Spirit in Action
Peggy Seeger - Singer, Songmaker, Activist
Peggy Seeger is especially known for her song of awakening women's consciousness, Gonna be an Engineer, but she sings of many concerns and causes, including economic justice and, especially, care for creation. She's put out a wealth of music on her own, with her husband Ewan MacColl, with her brothers, Pete & Mike Seeger, and with other fine artists.
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Jul 2011
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing there song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing your dead song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today, we'll have the privilege of visiting with Peggy Seger for a spirit in action. I've had her as my guest for Song of the Soul previously, but today we'll be talking to Peggy about the music she's written to help move the world in healing, healthy directions. Because her brother, Pete Seger, has been such an activist, I thought her public stand might have come from her parents, but Peggy tells me that her husband, Ewan McCall, was the one to bring this drive alive in her. Known especially for her song of Awakening Women's Consciousness, I'm gonna be an engineer. She sings of many concerns and causes, including economic justice and especially care for creation. She joins us from her home in Boston. Peggy, welcome back. This time to Spirit in Action. - Hello, Mark. - I have you here today for Spirit in Action because so much of your music is about transforming the world. I was born in 1954, and I think what, you're less than 20 years older than I am, so you experienced an even more radical change, I think, in the country. Particularly the role of women, I think, has changed so dramatically in the US. Tell me about your experience with that. - Well, I was born in '35, so I was a teenager in the '50s, and that's when I remember confronting the role of women. I was my father's first girl after four boys, but I was not treated like a princess. I was allowed to run wild with my hair in tatters and wear jeans and climb up trees and play baseball, so I wasn't really aware of the women's position. I didn't see it when I was growing up. I didn't really see it, I suppose, until the '70s when I wrote a song called "I'm Gonna Be An Engineer." I wrote it for a theatrical, musical documentary, theater documentary, but I didn't write it out of my own experience. I had not felt direct discrimination because I was a woman. I had not felt that I was marginalized or internally colonized or, however, we talk about it. In actual fact, I was. There were a whole lot of aspects of my life in which I was the woman, but this song is the one that I'm mainly known for as objecting to the position of women in our society. So it's a disclaimer to say that I was not really discriminated against as a woman, a musician. Women have been musicians since the year dot, and musicians, they got a lot of slack for us. And any experiences that I had had working with, male musicians, had all been good in my life. Of course, the position of women has changed hugely. Women stayed home when I was growing up. If you went out to a job, it was thought that you were deserting your children and your husband and your home and your position. But it's a huge subject to talk about. But women are now. I just read a book recently called "Half the Sky." But it virtually says that a country that does not use its women equally with the men will never reach its full potential because it's losing half of its human resource. It's not using half of its human resource. - You know, the song is gonna be an engineer. And if I had to name one field where I think that there's still a strong imbalanced male/female in favor of males, that's certainly one of the fields that I choose. Lawyers, I think they're pretty equally divided. Doctors, the incoming generation, has divided roughly equally. But engineering, I don't think, is nearly balanced. Why do you think that is? It's because people didn't listen to your song enough. (laughs) Well, I wrote the song for what I understood and engineered to be. In England, an engineer at the time I wrote it, worked at making heavy tools, worked with metal. So it was definitely a man's world. But as far as lawyers are concerned, I have rewritten gonna be an engineer for lawyers because those three firms of women lawyers in Knoxville, Tennessee, who asked me to do that, because they found it so difficult to be women lawyers in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is difficult to be almost any high position in a patriarchal world. Do you have to battle? You have to do things, you know? You have to do things that men don't have to do to get those positions. - Let's listen to the song. Gonna be an engineer. It's by my guest for today's spirit and action, Peggy Seeker. ♪ When I was a little girl, I wished I was a boy ♪ ♪ I tagged along behind the gang of warm and