there are a few mother songs, mothers proud that you're in uniform, sonny, that sort of thing, that unfortunately has not survived. the songs are -- the love songs of the war are largely about a couple, whether married or no separated. so the emotions of warfare, in song, are -- in the love songs, and you'll see this a little bit later, are about separation, parting, loneliness, longing, the hope of return. you find those in the love songs of world war i, and you find them in the love songs of world war ii. and those three wars, civil, i and ii, are really the wars where there is a large body of songs, because there was a accepts of the nation engaged, that there was not certainly in the wars since world war ii. there aren't a lot of songs about korea.

and i'm not being snotty. it was a different kind of war. the people were not engaged by it. in vietnam, you had some songs, but they're songs in which two groups are warring with one another. give peace a chance, and what's the -- i'm an oaky from ma skokie. iraq and afghanistan don't produce a lot of songs. again, because in a way they were invisible, and in a way, we know about them, we're not as a nation engaged in it. we don't have a citizen army anymore. that gets in the way of that. so in world war i, you have a mix. really, in the middle between the two wars, and it shows. there were songs about mom, and there were songs about sweetie. soldiers singing i'm going to pin the medal on the girl i left

behind, in world war i. there are other differences between world war i and world war ii, love songs that i'll save for a few minutes. but it's the mother song that i want to get to. again, it's the idea of staying out of it, delivering a kind of anthem, in the way that the first song is an anthem, and yet also capitalizing on the kind of direct emotionalism that popular songs are good at. and it's called "i didn't raise my boy to be a soldier." no, mothers didn't raise their children -- let's all march in favor of mothers who oppose the war. but i didn't raise my son to be a soldier. listen to the words, and you have them. i don't vouch for their accuracy. i took them off the internet and

i confess i didn't do a meticulous check between the recording and the lyrics. but they're close. wrong song, sorry. oh, i just screwed it up. stay with me. i should not be allowed near technology. >> 3,000 miles from home, an american army is fighting for you. everything you hold worthwhile, a win against the enemy we are fighting.

evoking the spirit of our forefathers, the army asks your support for the high ideals for which america stands, may endure upon the earth. >> that's pershing. ♪ ♪ ♪ a million soldiers to the war have gone ♪ ♪ who may never return again ♪ a million mothers' hearts must break for those who have died in vain ♪ ♪ it is in sorrow in her lonely years ♪ ♪ i heard a mother murmur through her tears ♪

♪ i didn't raise my boy to be a soldier ♪ ♪ i brought him up to be my pride and joy ♪ ♪ and to place a musket on his shoulder ♪ ♪ to shoot some other mother's darling boy ♪ ♪ it's time to lay the sword and run away ♪ ♪ there would be no war today if mothers are would say ♪ ♪ i didn't raise my boy to be a soldier ♪ >> okay. there had been, as you know, a great wave of immigration into the country, beginning in the years after the civil war. people not from ireland, and scotland, and england, but people from different parts of

europe. and there was a certain amount of resistance to them, as you know. there was a rise in nativism, what we came to call nativism, as people began to arrive. they were russians, and they were italians and they were poles and jews and romanians. and they weren't like us. over the next 50 years, they changed what "us" means. but it obviously was a great struggle. there had also in the years leading up to the war been an increase in immigration from germany. there were a lot more new americans who were of german extraction, had been born in germany, and came here. and so here you've got all these people from all these different countries, who haven't been here that long, and on top of it all,

you've got all these people from germany for crying out loud, were they going to fight for america. and of course, nobody knew the answer. they needn't have worried. they came here because they wanted to come here and they joined up and they fought. but it was still an open question. and so irving berlin wrote a song aimed -- in 1916 aimed specifically at this audience. because the tide was turning. there was a sense, increasingly, that america was siding with the allies. that we were more interested in taking the side of england than germany. because, again, at the beginning, the main feeling was, let's not get involved with these people, let's stay out. and so there was no sense -- and

the special relationship that we have forged, in quotes, that we have forged with the english, didn't exist. this came after world war i. so it was tricky. it was tricky. and so berlin writes this song, because he thinks he knows what we ought to be doing. and he sees where the country is beginning to go. and he wants to make sure that the new immigrants will be americans. i'll have to change the track, give me one minute. wrong track, sorry. i really should have someone doing this for me. i'm going to waste a lot of my time and yours fooling around with it. but you can edit it out, right? >> would you like some help? >> yes, i would. try three and see -- no, try

three and see what we get. okay. let it play. ♪ ♪ what's that tune i hear ♪ ringing in my ear ♪ come on along ♪ come on along ♪ it's a wonderful idea >> i made a mistake. i'll fix it. ♪ from down in dixie land ♪ ♪ he's going over there to do his share ♪ ♪ when alexander takes him ragtime band to france ♪ ♪ he'll capture everyone ♪ and take them one by one ♪ the ragtime tunes will put the

germans in a trance ♪ ♪ they'll sing hip hip hooray ♪ they'll get so excited they'll come over the top ♪ ♪ two steps back to berlin with a hip and a hop ♪ ♪ hitler will know ♪ when alexander takes his ragtime band to france ♪ >> now, i came in here and rehearsed. so imagine how bad it would be if i hadn't rehearsed. that song obviously comes once we've gone into the war. let me fill in the pieces broadly, and then as the songs come up, i'll place them for

you. we get -- that berlin song called "let's all be americans now" which comes soon after a group of songs that were in response to a specific incident. that is what really galvanizes american patriotism. what really galvanizes american support for the allies, you know what the event was? the sinking of the lusitania. in the months after the sinking, there are dozens of songs about the sinking of the lusitania. all of which have the same basic point of view. it was a dastardly thing to do. they were heartless and cruel, and we need to get back. and so those songs -- you know, whether the songs are shaping public opinion or responding to public opinion, is hard to know.

because they come out over a series of months. my best guess is that both were happening. but clearly -- but the sinking of the lusitania, everything changes, and now it's just a matter of getting to the war. and then the events occur. tensions build. and in we go. the song you just listened to is one of the series of songs about alexander, that go back to 1911. are you with me on that one? what are we talking about? what's the important one? alexander's ragtime band. which irving berlin wrote in 1911, four years after he became a songwriter. which he stumbled into. it was one of the great serendipitous moments in

american history. he was working in a tough bar in chinatown, and ended up being told to write a song lyric. it's a whole story. but he did. and realized he could make a few bucks at it. he owned 38 cents in royalties on that first song. the main thing is, he learned if he could do it, he could make money. the goal at the beginning was to make $25 a week. so he didn't have to sleep in alleys and flop houses anymore. the song was so popular, that it sold 1 million copies in 1911, at a time when that was very unusual. and then sold another 1 million copies in 1912. and berlin basically never had to work again. but obviously he did. the song was so popular, that a number of other songwriters wrote about a character named alexander that fed off alexander's ragtime band.

and even into world war i, when there was a comic song called "when alexander takes his ragtime band to france. and if you were listening to -- or reading the words, you heard the lyric tell you that all that had to happen was for the band to play a two-step, a ragtime song that we used to dance to, ragtime. a two-step was a dance. one step and two-step was the way you danced to ragtime songs. and they would jump up out of their trenches and go cake walking back to germany. if we took alexander's ragtime band to france, the war would be over. now, that's a joke, obviously.

