Commitment and Pete Seeger - Harry Chapin

I think one of the important points of focus is to be able to have that sense

of the personal, and at the same time the larger dimension, the social

dimension, the political dimension.

And that’s one of the things that we’ve

both been trying to work at for the past five or six years.

It’s a tough thing

to integrate.

The balance, yeah.

The strain has been enormous for you, and for me at times.

But it’s worth it,

because the, the survival of civilization, in a sense, is, is the rsult when

you do this kind of thing.

The clearst version of somebody saying that in a way that took it out of the

theoretical and into the practical, and well also that talks about the rewards,

is something Pete Seeger said.

And I think Tom was there.

We were doing a

benefit out in, for the theater out in Long Island that I support,

the Performing Arts Foundation, and Pete every year is nice enough to come out

and, uh, do a benefit with us.

And Pete said, you know I — somebody had asked him and he, asked him a question

about how he felt about all these years of being involved in things like this —

and he sort of answered me 'cause he knew my commitment to things, he says «You know, Harry, my involvement in a cause, benefit, march, or demonstration,

uh, I’m not sure it’s made a difference.»

And here’s a guy who’s being very

modest 'cause for forty years he’s stood up for every major issue of our times,

since fighting fascism in the early forties, late thirties.

Uh, but he says, «I can tell you one thing — that involvement with these issues

means you’re involved with the good people.

The people with the live hearts,

the live eyes, the live heads.»

And, and I mean just think about it in terms of your lives, all those people

out there listening.

You know, the whole stance of the music industry during

the late seventies was «Look at your navel and say boogie» and try to get some

kind of complexity, passion, excitement out of that.

Well, who are the people that are your best friends?

Who are the people you

keep coming back to?

Who are the people that make your life worthwhile?

Usually the people who are committed to something.

So in the final analysis,

commitment in and of itself, irrespective of whether you win or not, is,

is something that truly makes your life more worthwhile.