cold roads ♪ ♪ Everybody said only they did it to annoy ♪ ♪ But I was gonna be an engineer ♪ ♪ The mama told me, can't you be a lady? ♪ ♪ Your duty is to make me the mother of a pearl ♪ ♪ Waiting till your older dear and baby ♪ ♪ You'll be glad that you're a girl ♪ ♪ Dainty has a dressed in statue ♪ ♪ Channel as a Jersey cow ♪ ♪ Smooth as silk is creamy milk ♪ ♪ Learn to cool, learn to move ♪ ♪ That's what you do to be a lady now ♪ ♪ When I went to school, I learned to write and how to read ♪ ♪ Some history, geography and home economy ♪ ♪ And typing is a skill that every girl should've need ♪ ♪ To while away the extra time and tell the time to breed ♪ ♪ Then they have the nerve to say ♪ ♪ But what you like to be ♪ ♪ Says I'm gonna be an engineer ♪ ♪ No, you only need to learn to be a lady ♪ ♪ The duty isn't yours for to try and run the world ♪ ♪ An engineer could never have a baby ♪ ♪ Remember, dear, that you're a girl ♪ ♪ She's smart for a woman ♪ ♪ I wonder how she got that way ♪ ♪ You get no choice, you get no voice ♪ ♪ Just stay mum, pretend you're dumb ♪ ♪ And that's how you come to be a lady today ♪ ♪ Then Jimmy come along and we set up a conjugation ♪ ♪ We were busy every night with love and recreation ♪ ♪ I spent my day at work so he could get his education ♪ ♪ Well now he's an engineer ♪ ♪ He says to know you'll always be a lady ♪ ♪ If she's the duty of the darling to love me all her life ♪ ♪ Could an engineer look after all her baby ♪ ♪ Remember, dear, that you're my wife ♪ (upbeat guitar music) ♪ As soon as Jimmy got a job I'll begin again ♪ ♪ And happy at my turret lay the year or so ♪ ♪ And then the morning that the twins were born ♪ ♪ Jimmy says to them, "Kit your mother was an engineer" ♪ ♪ You owe it to the kids to be a lady ♪ ♪ Dainty as if you strike faithful as a child ♪ ♪ Stay at home, you got to mind the babies ♪ ♪ Remember you're her mother now ♪ ♪ Well every time we turn around there's something else to do ♪ ♪ Cook a meal and a sock sweep a floor or two ♪ ♪ Holding out the potty when the baby wants to poo ♪ ♪ I was gonna be an engineer ♪ ♪ You more really wish that I could be a lady ♪ ♪ I could do the lovely things that a lady's supposed to do ♪ ♪ I wouldn't even mind if only they would pay me ♪ ♪ And I could be a person too ♪ ♪ For what price for a woman ♪ ♪ You buy her for a ring of gold ♪ ♪ To love in a bed without any pay ♪ ♪ You get your cook and your nurse for better or worse ♪ ♪ You don't need your purse when the lady is sold ♪ ♪ I bought it now that times are harder ♪ ♪ And Jimmy's got the sack ♪ ♪ I went down to Vickers, they were glad to have me back ♪ ♪ But I'm a third class citizen ♪ ♪ My wages tell me that and I'm a first class engineer ♪ ♪ The boss, he says, we pay you as a lady ♪ ♪ You know, you only got the job ♪ ♪ 'Cause I can't afford a man ♪ ♪ With you, I keep the profits highest, maybe ♪ ♪ You're just a cheaper pair of hands ♪ ♪ You've got one fault, you're a woman ♪ ♪ You're not worth the equal pay ♪ ♪ I bet you're a tart, you're nothing but heart ♪ ♪ Shadow and vain, you got no brain ♪ ♪ You even go down the train like a lady today ♪ ♪ Well, I listen to my mother in the joint ♪ ♪ And type and pull, I listen to my lover ♪ ♪ And I put him through his school ♪ ♪ But if I listen to the boss, I'm just a bloody fool ♪ ♪ And I'm the paid engineer ♪ ♪ I've been a sucker ever since I was a baby ♪ ♪ As a daughter, as a wife, as a mother and a dear ♪ ♪ But I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady ♪ ♪ Fight them as an engineer ♪ (piano music) - Dainty as a Dresden statute, gentle as a Jersey cow, wow, what an image. (laughing) - It's fun to sing, learn to cool, learn to move. - It's a fun song and it's got too much truth into it. For those of us, at least who were alive during the 60s, when these roles changed, I think most rapidly. And you mentioned, you came of consciousness about the real discrimination that women had to face, the limits that were there. When you swim in an ocean of belief, it's easy to not know that the belief is what you're living out in, which is controlling your world. So how did your thoughts change in the 70s? - Well, the song was taken up despite the fact that it has a humongous number of words and the chords are a bit complicated and it has a big range. A number of women started singing it and I started getting asked to sing at women's consciousness raising meetings and to speak for women in song. And I found that I didn't have any other songs like that at all. Had folk songs in many of them, women were being badly treated, being marginalized, being left with babies in their arms, being sent off, being sold as slaves away to Georgia, all kinds of things. Because the folk songs reflected the position of women in the times in which they were written. What it did for me that was enormous was it made me look into other women's issues and that's when I really had my eyes opened. I looked into subjects like incest, like