whether you find it funny, whether i find it funny is not the point, it was a joke in 1917. it also reflects the attitude toward that war as we left home to do -- what? to teach the kaiser a lesson. that is, we had never fought in a european war before. we really had a sanitized view of what it would -- of what trench warfare would be like. we had no idea. we knew that there was hoarding in this country. there was a story called the demon has bought up all the coal. people were hoarding. there were songs about the so-called butchery of belgium by the germans, was to a significant degree propaganda. their behavior was not as bad as it was said to be.

and so we were going off there to show kaiser bill who the dough boys were. and of course, we got bloodied fast. but you hear that optimism. you hear that sense of ease. we'll just go over there and dance around a little bit, slap kaiser a little bit and come home. the song is not only a comic take on war, which every war has produced. even world war ii which is the war that had the fewest comic songs. we seem to take world war ii more seriously. but the civil war gave us songs, and world war ii gave us, oh, how i hate to get up in the morning. but there were a lot of them in world war ii. let's play the next song. >> track four? >> what did we do last time? three? then it's four.

boy, are you hired. ♪ ♪ johnny get your gun ♪ get your gun, get your gun ♪ take it on the run, on the run, on the run ♪ ♪ here them calling you and me ♪ everyone ♪ go right away, no delays on the day ♪ ♪ make your daddy glad to have had such a lad ♪ ♪ tell your sweetheart good-bye ♪ ♪ over there ♪ over there ♪ send the word send the word over there ♪ ♪ that the yanks are coming ♪ the yanks are coming ♪ the drums are drumming everywhere ♪ ♪ go prepare ♪ say your prayer

♪ send the word, send the word to beware ♪ ♪ we'll be coming over ♪ and we won't come back till it's over over there ♪ >> you all know that. when george m. cohan heard that war had been declared, he went home, and he locked himself in his study. he had a study in the house. and he remained there through the rest of that day, and overnight. and when he came out, he gathered the family. his wife and his children. and he made them sit on the sofa in the living room and chairs, as if they were in the theater. and he went into the kitchen, and he got a broom, and he got a big tin pot. and he put the tin pot on his

head. and he marched back and forth singing "over there." it was the song's first performance. that is, he wrote it as an impassioned patriotic response to the declaration of war. and that was a typical cohan sort of thing. he wore his irish -- he was irish, he was new york, and he was american. and he wore all three on his sleeve. and never flinched from any of them. the songs that he wrote certainly captured the spirit of that time. i'm a yankee doodle boy, and give my regards to broadway, you're a grand old flag, which he originally wrote as you're a grand old rag. because he was thinking about the flag in warfare.

and how it would be torn and tattered. and so it was a way of praising the flag and those who bore it. but the american legion went crazy. so just to shut them up, he changed it to you're a grand old flag. the song is pure cohan. now, when it was time to record it soon after, did anything surprise you about that recording? it might not have been what you had predicted. it was sung by a woman. it was nora bays. she was a great star of both the broadway stage and vaudeville in the early years of the 20th century. she had four husbands. one of whom was jack norworth, who was a vaudevillian and appeared with her, and who wrote with composer albert von

tillser, take me out to the ball game, and who wrote with her, although he did most of the writing, a song called "shine on harvest moon." she was tough. when she caught him in a dalliance -- isn't that nice, a dalliance?,> with a chorus girl, she threatened to leave him. and he begged to be forgiven. begged her to stay. and she agreed. but she exacted punishment in ar way that only someone in show business would truly appreciate. you know, they used to have the placards to each side of the stage announcing the act in vaudeville. you all know what i'm talking about? and it used to say, nora bays, and jack norworth. now it said, nora bays, ably assisted by jack norworth. so she stayed, i guess until he

fooled around again and then she dumped him. her signature song was, has anybody here seen kelly? and she had that lovely irish name. except her real name was 2:éñila goldberg. by the turn of the century, it had become an advantage, at least on the stage, in the theater, to have an irish name. obviously you know that it was common for people in the entertainment business to change their names for many, many years. okay. and he picked nora bays because she had a voice, he said, like a

trumpet. it's hard to hear in the old recordings, but she does cut through all the noise. if you're looking for a reference point, think kate smith. she had a voice like a trumpet. if kate smith did not want to be silenced, if she wanted to be heard by everybody in the room, she would be. nora bays had that kind of a voice. and so he picked her, that clarion voice, to sing his marshal anthem. so it's one of the few songs from the war we still do sing today. it's probably america's greatest marshal patriotic song. okay. let's hear the next song. i want to play you one more comic song. i was going to play the most famous of all the comic songs from world war i, and it's the best of them. it's a brilliant song. it's called "oh, how i hate to get up in the morning."

but you all know that. and you've all heard it a thousand times, and if you want to hear it, you can go home and listen, get the movie out of the library or buy it at turner classic movies for ten bucks. so hearing irvin berlin, seeing irving berlin in his uniform, singing, "oh, how i hate to get up in the morning," and keeping time like this as he sings. but this is another song as life in world war i. also, a comic song that i thought you might enjoy hearing for a change. ♪ listen, laddie to your daddy ♪ ♪ just for once and all ♪ too many gals have set your

brain awhirl ♪ ♪ you're to clamor, you will never be a general grant ♪ ♪ i should worry, i'm not sorry, daddy if i can ♪ ♪ would you rather be a colonel with a girl on your arm ♪ ♪ or a private number 723 ♪ now, i can't help that all the ladies go crazy over me ♪ ♪ if you're to see what i mean ♪ it's the soldier that you see ♪ ♪ wa you rather be a colonel with an eagle on your arm ♪ ♪ or a private with a chicken on your team ♪ >> do you all understand the

joke about a colonel? what is the insignia of a colonel in the army? he wears an eagle. and so the soldier says to his -- would you rather be a colonel with an eagle on your shoulder, or a private with a chicken on your knee? a joke. you see how humor changes over a century. there were comic songs, there were marshal songs. but the songs that were most effective, most affecting as always were the love songs. again, because they're going to be songs of parting. one of the -- and of separation and of longing. one of the differences between the songs of world war i and the songs of world war ii reflect the change -- reflect the change

in the way we wrote songs which reflects social attitudes. that is, up until roughly 1930, songs are largely about behavior. let's go out and take a ride in my car. let's take a walk. i'm paddling home. come home with me lucille in my merry oldsmobile. we're doing things. and the outside world is as real as whatever i feel for you. that is, it's not only -- they're not only about how deeply i feel, but they keep away from the trap of uniqueness. no one's ever felt the way i feel today.

that's nonsense. we've all felt that way. we all felt that no one had felt that way before. it's called young love. and it's something that adults look at with fondness and mockery. right? because they remember their own feelings, and they remember how foolish they were. i mean, when my first girl dumped me, my parents were saints. they didn't kill me. i mean, i was a walking wound for months. especially when you think about why she dumped me. he had a car. and i was heartbroken. but here i am. it's a tribute to my capacity to something or other. the songs of the -- of world war i, because of when in the century they come, are as much

about behavior as they are about feeling. i'm going to pin my medal on the girl i left behind. as opposed to a song like, i walk alone in world war ii, which is about walking, but is really about the feelings as you walk. the walking is -- the key word there is not walk, it's alone, and what that opens up in terms of emotion. and memory. so the songs of world war i, while they're about the same emotions, they try to call on the same emotions, are much more outward, much more overt, much less reflective, much less inward looking, for the most part. for the most part. it's a matter of degree, obviously.

