Pete Seeger Duets With Bruce Springsteen
Two days before President Obama’s first inauguration in January of 2009, John Mellencamp, Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, U2, Beyonce, Sheryl Crow and many others staged an all-star concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The penultimate performance was “This Land Is Your Land” with Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger and his grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger.
Trace Pete Seeger’s Stunning Life in Photos
“At rehearsals the day before, it was freezing,” Springsteen recalled later that year at Seeger’s 90th birthday concert. “Pete was there, he had his flannel shirt on, and I said, ‘Man, are you gonna wear something besides that shirt?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got my long-johns on under this thing.’ I asked, ‘How you wanna approach [the song], it being near the end of the show?’ And all he said was, ‘Well, I wanna sing all the verses. I wanna sing all the ones that Woody wrote, especially the two that get left out, about the private property and the relief office.’ And I thought, ‘Of course, that’s what Pete’s done his whole life. He sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we’d like to leave out of our history as a people.'”