rape, like abortion, like the relation between mother and daughter, wages, women as activists. And then I started writing songs specifically on some of those issues. So I became kind of known for some of the women's songs. But what runs alongside of all of that is the economic bind that we're all in in capitalist countries. We're going through just such another period now because capitalism is not a stable form of human society. It ups and downs constantly. And then it's been proved in the past it crashes. And so that has run alongside all of the other issue songs that I've made, songs about hard times. When did you write this? What was this inspired by? I lived in Asheville at the time. It was about 10 years ago. And there was an exhibition of Ben Sean paintings and drawings and photography. S-H-A-H-N is the way I think you spell it. He was a well-known illustrator and artist back in the 50s, 60s, and he drew pictures of and made photos of working people in all kinds of walks of life. And so they wanted someone to do a concert at the exhibition hall. And they asked me, I was living in Asheville at the time. So I learned, relearned a number of the hard time songs that I knew, but I thought, well, we need one for now, especially as NAFTA was beginning to bite. So I made up this song. It's kind of like traditional songs. But it is my song. Sing about these hard times. They're back again. It's Peggy Seger, spirit and action. Sing about these hard times. Sing all about these hard old times. Sing about these hard times. When will a good time flow? I worked hard. I played my part. That's what I did right from the start. These hard times are going to break my heart off. When will a good time flow? We'll sing about these hard times. Sing all about these hard old times. Sing about these hard times. When will a good time flow? Life gets harder every year. Those with at least have the most of you. Those with the most just don't care. When will a good time flow? Sing about these hard times. Sing all about these hard old times. Sing about these hard times. When will a good time flow? Sing about these hard times. The big corporations got no hope, and the men on the hill got hearts of stone. They're worrying I'd like to go with the ball. When will a good time flow? Sing about these hard times. Sing all about these hard old times. Sing about these hard times. When will a good time flow? They moved my job to Mexico, where children sleep and the pain is low. But how I'm going to live I just don't know. When will a good time flow? Oh the world is ill divided. Those who were most at least provided. But when they got a war they want us to find it. When will a good time flow? Sing about these hard times. Sing all about these hard old times. Sing about these hard times. When will a good time flow? That was sing about these hard times. Fortunately I don't know if it's true. Maybe we've backed off from the precipice. This isn't the Great Depression yet at least. So maybe we won't have quite dust, bold days recreated here. But what we're doing to the environment certainly is quite a bit of destruction. You said that that's an issue that's been rising for you. Which ways do you connect with it? There's so many ways that you can connect with issues of the environment. The whole creation we live in and how it's being badly handled. I look on it and it's probably not an original way of looking on it. As you enter it at whatever level you feel capable. But you must enter at least one level. The first one is conservation of what we have. That is not wasting paper, water, wood, and not accumulating too much. In other words, consumerism is part of that. The next level is recycling. That is to recycle the waste that we have. And you can enter it wherever it pleases you and move on to the next. So recycling is the next one. That virtually has to do with our environment. An environment is a very large area. It means that you can join organizations that are trying to save wetlands. It means that you can help to save endangered species. You can campaign for cleaner petrol or gas. You can get a smaller car, those kind of things. That deals with a concern about human environment. Because you think the bees impinge on human life, our environment, and often when we speak about environment, we are only chiefly thinking of how to make it healthier for human beings. When you realize in order to make it healthy for human beings, it's got to be healthy for the rest of the world, including the mountains, the rocks, the trees, the animals, the universe, etc., everything, then you get on to ecology. Because you realize that there is a chain of development. There is a chain of what affects human beings. If a species of butterfly dies and believes, it will have some effect on how we live in Boston, Philadelphia, Madison, Tokyo, Wahoo, Texas, etc. In other words, ecology is a matter of logic. There's only just so much air in the world. There's only