in 1917, this song was published and became the most popular love song of world war i, and i'm glad to say it's one of the few songs from the war we do still know. can we listen? ♪ smoet ♪ smile a while ♪ you kissed me sad and blue ♪ while the clouds roll by i'll come to you ♪ ♪ then the skies will seem more

blue darling lovers' lane my dear ♪ ♪ wedding bells will ring so merrily every tear will be a memory ♪ ♪ so wait and pray each night for me till we meet again ♪ >> lovely song, isn't it? the composer is richard a. whiting who went on to become a major composer in 1930s movies,

his lyricist was a minor but professional lyricist raymond who he wrote his songs with whiting. whiting died quite young. died in his early '50s but wrote with some giants when he got to hollywood. the story goes that they were -- whiting is also margaret whiting's father. the story is whiting and egan were work for the gentlewomen remick company, which is one of the major music publishers. they were working in the detroit office. they had not gotten to new york yet. it's a contest in detroit for the best world war i song, there was going to be a competition and they would be performed and

there would be a prize. and remick wanted to win the competition. it would help sell the song when he published it. he told whiting and egan to get going. they stayed late at the office and pounded out a pretty simple waltz and worked on it until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. before they finished it and they were pretty well pooped. egan said, i'll see you in the morning, and he left. just to put the icing on it, whiting played it for himself one more time and said, for a world war i song, this is much too simple and sweet. he crumpled it up and threw it in the waste basket and he went home. this is going to sound like a bad movie, but it's a true story.

he slept in the next morning, as you would expect, he didn't get home until 3:30 or so. the boss' secretary comes in the next morning and she sees some crumpled up paper, music paper with notes in the waste basket. she is curious. she knows who was there when she left the day before. she pulls it out and she can play piano and she plays it. that's nice. she takes it into the boss and plays it for him. he says, that's wonderful. we're going to publish it. but don't tell the boys. we'll surprise them. then he said, oh, yes, what's the title? she looks at the piece of paper and said, they're calling it "auf weiterstein" my god, we

can't have a german title. what does it mean? she says, ta-dum, till we meet again. they won the contest it was the most loved and popular ballad of the world war i years. roses of pickardy was a world war i song until you get into the song we don't even know there are always songs that don't appear to be love songs, they're about -- somewhere in the third chorus somebody will mention a girl's name or the way i love you, and keep going, there's a passing reference so it still qualifies as a love song. in the third chorus of one of the most popular songs of the war, of the war years, you find

out it's a world war i song. that's "katie" the stuttering song. there were lots of stuttering songs, did you know that and spelling songs. during prohibition, irving berlin wrote "i'll see you in c-u-b-a" because cuba was only 90 miles offshore and you could drink there, and they ran boats from florida to cuba. lots of spelling songs, and stuttering songs, attitudes change. "you tell her i stutter." i want to tell her i love her, but i can't get it out, so i'm giving my friend, you tell her, i stutter. "katie" was the most famous of the stuttering songs. the love songs and notice too

that this song like so many love songs during war, it happens in songs not about war, but especially in war, you look to the future. you anticipate the return. the love songs, because the love songs of world war ii are more internalized, more reflective. because all the songs of world war ii are love songs, there are many fewer of these other kinds. songs like don't get around much any more from 1942 could not have been written in '45. the song like kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again has been a long long time from '45, could not have been written in '42. that is attitudes that we learned from the way things were going in the war affected the love songs.

that's not as true in world war i about the love songs. it is true about the body of song. so we have, we thank you, mr. wilson. i didn't raise my boy to be a soldier and "over there." you can see the way attitudes change, but they're not limited to love songs. >> when the war ended, world war i songs continue, but they change almost over night. suddenly we're not going off to france, we're coming home from france. and we're coming home to a different country. we don't know that yet obviously it takes us a while to figure that out. we're coming home changes we have seven million dough boys who have had furloughs in paris. i'll let you sort that out for yourselves they've seen the world in ways that skemtd for a

tiny percentage of the population, the elite of the gilded age have not seen a war. my wife says she wish she had been born in the gilded age so she could wear those clothes. i said you better had been born rich or you'll end up on a phone graph by jacob reese. it was gilded age people who went to europe. they were in the good deck on the "titanic." everything worked out for them. the sense of people being changed, returning to a nation changed, begins to appear in our songs in 1919 which is really where you get the last of the

world war one songs. what's interesting about this song is that the perception of change does not come from the young man himself. it comes from his father who is a farmer. that is, unsophisticated not urban, lives out in the boneys somewhere raising whan it is they are raising on the farm. he gets it. he gets it. let's hear the next song. ♪ ♪ how you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen paris ♪ ♪ how you gonna keep them away from broadway ♪ jazzing around ♪ painting the town ♪ how you gonna keep them away from harm ♪ ♪ that's a mystery

♪ imagine rubin when he meets his pa holler ooh-la-la ♪ ♪ how you gonna keep them down on the farm ♪ ♪ after they've seen paris >> that was eddie cantor. the verse of that song says ma and pa are talking and this is what pa says to ma. she wants to welcome junior home, and she's so happy he's coming home. pa, who's wiser and recognizes some things happen says, how are you going to keep them down on the farm. there's another comic song from 1919 about a soldier who comes home and goes back to work in his father's factory running the factory for his father and his captain comes looking for a job. it's a song of comic revenge. there's one other comic song

from 1919. an irish couple goes down to washington square to watch the troops march up fifth avenue when pershing brings the aef home. they're as proud as they can be, look, they were all out of step but jim. there's an irony to all this. among the great changes that led into the 20s were not only changes that resulted in greater freedom, which is what we associate with the 20s. freedom going over into license in terms of personal habits largely. margaret sanger brought the first diaphragm, smuggled the

first diaphragm into the united states in 1916. and in the '20s diaphragm's became available to women. this is not a matter of technology. this is technology which creates the possibility and then the reality of major social changes. the spread of the automobile also affects sexual behavior. we now have lover's lanes. movies, teach generations of us how to kiss. kids used to practice. you used to go to the movies and the girls would practice kissing. it was not that they were lesbians, they were learning how to kiss by watching whoever, mary pickford or -- not mary, she wouldn't. the others. the vamp, what was her name?

>> theda bara. you get these songs that reflect this change, at the same time, there's something going on that restricts out freedom. the dough boys come home and find they're not even free to take a drink. we treat prohibition with contempt i thought i would end by having you hear a song from prohibition. 1919, 1920 and 1921 you get the prohibition songs. after that we've absorbed it, we know what it is, it's not interesting. although, when prohibition gets repealed in the '30s, there's songs that talk about how good

it is to be able to drink again. the real songs are in these few years between '19 and '21. this is one of them, even though at first you don't think it is. it's called bimini bay. ♪

♪ ♪ there's a shady nook by a sunny brooke where the green river flows ♪ there we'll spend our days and try to raise tom and jerry's ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ each night we'll sample our private stock ♪ ♪ won't you come with me down to bimini bay ♪ >> okay. prohibition song. i only know one prohibition song that disapproves, and even there it does it comically.

