.
Well I got a hammer, and I got a bell,
and I got a song to sing, all over this land.
It’s the hammer of Justice, it’s the bell of Freedom,
it’s the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
all over this land.
It’s the hammer of Justice, it’s the bell of Freedom,
it’s the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
all over this land.