so much water that we are connected to everything. And from there, you get to deep ecology, which I think makes you understand that unless humans reorganize our life, the way we are affecting the world, we cannot possibly stay alive here. We cannot possibly keep the whole ecological thing going because we are being so disastrous to the world. And trying to understand with deep ecology that the earth is a living being. She breathes. She provides. She is a mother. She is all those things that we need. So we have to take care of her. It is interesting that pretty naturally, I guess it's part of our culture, if we think of a nurturing presence, because there's such a history with males not doing that, we think of the earth as our nurturing mother and images of Gaia or of goddess kind of go naturally with it. You've got a song directly on that, right? The mother? Yes, the mother. That would be a good one to do now. Do you relate to the earth as mother, or do you actually get out there and put your feet in the mud, or I don't know where you live there in Boston, are you in the city, are you a country woman? I live in Boston, and I must confess, when I go out I worship. I don't get outside a lot in my day, but when I go out I talk to plants, I talk to flowers. I hug trees, yes of course, and look up at the sky and bless. I don't know that it makes a blind bit of difference to the earth if I do those things, but certainly I feel nurtured, I feel thankful. The song is The Mother, it's by Peggy Seager. Slowly, slowly she turns over in the night, turns her lovely face toward the morning light, always turning, turning, turning, on her long wind and lush journey through the sky. Slowly, slowly she turns over through the day, flowers bloom and seed and die and fade away, seasons turning, turning, turning. Till tomorrow's just a memory of today. Virgin water tumbling, tumbling down the hill, first the storm and then the time when all is still, all will follow, all in balance when the earth does as she will. Who invades the sky to bring the goddess down, whose lay poison her body in her bones, the earth is trembling, trembling, trembling. Is she waiting for the deadly final home? Want to man beware the power of the tide, learn to answer to The Mother's morning cry, learn to follow, follow, follow. Then we come and live on earth, or all will die. You know, there are some religious folks who get all bent out of shape. When you talk about spirituality related to The Mother Earth, I'm certainly not one of those and in general the Quakers that I know are perfectly fine with that, because the one spirit that we're all part of, the creation is truly one and nurture is in our society. As I mentioned earlier, it's a feminine thing to do. Men fight and women nurture and fortunately, that's changing. I know a lot of men who've changed that significantly. And there are women who fight now. You're right. There are women who do fight and I think it's unfortunate. Actually, if I think of world leaders who are women, it's not such a good sample of femininity that I think of Margaret Thatcher, who was not one of my favorites. Well, you probably remember her because she was so awful. But do you remember Mary Robinson of Ireland, or Helen Clark of New Zealand, or that wonderful woman who's leading Iceland or President Ellen of Rwanda? You know, Rwanda has the highest representation of women in their government. Well, actually, I did know that because I was there a year before last and such a place to be in there. But what an antidote to the hate anger killing there. I've interviewed and talked to various people from there who are part of the healing and reconciliation going on there. And women play a key part in it because they're saying, what's going to make a future for our children? We have to take control. We can't let hate and destruction rule anymore in our country. I've actually heard a Marine say, I wrote a song about a fellow named Jimmy Massey. He's a Marine who deserted in Iraq. Actually, he went to his lieutenant and said, I can't do this. He'd just blown up a car full of women and children. And he went to his lieutenant and said, I can't do this. They found a way of honorably discharging him. And he came back to this country and began to campaign against the Iraq war. I interviewed him and made a song. And he actually said, and I made this song out of his words, and the verse goes, I don't think it's safe to have a world that's run by men. We all want to be the rooster running among the hens. A woman makes new life. Man takes life away. It really sucks to be a man today. That's what he said. And that's virtually, you know, it's hard to be a man today because the man's role has been to defend, to off end, to set territory and defend territory. The world is too small for that now. Men have to find another role, and it's hard. I agree. And that's one of the reasons I think more men need to get in men's groups where