you don't need the wine to have a wonderful time while they've still got the beautiful girls. obviously, we soon grow disenchanted with the peace, we turn our backs on the rest of the world, and you get the roaring '20s. the first time in american life when pleasure becomes an end to itself. the puritan effort is set aside. a five-year span that begins by affirming traditional american isolationism as an image of our uniqueness, ends with an old order dead and a new one not yet formed. there are many ways to look back at those years, obviously. i would suggest to you that none gives us a better mirror of how we felt and how those attitudes

changed in the face of new and troubling experiences than the songs we sang as we marched off to war and then a changed people marched back home again. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> we will answer your questions for a couple minutes. >> is there a pete seger or bob dylan of world war i or because there is no market for songs about reality? >> if there was, how would we have found him and how would he he have found us? remember that in the teens it was mainly still a sheet music business. recordings begin to oust --

recordings of individual songs begin to outsell the sheet music of that song in the 1920s. so in the teens it would have been enormously difficult. you also now are getting distribution, you're getting roads, trucks and so things are beginning to happen to get the songs around but i don't -- i mean, obviously there was folk music, people were singing in hollers of west virginia. i should tell you my concentration is on the commercial popular song rather than on folk music or country music. so i assume they were out there. when did the carters begin with that radio station down in new mexico? anyone know? that was in the late '20s

probably, that would have been a decade later, they were really formative. jimmy rogers is later so the formative people need radio. >> did the british songs make it here at all early in the war? just temporary? >> yeah, they did, just as they did in world war ii. we'll meet again and the nightingales sang. they don't sway it as the shift is on, it joins it, but it's not deeply influential, it's more our songs that reflect our attitudes. again, the fulcrum is loose. >> you mentioned there were not many comic songs in world war ii. >> right. >> i remember my mom in the '40s playing "in the furor's face."

>> yes, that was one of them. absolutely. which was a notable hit at the same time as "mares eat oats." you know what macon said about the american people. no one ever underestimated the taste of the american people. and the song like "mares eat oats" goes to prove it. there were some and the soldiers had very baudy songs they made up. but again, that's not where i'm focusing. so there were some, but in world war ii, the sheer number of love songs -- and by the way, the war information -- the office of war information, world war ii, that's the propaganda arm of the government, wanted the songwriters to stop writing love songs for the duration. they wanted them to write only

patriotic songs, and the music publishers and the songwriters said, well, okay, we want to be patriotic, so they tried and the songs were almost all dreadful. we did it before, we can do it again, let's remember pearl harbor. they weren't really good songs. finally the publishers and songwriters said forget it. people didn't want those songs. they wanted love songs. and mainly women. they wanted songs about their lives, and the songs of world war ii spoke to women whose men were away and who could catch a few minutes at the radio. that's what they wanted. and they did speak to them profoundly. world war i, it was still sheet music and music was encountered much more publicly.

you didn't have a phonograph or a radio where you could go into your corner. it was much more at the piano, which was a public setting, which is why they were less introspective. >> to follow up on that, i was thinking that one reason they were less introspective is because courting was also a very public activity. >> sure, although it does -- that's breaking down. one reason before 1920 you have so many songs about taking walks or going on canoe rides, it was a way to be alone for a few minutes. we go off together and her mother came too. and we step around a tree to kiss and her mother came too. this goes on for the song, and then at the end it's a very hot day and the mother faints and

i'm set to kiss the girl and her mother came too. that's the punch line of the song. it's a charming song. hold on, hold on. you've asked two. let me see if there's anyone else. sir? >> were there american songs in world war ii that some of the europeans were concerned about the horror of war, very optimistic. >> sure. >> for example, "the bells of hell." >> there were a few, like the one about belgium. the one about the hoarding of coal and other things. there were a few, but we didn't know anything about the war until we first got there, obviously, and the songwriters were not the ones who were

going. and the function of tin pan alley is not to write political tracks on the horrors of war. it's not what it does or what it did. it's to write 32-bar love songs. they're as much about dreams as anything else. and so it's a fair question, but you're asking them to do something they don't do. it's like blaming shakespeare for not writing novels. it's not what they did. it would not have -- it was not their work. if you want to read that sort of thing in brief form, then you should read the poetry of world war i. but poetry -- you know, there's a tendency these days to say that great songwriters like dylan, like lennon, were poets. my don't think they were. i think it does a disservice to

poets and to lyricists. i find it artsy fartsy, frankly. i think they do different things. just because it waquacks and waddles doesn't prove it's a duck. for example, poets make their own music. song lyricists hear their music in language. they have to keep it, but they also have to make it serve the language of somebody else's melody. that's an inherent and significant difference between a song and a poet. that's another lecture that would take me another hour and a half. but that's a good question. thank you for coming. [ applause ] >> we have a steinway piano that was the wilson's. they bought it for their daughter at a time when

before -- people listened to music the way we do today. you had pianos in your home. it was in the white house with the wilsons and we do keep it tuned. if anyone would like to play, we would be happy to accompany you with our own vocals. thank you. and michael is going to stay for a few minutes and answer some questions. thank you all for being here. our special american history tv programming in primetime continues tonight with programs from our archival film series "reel america." beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern with a nasa documentary on the first mission to land men on the moon on july 20th, 1969. at 8:30, an interior department

film on the colorado river and construction of the hoover dam. after that, a 1960 nbc interview with herbert hoover discussing his life before and after his presidency. at 10:00 p.m. eastern, you'll see a u.s. army film featuring an adviser in vietnam in 1963. american history tv is here on c-span3. next on american history tv, grammy award winner maevis staples and graham gnash discuss music as a catalyst for social change. ms. staples describes her upbringing as a musician during the civil rights movement. mr. nash explains how music has and should continue to play a role in other social movements in the united states. this discussion was part of a civil rights summit hosted by the lyndon b. johnson presidential library in austin, texas. it's about an hour and 15 minutes.

>> i have the honor today of introducing, and austin, texas, has the honor of hosting one of the great voices of a generation in committed civil rights activism. to be a great singer all by itself is a tremendous commitment. a combination of artistry and athleticism. the idea behind the work is to communicate what is in the heart through the voice. it's a mysterious form of communication but one that's rarely questioned. particularly when one is lucky enough to hear the singing of a great singer such as the one here today. music is the universal language, all inclusive, one only has to be within earshot to participate by listening and feeling its vibrations.

a singer, a good one, lets you feel what is in his or her heart. sometimes that singer allows us glimpses of great depths of understanding we have yet to reach on our own. perhaps we are too removed from what they're singing about or have been too frightened to feel it. singers such as these share their inner wisdom, allowing us to grow our hearts, our compassion, and become better people. and great singers who are committed to understanding to equality, to fairness, to giving voice to the unheard among us, to nothing less than our future on this earth as humans, and who do so for decades with the commitment of surviving all weather. these are singers on a whole other level. the singer i have the privilege of introducing today is on this level, and with her body of work and the work of her family has left us with many clues, clues

that perhaps point to the true face of a beautiful world and a life well lived. for me personally, there have been many clues, many bread crumbs on the path, many bits of gold in the sand that i have found through her voice. for this i am eternally grateful and indebted. please welcome mavis staples. [ applause ] and moderating the panel discussion today on music as a catalyst for social change, he's the executive director of the grammy museum in los angeles, noted music authorities, specifically on music in the 1960s, and author of more than a dozen books. his most recent, "this land is

your land, woody guthrie and the journey of an american folk song." frequent lecturer at the white house and performance at the white house. please welcome bob santelli. [ applause ] >> mavis, first of all, thank you for doing this. it's an honor to have you here. the last time we got a chance to sit like this we were at the white house talking about soul music and the importance of music in the civil rights movement. >> yes, we were, and it was around the same time. so it's getting to be a habit. next year at this time i'll look for you. >> the staples singers are generally recognized in music history as one of the seminole groups of american history, particularly in the post world war ii period. yourself and sisters and pops,

of course bridge the gap between rhythm and blues, soul music and gospel music. and sometime during that transition of moving from the sacred into the secular, of course, you and your family get involved in the civil rights movement. talk a little bit about how that happened. >> you know, back in. actually we started singing in 1950 and 1960, pops had started hearing dr. king on the radio. dr. king had a radio program, and pops was hearing his program, we happened to be in montgomery alabama on a sunday morning and we didn't have to work on that night. pops called my sisters and i to his room, he said, listen, you all.

