Sunday, February 26, 2017

"Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind" | Marlene Dietrich

Don't worry about the translation; you'll know it.




Yevette was listening to the version of the song by the Kingston Trio and thought it was the original but Pete Seeger wrote it and we talked of it a little.  "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" may have been the most influential antiwar song of all and it had to have been the earliest in the context of Vietnam.

Here's more you may not know about Seeger:

On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists.  Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.

In one of Pete's darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy, a flash of inspiration ignited this song.  The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "And Quiet Flows the Don".

Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed the song in French, as "Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?"  Shortly after she sang it in German.

The song's impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering. It's universal message, "let there be peace in the world" did not get lost in its translation.  To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect on people all around the world. 

May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it.

- YouTube


This version was performed with his grandson and it's special to me since I was privileged to see them perform together around 2004 in Rhode Island.  It was a special vibe on a special day in a special place and that's when the Dutch call it gezellig; it's so good no-one ever has to say anything because everyone else is feeling it too.

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