men can get real, face each other. The blessing of men's groups is far understated. And I think women started, as you mentioned earlier, you did music, women's consciousness racing. Men need to do that. And we've done some of it, but there's a lot more left to do. And when men do it, this world is going to be better. Yeah, I think men have a harder time talking to each other because they have to put their image forward and they have to defend their own personal territory. No, I think they have a harder time. I think it's partly the way they're raised. But it's also, I think, it's within their nature. Yeah, that certainly is. You've certainly been involved in a whole lot of aspects of women's rights. One of them is the whole question of abortion. And you've made music about that. Would you care to share one of the songs that deals with those kind of issues? Yeah, I've made two songs about it, actually. One is a highly personal one. And the other one, which is, I think, the one I would like you to use, the right to life, was in response to the murder of Dr. George Tiller, in Wichita, Kansas last June. He was actually murdered in his church while he was taking collection, murdered by a pro-lifer who has just been sent down for life himself. Dr. Tiller ran a clinic for late abortions for pregnancies that were either unsafe for the woman or where the child was damaged, where the child would be either dead upon birth or completely unviable to live a proper life. And two days after that, I was riding, going somewhere in the car. And a woman came on the radio and she had been one of his patients. She was seven months pregnant when she went to him. Her child was dying in the womb, in pain. She was in pain. Her family and her marriage were falling apart. And she said, "Dr. Tiller saved her life, saved her marriage, saved her sanity." I wrote the song out of what I remember of her attitude about the whole thing, things that she was saying. And I've had some hate mail because of singing it. And I understand that there are people who feel very strongly about abortion. But I stand by the statement, "If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one." No, that says it all for me. It's nobody else's business, not really. When you're a mother, you're a mother forever. There's another saying, "If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?" But this particular song is about the murder, really, about the murder of Dr. George Tiller and about the picketing that goes on in front of abortion clinics. It's called "Right to Life." [Music] You say you're against a killing, you talk about the right to life, you describe a poor little beautiful baby under the surgeon's knife. You stand on the sidewalk yelling at me with a placard in your hand, telling me how to run my life. Well, I want you to understand that my baby is not the sweet little dude, smiling on the packet of the baby food. My child is so sick and deformed, it'll be dead before the day is born. It breaks my heart, but here I am, and here's my reason why. I'm giving my baby dignity by giving it the right to die. The right to life, the right to life. You live your life and I live mine. The right to life, the right to life. My body is mine. You say you're against a killing, you talk about the right to life. Well, what about picking in the husband who's just about to kill his wife? Go drive by the house up the drive by gunman and tell him to tow the line. Just don't tell me what I should do or tell me my body isn't mine. Go after the man who'd kill a man for his religion or his skin. Go after the man who caught mad shepherd who tortured and then murdered him. Go after the US government who traveled along the way to Iraq to question a country's right to life. To shoot folks who can't shoot back. The right to life, the right to life. You live your life and I live mine. The right to life, the right to life. My body is mine. Jesus didn't talk about this in the book you worshiped by. You made it up all for yourself and you're willing to kill. You're ready to die gives you something to do, gives you power, gives you a way to control everything that a woman does with her body heart and soul. My baby and I, we gotta say goodbye, you know that's so hard to do. But what I want to know right now is what the hell's it got to do with you. You stand on the sidewalk threatening me. You think you know who I am, but who are you? Why do you do this? You don't really want to understand. The right to life, the right to life. You live your life and I live mine. The right to life, the right to life. My body is mine. That was right to life. This is Peggy Seager we're listening to and I'm Mark Helps meet your host for Spirit in Action which is a Northern Spirit Radio production. Our website is NorthernSpiritRadio.org and on here you can always listen to our programs, find links to our guests, all kinds of information, post comments to us too please. And my home radio