this man martin is here, martin luther king. we didn't know dr. king, pops. he keeps secrets, you know. he said, martin luther king, and he has a church here, and i'd like to go to his sunday morning service. would you all like to go? yeah, dad, we want to go. we all got in the car, went down to the church, we were seated, someone let dr. king know we were in the service, and he acknowledged us. he said we're glad to have pops staples and his daughters with us this morning. hope you enjoy the service. well, we enjoyed the service, yes. when it was over, dr. king was standing at the door and greet the worshippers as they filed out. my sisters and i, we walked past, shook dr. king's hand,

when pops' turn came along, he stood there and talked to him for a while. he finally came on, we get back to the hotel, he let us go to our room, he went to his room. then about a half hour later, pops called us to his room again. he said, listen you all, i like this man's message. i really like his message. and i think that if he can preach it, we can sing it. and that was the beginning of our writing of civil rights songs, freedom songs, message songs. and the first one was "march of freedom's highway." bad?" that turned out to be dr. king's favorite. we would sing before dr. king would speak. some nights we'd be going down the parking lot.

dr. king would yell out, you going to sing my song tonight? oh, yeah, doctor. bad." we would sing "why am i treated so bad."sc he wrote that song.ç there were a time when nine black children were trying to board a school bus in little rock, arkansas. they wanted tofñhiççññi attend high school. this went on for so long, these children would walk proudly with their books and heads held high and they walk into a mob that would spit at them and throw at them and call them names. they never would turn their heads, they would keep on walking. finally, this went on for so the -- on

the floor, pops -- we wanted to see those children board that bus. man, children get up to the bus. by the time they get to the door, a policeman put his billy club across the door and that's when pops said "why are they doing that? why are they treating them so bad?" and he wrote that song that evening, yeah. >> yeah. you know, it was -- it's pretty obvious and i think most historians acknowledge the fact that music really was the fuel of the civil rights movement. if you took away music it would have been hard to succeed because music gave the marchers, people like yourself, if you took away music, it would have been hard tongth succeed.et music gave the marchers, people like yourself, dr. king the i th on despite the obstacles and mui hardships. >> that's right. >> you grew upas in the church.t you grew up learning gospel music. i

music to leave the church and e. get out on the front lines and get on to the marching. >> yes, indeed. explain how that happened. >> well, that was -- you know, d in the church we're singing ed gospel. gospel is truth.input and this civil rights movement was truth. we needed to give our input of what we felt. we're christian people, we mean business. we don't mess around, you all. once we started singing ain't gonna let nobody turn me round r and you put some of that gospel i d going to hear music period, people love -- i don't care what kind of music it is -- if you

sing it -- you bring in some truth, realness, people see this happen, what you're singing about, it's going to move you, r motivate you. that's because we wanted to giv, people a reason to get up in the morning and get started. us, w get started on your day.eg pops was our leader, whatever pops told us, we wanted to do, y that's what we were going to doa and we loved it any how. i was a teenager. i was the same age as those kids in little rock that couldn't board the bus so i became super interested in the civil rights o movement. when we first started, you know, when we went to dr. king's i church, i didn't know dr. king,n but i certainly enjoyed that service. never forget it.

and i've just been trying to keep it going, keep it going. every song, every album, cd that i record, i have some civil rights songs there, freedom hat songs. every concert that i do today i'm still singing freedom songs, i'm still singing.ing i'm not going to let it go. because i'm a witness. i'm a living witness. par [ applause ] yes, indeed. thank you. it's just a part of me. and i think the more, you know, i continue to sing these songs, this generation -- this re. generation and the next, these kids, you know, they weren't there. i was there. i and i'm still here. and i'm bringing it. i'm bringing it to you. i'm still on the battlefield, hg

y'all. i'm on the battlefield, and i'm fighting every day. but i'm fighting for love. i'm fighting for hope. and i'm fighting for peace. th and i won't stop.atest, i will not stop. my father and dr. king -- dr. king, the greatest -- you hear, what's his name, mohammed ali. i i'm the greatest of all time. dr. king -- i'm sorry, ali. i'm sorry.ng, you can't beat dr. martin luther and, you know, i just loved to hear dr. king's laughter. jov you know, he had this jovial te laughter.im, he most times i would look at him, he would look so serious. he might look sad. that's what i've held on to his laughter, any time i saw dr. king, i saw him as happy it's

just such an honor and such a wonderful feeling to have been d able to stand next to this man and to shake his hand, this at, great, great man, dr. martin luther king.e i >> we were talking backstage, and i asked you if you and the staples singers were at the taps march on washington. that was one of the ones you mr missed. where were you? what was happening?re. w we had no business being there. we missed the march in washington. we recorded, we wrote songs, >> it's a long walk to d.c., but i we were singing. thing >> you were there in spirit

n >> yeah.rnip london didn't have nothing for me, they didn't even have no turnip or mustard greens.ng, after everybody got through marching, they went to munchingd corn bread, turnip and mustard greens, okra, corn on the cob.g. boy, i'm getting hungry. [ laughter ] so bob, you do this to me every time. i yes, indeed. carry but i'm just so grateful that r thee. lord has kept me, and i'm still here to carry on what dr.k king and my father, pops ying staples, my sister onevonne is still with me.

we're carrying on. we got to keep that legacy of pop staples and dr. martin luther king alive. dr. king's going to be alive to forever, but pops, we have to work on pops' legacy. right.'s >> everybody know them staples t singers.eat th >> speaking of pops and the staples singers, one of the u wr great things about the group was, you were able to succeed in the church, you were able to also succeed like sam cooke, taking a song that had some serious messaging, and bring it on to the pop charts, i saw him for like sam cooke. people learned about that learned about the message behint it by hearing it on the radio, g on the pop charts. the staples singers were doing n the same thing, you had many songs crossover from the black charts to gospel and into the pop charts. >> that surprised us, we were just singing because we loved to

su we were singing to sing in church.now. we we never thought we'd even be making records or traveling.i we weren't trying to be stars, you know. we sing for nothing. you didn't have to pay us, we ik just loved it i think that the best thing could happen is for s the news to turn over like thatc people, they try to put us out t of church. they wanted to put out of the church. when "i'lle take you there" cam out, people would jump up and a, dance. but to see the church people --a

♪ ♪ i know a place i couldn't resist that.>> [ applause ] i had to do it, bob.g >> that's okay.staples >> but the church folk, they dl started saying the staples singers singing the devil's inte the devil's music? i had to do so many interviews, and i would tell them, the devil ain't got no music. devil ain't got no music, all h music is god's music, you have to listen to what we are singing.w, whe "i'll take you there" is talking about taking you to church, taking you to heaven. ain't no smilin' faces lying to the races. where else could we be taking

you but to heaven? i said, you all have to listen lyrics. a you just hear the song come on and you hear that beat and see everybody jumping up dancing, you know, "i'll take you there"i is ang gospel song. to boy, they started hearing what i saying. next thing you know, we were fr invited back to church. p the very first song request, if "i'll take you there." sang right in the pulpit. the church was rocking.ha i said, tsee, there, you can't help but move. you if you got a beat.hat c -- you toany musi know, and especially with gospel. you know, that spirit hits you,s you got to move. you got to get on away from here.

