Give Peace A Chance

Possibilissimo che sia un gioco di parole, ma da tenere presente che, alla lettera, "popeye" vuol dire "occhio sporgente, occhio fuori dalle orbite" (in livornese si direbbe: "occhi spipati"). Comunque sia, ora do un'occhiata alla traduzione...e grazie per la dritta! [RV]

NB: Penso proprio che tu abbia ragione e provvedo a correggere la traduzione. Ho messo "papocchi" per riprodurre un po' il gioco di parole... [RV]

Intervista a Pete Seeger sull'uso di "Give Peace A Chance" durante la marcia contro la guerra nel Vietnam al Washington Monument, il 15 novembre 1969:

da Democracy Now



JON WIENER: Well, you know, Lennon wanted to — basically, Lennon is a musician, a songwriter, a performer. He wanted to write a song for the movement, and he did. It was "Give Peace a Chance." It did become the anthem of the anti-war movement. Half a million people sang "Give Peace a Chance" in a demonstration at the Washington Monument in the fall of 1969. Do we have time to listen to my interview with Pete Seeger, talking about what it was like that day?


PETE SEEGER: Well, in November 1969, I guess I faced the biggest audience I had ever faced in my entire life. Hundreds of thousands, how many, I don’t know, but it stretches as far as the eye can see, up the hillside and over the hill, past the Washington Monument. And Brother Kirkpatrick and I were singing together and tried to get them singing with us, but the crowd was too big to get the rhythm. After two songs, I looked over to the chairperson of the day, said, "Okay if we try one more?" and she nodded her head. And I said to Kirk, "Follow me on this."



He had only heard it once before, but I had, in the back of my mind, I might have to try it. I had only heard the song myself a few days before. And I confess, when I first heard it, I didn’t think much of it. I thought, 'Well, that's kind of a nothing of a song. It doesn’t go anyplace, does it?’ I heard a young woman sing it at the peace rally. "All we are saying is give peace a chance." She gave it a kind of an oom-pa-pa oom-pa-pa waltz, like a German band. I don’t know if John Lennon’s record had that or not. I never heard his record. As a matter of fact, I’ve hardly ever heard any of his records. I admired the guy, the little I heard. I had never heard this song, except as the young woman sang it to me a few days earlier.

JON WIENER: And did you have the impression that everybody who was there already knew it?

PETE SEEGER: I didn’t know if they had ever heard it before, but I decided to try singing it over and over again until they did know it. Well, Kirk and I started singing this, and after about a minute or so, I realized that it was still growing. Sure enough, Peter, Paul and Mary jumped up to our left and started joining in on another microphone and giving us a little more instrumental and harmony background. Couple of more minutes, Mitch Miller hops up on the stage to our right and starts waving his arms. And I realized it was getting better and better, as more and more people were able to latch onto it, because it was so slow.



And then, they started swaying their bodies in time, and banners and flags would sway to the left and right in a big slow ballet. If you can imagine several hundred thousands of people moving their bodies. Parents had their small children on their shoulders. And it was a tremendously moving thing to realize his song was finally getting through, where not a single other song of the day had really gotten people to join in on it.

JON WIENER: Pete, what do you think about the politics of "Give Peace a Chance"?

PETE SEEGER: Well, undoubtedly, some people wanted to say a lot more than that. On the other hand, history gets made when people come to the same conclusion from many different directions. And this song did hit a common denominator. There’s no doubt about it.