station is WHYS L.P. Eau Claire here in the Chippewa Valley of Wisconsin. We're visiting today with Peggy Seager. She's been doing music for decades to help change the world in a positive direction. Of course you do a lot of music also Peggy which is traditional folk music which as you mentioned earlier it's part of the cultural ocean that it originated in. So some of it's got some really horrible horrible horrible stories in it and roles for women and men. It's pretty bad stuff some of it. The folk songs for the most part describe the life of the people at the lowest economic scale and that's pretty horrible horrible horrible too. It talks about their hopes, their dreams, their despairs, their griefs, the stories of their lives. That's what the folk songs talk about. I know there's songs that we've inherited from England and Scotland that talk about lords and ladies but if you look into them deeply there's often really a severe class conflict there. I haven't included any folk songs on this trip chiefly because I've got more into singing my own songs when it comes to spirit in action. I find that many of the folk songs feel sorry for themselves, people feeling sorry for themselves and just talking about how awful things are almost without any hope. Although to be quite honest just making a song about something is an act of hope. I've written a song about a woman who's a piece activist lives in Northampton. She's 89 now and she's been in jail more times than she can even count because of being arrested on peace demonstrations. I've done a conversation between mothers and teenage daughters which is seven minutes long and I constructed it out of interviews with mothers and daughters. I made one about a woman who suffers from a repetitive strain injury. These are very strong songs because they speak literally from the mouth of the person that they're made up of. So the one I'd like to finish the program with if you have it there is Woman on Wheels. It's about a woman named Jennifer Jones. How did you meet Jennifer Jones? Greenham Common in England was a peace camp that was set up. It started with a woman reading in Wales reading the cruise missiles had been put onto the Greenham Common Air Base and she said that's ridiculous putting cruise missiles there. It changes us into a completely different type of nuclear target for Russia. So she put her two children into a bush chair and started to walk to London. That's about a hundred and some miles and as she walked people began to join her. By the time they reached Greenham Common they had about 3,000 people, men and women. And when they got there they had no idea what to do so they chained themselves to the fence. Of course they had to be cut free some of them were arrested but meanwhile the whole country was watching this march. So a camp was set up outside the main gate and it became a women's camp. The men did not cooperate easily so the women kicked them out and it became a woman's camp. Greenham Common had nine gates. This camp ran for 10 years with women sitting on each of the nine gates and women would come from all over Europe, America, all over England and Scotland to sit at one of these camps and just hold vigil and hold education classes and just to always be there. And there was one particular demonstration called circle the base where the idea was to circle the nine mile circumference of the base with women holding hands saying these weapons shall not come out of this base to go onto the streets of England. Well enough women came to circle the base twice. There was 18 miles of women's hands, 30,000 women turned up and 5,000 police and it was a chaos, absolute chaos. So I looked across this battleground and there was this woman in a wheelchair with a pair of bolt cutters friends were helping her use to cut through the fence and she was having a wonderful time. She was a woman of about 55 or 60 so I fought my way through and knelt by her chair and said I would like to write a song about you. You know what an idiotic thing to do at a demonstration and she didn't even look up. She says I'm busy and she kept them chopping through the fence. I found out she was headmistress of a school in north London. She was an architect name of Jennifer Jones so I went and interviewed her and I made the song literally out of her words and I made it episodically out of an episode here, an episode there, an episode there. It's not a story song it's just picking bits and pieces out of her life so that's woman on wheels. The corner put on your brakes I'm gonna tell you what it takes to be your woman on wheels. Run over the holes bumps and cracks roll on. Remember that day we were running for the train and the tire went flat. That man over there the one under the hat trying so hard not to stare. You get used to that still better than looking then looking away. You get that every day a woman on wheels roll on. Titty me and I'm pity you roll on. Now let's talk