people, they take music and they know it makes them feel good, ll but they wanted to try to say staples sisters is devil's intev music. that you do interviews, all of us did interviews, but my main thing was about the devil. because i didn't like the way we that sounded.h s the staples singers singing devil's music. we'd been singing church songs, folk songs people would hear our -- i just said, pops, daddy, why these blues festivals calling us? we don't sing no blues? he said, mavis, you go back and you listen, we had such a unique sound, you listen to our music, our music has some of everythiny

in it. >> that's right.o >> and for years, we sang gospee songs with our father, didn't know pops was playing blues on his guitar. i said, oh, that's why they like you so much. you're playing the same music. pops learned from a blues artist in mississippi. charlie patton. charlie patton was a boy, a man. he said he would -- saw charlie patton playing the guitar, when he started he wanted to play just like charlie patton, and hs was making ten cents a day. i said, daddy, you were making m ten cents a day? that was a lot of money back hs then. u so down on the farm, right in drew, mississippi, he showed us since where he purchased that ie guitar at a hardware store, they let him put in his 10 cents,

they let him put it on layaway l until he could get it out. elvis presley told me one time, miss staples, i love the way your father played the guitar. >> we have a few in this city as well, pops, if you are a true n blues musician pops staples goes wh unsung blues players whether it's elvis or eric clapton, whae a great stylist he was, he had t style that could carry from blues to gospel and r & b. in the '60s too, you also -- we talked about being on the frontt lines with dr. king, there werew people that you met that were a starting to come into the

movement who weren't n african-american but understoode the cause a young man at that time by the name of bob dylan.e, you met him and saw him and pete seger, others that were on the b front lines, talk about your te time with them in the '60s. est >> pete seger, bob dylan -- bob dylan is one of the world's s, e greatest poets. we met him in the early '60s, we were in new york about to do a general electric tv show. everyone was there. all the folk singers. we didn't know folk music, but b sin bob dylan's manager said i want you to meet the staples singers. he said, i know the staples singers. pops has a velvety voice, and

mavis gets rough sometimes and he quoted the song. he said mavis says -- i don't want to meet him, he's an angryd man. the he started singing, we started the show.lis we're standing on the side, lhm dillon started singing and pops said wait a minute, you all, listen to what that kid was saying, he was saying, how manyt roads must a man walk down of before you call him a man. pops used to tell us stories about when he was in mississippi, he was a boy, he couldn't walk on the same side e of the street.tha if a white man was coming toward him, he was on this side, he had to cross over. g daddy said, we can sing thato th we went home, we got bob dylan,s we learned blowing in the wind.

the answer, my friend is blowing in the wind pops could literalld live it, because it was real with him he would tell us a lot of stories, between pops and my grandmother, man, those were thy best times sitting on the floor listening to stories but pete seger, if i had a hammer, i'd hammer in the he was something,h just genius. it was such an honor to meet a man like pete seger. w we would go -- just like we ete would be invited to blues d we w festivals and we'd be invited to folk festivals. i didn't understand. people we'd hear a folk song, i'd say,k well, that's the closest --

they're singing something like e gospel. an chil you look out and you see all flower oh, man i just loved it. i would have the best time, fes newport this year, newport rhode island festival is my birthday party. [ applause ] everybody's invited.'re go everybody's invited. yes, indeed.ne of we're going to have a time. >> it's one of the great festivals, right? >> it's one of the great festivals, yes. char as we said before, staples singers often found themselves on the pop charts, as did people

like aretha franklin, sam cook. there was a word, respect. of course, otis redding writes o the greatest song "respect," nw aretha franklin sings.staples all the sudden that word takes on new meaning. the staples singers did the same thing. talk about respect yourself and how that came about.hat >> respect yourself. matt rice wrote that.en he same guy that wrote "mustang sally." and matt, when he a told us, lo, we in the studio, and matt cameg in and said, pops, when you sing it, you got to sing -- say pops said, man, i ain't saying that. that's not the staples sing. i not going to say it.u and matt said, pop, you'll havel all the little hkids, you'll he everybody saying it. we talked pops into doing it. lo and behold, matt was right.it

matt rice. respect yourself, it's my aga favorite, still my favorite. al, i think today respect yourself just needs to be recorded all he man, some of these children, i won't say all, but some of the children man, they don't -- yor haven't been taught to respect k themselves or to respect your elders. you respect your elder. bac you don't talk back to no grown person.tin if i had talked back to -- i gotten off the floor many times be record respect yourself again, and be explosive like it was bk back in the '70s, because pops -- one of the black songwriters told pops, i'm glad you and your daughters records that song, i was on the bus thet

other day and i realized after hearing that song, i wasn't respecting myself. there's a little old lady on the bus, and i let her stand up nd while i'm sitting down, and i a thought about that song -- he l said, let me stand up and let this lady sit down, pops said, that's what we want to happen. m that's exactly why we're singing it. >> in order to respect fellow u man, you have to respect yourself. >> if you don't respect yourself ain't nobody going to give a good cahoot. [ applause ] >> mavis staples! >> thank you, bob.ou, help me up. thank you, bob. thank you. g thank you, all.

[ applause ] all right, i got a new knee, i didn't tell them about my knee. bye-bye. of >> for my next guest, taking a completely different tack, instead of talking about music, we're going to hear some music s first.f the graham nash, you might remember if you remember the 1960s as a member of the hollys, one of tho great british invasion groups. in the late 1960s, he comes to , america, in particular to california, falls in love with the weather there, a certain mm woman, the music, and basicallyy starts a brand new career as a r member of perhaps arguably america rock and roll's first il superve group, crosby, stills a nash. since then, graham nash has beeo involved not just in great music but also he's been a man of conscience, he's been someone who's written songs and

performed songs for the good ofa the people, for the good of thed environment, for -- songs that basically commit to a particulas message. he's been a friend of the grammy museums. he's been a friend of all of yours, if you've been following his career. [ incredible musician and songwriter. please welcome to the stage mr. graham nash. [ applause ] >> how are you all doing? yikes. p must be david crosby's stool. i'm very pleased to be here, ly. obviously. i got a phone call early 1969

from a friend of mine called hugh romney, he was a beat poet from new york city who now goes by the name of wavy gravy. one of our heroes, he called me and said, you know, the hippies, for national convention in chicago r in '68 had been arrested for anw disruption and needed funds fora their defense fund.ould and would me and david and nd steven and neal consider going so i could go, but steven and neils had made other plans earlier and couldn't go. so i wrote this song actually for steven and neil. ♪ okay.

♪ so your brothers bound and gagged, and they chained him to a chair ♪ ♪ won't you please come to t yo chicago just to sing ♪ch a th ♪ in a land that's known as freedom ♪ ♪ how can such a thing be fair ♪ won't you please come to chicago ♪ ♪ for the help that we could bring ♪ ♪ we can change the world rearrange the world ♪ ♪ is dying to get better ♪ politicians sit yourself down there's nothing for you here ♪ ♪ won't you please come to chicago for our ride ♪ ask

♪ don't ask barack to help you he might turn the other ear ♪her ♪ won't you please come to icag chicago ♪ ♪ or else join the other side ♪ we can change the world rearrange the world is dying ♪ ♪ if you believe in justice if you believe in freedom ♪ th ♪ those regulations, who needs so ♪ throw them out the door ♪ somehow people must be free i hope the day comes soon ♪ ♪ won't you please come to chicago, show your face ♪ ♪ from the bottom of the ocean to the mountains of the moon ♪

♪ won't you please come to chicago ♪world ♪ no one else can take your we place ♪ ♪ we can change the world yes we can ♪ worl ♪ rearrange the world is dying ♪ ♪ if you believe in justice if you believe in freedom ♪ ♪ let a man live his own life ♪ some of those regulations, who needs them ♪ ♪ open up the door [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you.