about some of the things that you can't do roll on. When it comes to curves, when it comes to stairs, I've got my special words and I don't need braids when it comes to the shops to reach the merchant that is a major exercise for the woman on wheels. Run, I want to cheer the clever day to roll on. Race up rams or run downstairs would not be great roll on. I went down to greener, I was cut in the fence, cops pulled me out of the way then they waited in said you'll never get arrested. A little lady like you, I said who were you talking to? I'm a woman on wheels. I said hold on, I've got my rights to demonstrate roll on. Next time I went down I took a dozen bold cutters and a dozen wheelchair mates to roll on. I want to be alone but I'm always under care. I've got this urge to roll. Need my cheer we're together for life, not together for love. There's things I need tomorrow. I'm a woman on wheels. Roll on so many places I can't go roll on, lie in a field with the flowers or walk on a beach with the sand between my toes to roll on. Well I need you but you need me to tell you about a different view of the world you see about the pain I feel, about the fight I've won, about how to do some little things. You think can't be done. Roll on with the deaf and blind lane that holds roll on. There's money around to help us all it's a crippled system holds us by and keeps the woman on wheels off the mainline track. Woman on wheels, if you ever end up in a wheelchair Peggy I'm pretty sure that that's going to be you isn't it. You're not going to stop are you? I rode around in a wheelchair when I was doing that song just to see what it would feel like it was extremely frustrating. That business of not being able to see over the counters of most stores that was just ridiculous. Well it's quite a song it's a wonderful song inspirational of course discrimination happens at so many levels of our life and it's only eventually that we learn to see them. Peggy before we sign off there's a couple things that I wanted to discuss with you. I always like to ask people what their background was that got them, inspired them, empowers them to do what they do. Now one of the things that you have in your life is you've got a 15 years older brother, Pete, half brother. Was your home life particularly activist? Because both of you are so activist was it because of a common home life? No for one thing we never lived in the same home together. He was at boarding school when I was born and he comes of the first wife, I come of the second wife. Our home was not particularly an activist home. No, no it wasn't. It was what was called progressive at the time but it wasn't activist. We didn't go out on marches and go to union meetings and and those things although I learned later that my father had been a member of the communist party in the 1935-40 period. I didn't become an activist as such until I met you and McCall which when I was 20-21. Because he was an activist because he had that orientation already? Oh whoa he was gut politics. If you read into his life he was brought up really really poor and his father was blacklisted practically wherever he worked for trying to get unions into the iron molding factories into the steel mills. You and McCall had politics running down his backbone every bone on his body. Well it sounds like you caught the disease. Yeah I did. I did but I caught it second hand. I didn't have what I call gut politics i.e. that it happened to you. That woman on wheels is gut disability. She has experienced it. The song about the marine that was gut what he talked about because it had happened to him. None of this has happened to me. I am in many cases speaking for other people and I'm intellectually interested in it and I'm angry about it but it's not something that I have had to put up with my life. Same as the engineer I was not discriminated against outrageously as a woman. It was more veiled. It was iron fist and velvet glove with me. So my activism is imposed if you like on a fairly comfortable lifestyle. What background did you have religious spiritually in your house? We had music. We had music and folk songs and talk. We didn't have radio. We didn't have television. I went to church once in my youth. One of them was Sunday school and then I went to a Quaker meeting and I was totally baffled by it. People sitting in silence. I was 15, 16 you know. But I felt no need of it. And now when you talk about religion to me walking out into a blue sky and the cherry trees out that's religion I just find that that's enough. The world is magic. The world is so hugely magic that I would say that the universe is religion. The cherry tree is religion. The little bug crawling along the fences religion. To me it's just a magic that I don't understand and I am part of it. And I can worship without needing to place any deity in charge of it. It works for me. Beautiful work that you've been doing. It's clearly carried you in ways to help all of creation and I'm thankful for your witness Peggy and I'm thankful that you could join me today for spirit and action. Well thank you for forgiving me a long enough time to explain some of what I do Mark. It's been a pleasure Peggy. Same here. That was singer-songwriter activist Peggy Seeker. We've got a couple minutes so we're going to give you a bonus song. Peggy mentioned earlier her song straight from the words of an Iraqi war veteran who up and quit finding he couldn't be part of the killing anymore. The Ballad of Jimmy Massey. Last song today from Peggy Seeker. I was born in 71 but you know my folks were far too young but daddy didn't want his wife he left and took his son. Tractor-triller was our home my bed was in the cab but daddy was the best friend little boy could ever have. We skipped dreams. We played pool. I was supposed to be at school. We hauled stuff from here to there from there too far away. I sat down in the road and cried. The day my daddy died. Trooper shot him down on the side of the highway. Daddy didn't own a gun. The cops said he was on the run. Judge said self-defense there were no justice done. Six years old and homeless scared out of my skin. They put me in a foster home and went looking for my kin. My name is Jimmy Massey. I'm an North Carolina boy. I did good in high school. My mama's pride enjoyed. I struggled with the softest and the hardest parts of man. My guitar was my refuge. Rambo is my friend. When I got out of high school this boy went crazy wild. My daddy and my mama wouldn't have known their darling child. Baking on street corners an inch away from crime. Buddy can you help a brother out sister spare a dime. One day a stranger turned me round. Here's what he said to me. The road you got before your son is not the road you see. Keep this up and one day son you'll wake up in your grave. Ten dollars in my baseball cap then he turned and walked away. Then he turned and walked away. I grew up with guns. I remember Desert Storm. We went through those Iraqis just like farmers cutting corn. I thought our victory took away the shame of Vietnam. I also thought the Marines could turn this boy into a man. Self-confidence, self-discipline, courage, honor, poise. Some boys turn into men, some men turn into boys. They check on everything you do they tell you from the start. We're going to be your family, your body's soul and heart. But the Marines are the very best. No one can deny. Women get that hungry look when we go walking by. Knife edge on our trousers correct from top to toe. We're America's golden boys everywhere we go. You learn to treat the women like servants like hoars. Men's a concrete hero, women are his reward. I learned my lesson far too late. The damage it was done. My wife didn't want her husband. She left and took my son. When you fire and hit the target your senses hit the top. It's just like sex on and on. You never want to stop. The devil man is in command and you go with the flow. They call us rolling death everywhere we go. We became barbarian warriors, princes in our prime, lived a life of emperors, women, food and wine. Took away my love of beauty, gave me a love of war, turned me into a killer. That's what the train is for. But I didn't know what killing man until I landed in Iraq. Dead women and kids lay all around after we'd attacked. A little boy dying in my arms all broke up inside. Staff sergeant Jimmy Massey sat down in the road and cried. Some of the boys went crazy. Some went crazy mean. I woke up a full guy and someone else's dream. I went to my lieutenant. I told him, "Sir, I'm done. This isn't what I came to do. Can't do it, sir. I'm done." I used to like war movies. I just can't take them now. I used to go to church. Now I try to reason how we learn all those commitments that break them one by one. I'm saying to my president, "Won't do it, sir. I'm done." I don't think it's safe to have a world that's run by men. We want to be the only rooster running among the hands. A woman makes new life. A man takes life away. I tell you, it really sucks to be a man today. I miss my men. I just can't sleep. I'm on that single track. Born again in blood and tears, I've been to hell and back. No matter what we think they did, no matter what they done, nothing can excuse the way we took that country down. I was discharged with honor. I've got me a different life. Learned to be a good man, learned how to love my wife. I study how our fine country came missing so low. I'm learning how we got here and where we've got to go. This song is for my little boy. Hunter is his name. This song is for my comrades who share the guilt and shame. This song it isn't over yet. I want you all to know. I'm learning how I got here and where I've got to go. I'm learning how I got here and where I've got to go. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song we will move this world along and our lives will feel the echo from our healing.