♪ dee-dee-dee-dee-dee must be 50 years since i tuned my own guitar. i'm not sure whether you're thee same way w, but sometimes your life gets changed with a phone call. here c was another one. i got a call from crosby one day. i was in los angeles with uy steven. david said, book the studio,and book the engineer, buy some tape, get the band together, we're coming down.hat's and i said, cros, you sound intense. what's going on? he says, wait until you hear >> just written.hat's i said, okay. i pretty intense. what's it about? he goes, it's about kent state. and i obviously knew exactly o

and so i booked the studio, andh they came down the next day. we recorded "ohio" probably in our we did the "b" side which was a song called "find the cost of freedom."reside we mixed it.as in our dear friend who is the ceo , and president of atlantic records was in the studio that night.ediatel so we gave him the tape. and we told him to put it out immediately as a single. and ahmed said, well, you know i that you have a single out already. it's called "teach your children," and it's going into m the top 20 already. are you sure you want to do own this?we're and we said, listen. when america starts to kill its own children, we're in deep we trouble here. so let's put this out. s that single, and we killed our own single of "teach your children," but the single of "ohio" was out about 12 days a later. the original artwork was a copyi of the american constitution with four bullet holes in it.

so this is the song that neil wrote. ♪ ♪ tin soldiers and nixon coming we're finally on our own ♪ ♪ this summer i hear the drumming ♪ ♪ four dead in ohio ♪ got to get down to it ago. soldiers are cutting us down ♪ ♪ should have been done long ago ♪ ♪ what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground ♪ ♪ how can you run when you

know ♪ ♪ na na na na na na na na na na na na na na ♪n

♪ this summer i hear the drumming, four dead in ohio ♪ ♪ four dead in ohio, four dead in ohio, four dead in ohio ♪ [ applause ] thanks. i'm not usually this depressed, but there are many, many we all know. all the stuff you've been hearing about, you know, this ue morning, and we'll hear about to for the next few days are just h

some of the problems. we must keep hope. we must look at the world through the eyes of our children and our grandchildren. politic we must make sure that we make g it a better place. it seems to be an overwhelming problem right now with all the stuff that's going on with situation and the wars that are going on throughout the world, but we can make it. we can make it a better place. there's no doubt about it. here's a song i wrote. it's called "teach your children." ♪ you who are on the road must r have a code that you can live by ♪ ♪ and so become yourself because the past is just a good-bye ♪

♪ teach your children well because their father's hell dids slowly go by ♪ ♪ and feed them on your dreams the one they pick is the one you'll know by ♪ ♪ don't you ever ask them why ♪gh if they told you, you would cry ♪ ♪ so just look at them and sigh and know they love you ♪ ♪ and you of tender years, you

can't know the fears that your e elders grew by ♪ ♪ and so please help them with your youth ♪ ♪ because they seek the truth before they can die ♪ ♪ and teach your parents well because their children's hell will slowly go by ♪ ♪ and feed them on your dreams, the one they pick the one you'll know by ♪ ♪ don't you ever ask them why ♪ if they told you, you would cry ♪

♪ so just look at them and sigh and know they love you ♪ [ applause ] thank you. >> thank you, bobby. >> graham nash. sin >> thank you very much. >> that was wonderful. that was great. >> it's a little hard singing rock 'n' roll this early in the morning, but that's all right.re >> the songs that you sang, of e course, are very appropriate for what we're talking about, as yo

said, for the next couple of beh in the 1960s when you were coming up, as i mentioned, we come across the atlantic, the n hollys are behind you, you come to america and begin the second phase of a long career. the '60s were really an interesting time because for the very first time, pop music in ol general, as we knew it, was really embracing ideas other dee than puppy love and teen angst., all of a sudden there start to a become these songs of thin conscience, if you will.ard o and these songs basically help e define not just a decade but an entire generation.es really helped shape things. this is a hard one to answer.ker i often ask this to artists. does an artist such as yourself have a responsibility to write r those kinds of songs, to make rn sure that songs are not just g about entertainment, although that's a very valid reason for writing one, but that there's b

also the need, the wha responsibility to write ons songs of consequence, to write e deeper meaning.sm long >> i think one has to realize that we're just a small link in an incredibly long and t all the way back, you know, he f since before the weavers even oo and before pete seger and bob. we're all troubadours going from town to town, letting everybody know that the emperor really have know. and we're trying to pull back wiza behind everything because my goodness, we know how many curtains are there are. are nowadays. a responsibility, i think it's a responsibility that as a human i being, not just as a musician. thank god for music in my life.w i have no idea where i'd be if music hadn't come into my life. so i have to thank my mother anv father for encouraging me

instead of forcing me to get a n real job.- i mean, i work harder than anybody i know, but i still a don't have a job. you know?to it's an unbelievable existence. do we have a responsibility to do that?? >> or do you feel that you k ab i responsibility?nybody. >> i have a responsibility to talk about stuff that bothers r me. i don't write for anybody. i don't write for david or steven or for neil. i don't write for anybody but me. i have to get my feelings out.rd i have to -- i have to express a myself. pers and the way that i do that is lt through art and music. and like i said, i'm an incredibly lucky person becauses i would probably be absolutely t

without question have been in an insane asylum for the last to 40-odd years.s man if i didn't have this ability to get my feelings out. >> the outlet. >> so it's not a responsibility, it's a drive. it's a need to express myself in as many ways as i can.songs yes, i wrote my share of, you t know, moon june in the back of a the car song. wi the hollys made an incredible th career out of that. ste when i moved to america and i p began to hang out with crosby and steven and neil and joni, i began to realize that even though i had done a couple of s interesting deeper songs when is was with the hollys, especiallye in towards the end there, it ws pe that i began to really realize r that it was important for the to waste people's time. because in many ways, time and y

our family and our friends are all that we have.ve that's real.and i do so i don't want to sit you down and play you a song that's goina to waste your time because first of all, i've wasted mine doing it.very and i don't want to do that. my father was dead at 46. i'm now 72 years old. i cherish every second that i'm alive.e i'm grateful for every second that i'm alive. i'm incredibly proud to be an american citizen, as i have been for the last 30-odd years. i didn't feel that it was right to be hypocritical about this country. and and if i was going to sit theres and criticize this country and criticize the people that run it and praise the country for its incredible beauty and the beauty of its people, i felt i would be hypocriical if i didn't become f member of this society. and so i did many, many years f ago. i don't know whether any of youl know anything about los angelesf

but there's a very famous hot dog stand called pink's. and i went from the dorothy , chandler pavilion. and with 1500 other people thatd were becoming citizens that daye and steven said, you're an . re i said i think so. he says come on, we're going to pink's. so yeah. t i'm not so sure that it's a responsibility, but it's all k something that i can't help tisa doing. don i just can't. >> do you think, in the 1960s where songs of conscience were , exploding, we talked to mavis earlier. there are all kinds of artists did to the rolling stones, jeffersoe airplane, phil oakes, so many on them writing songs that carriedm deeper meaning other than just a ri did the music have an effect inn your opinion on the outcome, the vietnam war, in particular, what was happening with the civil rights movement? how much, in your opinion, did . a failure of it? >> the momentum of this country is incredible as a planet. enorm

and to move it in any one t direction takes an enormous deta amount of energy. ver and the movements that you do t detect are very, very small. having said that, i do believe k that music can influence people. i think it can entice them to r think about things that they may not necessarily think about east during their working day. it i think that the ideas that music carries forth are the moss important thing that we have. te i mean, it was ideas that brought down the berlin wall, you know.at it's ideas that had, you know, , the civil rights brought into existence. it's ideas always. and i think that music can -- i mean, didn't i write it? didn't i write "we can change sw the world"? i didn't mean it in a huge w thing, but i meant it in a small way.music. >> yeah. >> but we can. we can change the world with music.me and i don't doubt it. you know, i've had many vietnamd veterans come up to me and say

that our music saved their the lives. w you know, they were in the playn middle of the jungle trying to e figure out how to stay alive fo the next ten minutes. and would be playing music.ze music. in the late '60s, they were mainly playing our music.w to realize once you drop a k pebble into a pond and the ripples spread out towards the bank, it's when the ripples i start to come back to where you threw the pebble in that it's o, most interesting. and to hear vietnam vets talk tm me about how our music affected their lives and kept them alives is incredibly gratifying as a musician. >> as a musician looking at whai was happening in the 1960s, youw were with the hollys, you came here after you leave the hollys. what were you thinking about the civil rights movement?

when you read about the march on washington in '63? how did you take it?f >> i've always rooted for the underdog.h i i've always had a sense of what was fair. i think being english is very r different than being american from this point of view. da still had several years to go. and it was a part of your daily truth that you did not know ughp whether your house was going to be there tomorrow. you didn't know whether your of friends were going to be alive.t and i think that when you're brought up in that kind of these environment, you have a very different attitude towards, well, what we're doing in bomb america now with all these d preemptive wars. god forbid, had new york or los angeles or chicago or austin been bombed like england and europe was bombed and almost ret

bombed out of existence, i think you have a different attitude towards war. war is insane, as we all know. [applause]many wild of dealing with our fellow humae beings than immediately going o for your gun. i do realize that in many ways s this is the wild west, you know. but to me, people like the nra s and the pharmaceutical industryw and the tobacco industry, they're all going to be seen as major criminals within 50 to 100 years. alls i really believe so. how can you in all honesty make

a product like cigarettes that kills about 300,000 people a year and still do it, knowing full well that what you're making kills 300,000 people a e year?youthat how do you sleep at night? really, seriously. i mean, how do the koch brothers sleep at night? one of the things that upsets me greatly about this being able t> buy our democracy, and in many n cases you can buy a congressman or a senator for the price of a decent car, which is a terrible thing to say, but there is so much corruption going on in i d every country in the world, not just here.wo i often wonder, don't the koch n brothers have children? and when i say the koch brothers, i don't just mean those two brothers, i mean their ilk, their 1% as we were tryingi to buy out democracy.ory t i definitely have views about citizens united. figh i think it's one of the worst supreme court rulings in historo to me. uni and i think that we should all

fight very hard to overcome citizens united, and allowing f this kind of money into politics is just -- it's awful. it's truly awful that you can buy your democracy. know and that's what people like the koch brothers are doing.y but don't they have kids? don't they have like parts of their organization that are looking into the future, how ng much oil is left, how much, youd know, aluminum is left?ts o don't they know what's going on? don't they know what they're l it's very interesting. how do they sleep at night?at >> you brought up environment, and you were involved along with h lots of your friends in the nukes movement in the 1970s, a which really had a profound effect on changing young people, or maybe not changing but at least enlightening what that

would entail. and you continue over the years, and we talked about your interests in the environment and climate.h you live in a great part of america in hawaii where you see the absolute beauty, natural tg beauty of this country, th particularly that state, and you've done things and you u p continue to do things. where does that urgency come e from, and how do you put it into the music? t it's been a long time since you started this. nearly 50 years ago. i >> i often wonder where i get e the energy from to do all this, and the only thing that i can really say is i look at the world through the eyes of my children.ave m i personally have to make it better for me, and i have to make it better for my wife, and i have to make the world better for my kids. f grandch my first-born son, jackson, a e year and a half ago gave us oura first grandchild, and you better watch out for this woman because she's a kickass.fathe i know every grandfather says rs

the same thing, but she's a tu stunning woman. and my second-born son will, just in the last month found out him and his wife shannon are expecting identical twin boys in july. so i look at the world through the eyes of the future generation. and i've seen this planet environmentally getting much worse, and i've seen the world getting much worse. the reason why i'm in hawaii was in the late '60s, i used to live in san francisco, and i saw a billboard that said "shower with a friend because we're running k out of water." f okay, funny, right?what big billboard, that's funny. t t was going on, when you saw what was happening to the columbia river, when you saw what was we happening with damming up our ll

major rivers, when we saw o particularly northern california sending all their water down to, this desert called los angeles,d i began to realize that if i was going to get married and have t children, i wanted to live in ad ne as i could manage it, where romm water wouldn't be a problem. one and a half waters from my house is the wettest spa on earth. our average rainfall is 46 i don inches a year.but i the record, 690. i don't think water will be a problem for me, but it is goings to be a problem for a lot of nd people and very soon. i predict oil is going to be tt worth far less than water. yes, the entire world runs on oil and we're going to have to deal with that problem, and it seems that many bright people are working on solutions for

pa but this problem with water is going to really be humongous, on i'm afraid. >> you speak about these issues, that particularly young people, your children, your grandchildren, my grandchildren face. it worked to galvanize a whole i generation of young people to t get out in the streets and pay attention to what was going on. you would think, in my opinion, that today the issues, or in some cases are even far more dangerous than they were in thes 1960s. there are still civil rights ab were spoken about earlier today being at the forefront, climate change being what it is.be these are things that will s wh kids but the entire world.at the >> uh-huh. >> why is it, in your opinion,

that there has not been a wha movement among younger musicianb to be what you did and what so many of your colleagues did in , mas it, to use the music to galvanize the masses, to get our government or our leaders to move on this in a way that re. brings results? >> a couple things are going onb here. first of all, and i'm sure it precedes the romans, but they vn you where you give the people a little to eat and you give themy something to watch and we'll bet and that's exactly what's goingn on todayt.thei i think the people that own then world's media you can count on e two hands, they don't want d protest songs on their airwaves, they don't want it on the radio, they don't want it on the tv. chic, don't say anything, buy oy another pair of sneakers, buy y another soda, and leave us alone while we rob you.

st on a very, very subtle level and sometimes not so subtle. there are many protest songs still being written. contro if you go to neal young's used website living with war, you'll see about 3,000 of them. v'jkkñi media don't want to hear any of that. it used to be that most of the societal changes came from and universities, especially the sarbonne in paris and berkeley in northern california and oentg london to a certain extent. we have trained our kids to be d doing this. that's all they do all day. part wh but it's not really a part of the real world about what's going on.om the we have distracted ourselves from the importance of what's really going on. we are much more interested in justin bieber's monkey and the size of kim kardashian's ass rdi than we are in afghanistan, in yemen, in somalia, iaq