Peter Yarrow returns to share inspiration, music

GG: How are you doing?

PY: Well, I'm excited about coming to Oberlin. Christopher, my son, went there for four years. My daughter went there for one year, and I visited many times. And it's very much the tradition of things that is really a part of what motivates me and energizes me, both as a member of Peter, Paul and Mary and as a performer and an activist outside of that context. When I come there, what I expect to be able to share with students and parents and faculty and staff is a sense of a historical legacy that really identifies the capacity of each individual to really play a role in trying to do something to make sense out of a world that has gotten rather challenging, chaotic and disturbingly crazy. The reality is that when I went to college, if somebody said, you can make a difference, people would have been cynical in their response or even laughed at you.

In the 1960s when I emerged with Peter, Paul and Mary as a member of that group and a part of what was called then the "greening of America," we realized that in fact each person could play a part in . . . working together. . . . In that era people didn't finish college and rush into the hard-profile, fast-track jobs on Wall Street, asking themselves the question how do I survive this craziness and make my piece of the action?

They said, how can I make this nation a more moral nation? How can I change the law of the land so that blacks and whites live here together in equality before the law? Now Oberlin has placed it in terms of, for instance, into its involvement in the issues of justice that date back to certainly the underground railroad and perhaps even before, and issues of justice as it applies to equality within society between men and women specifically that was a groundbreaker there.

To me, one of the reasons I was encouraging of both my children to choose Oberlin, when it was their choice ultimately, was that Oberlin embraces that tradition, and yet today the sense of unanimity of spirit and empowerment is fragmented all around us. Sometimes it manifests itself in the context of divisiveness within a microcosm such as the campus of Oberlin, and sometimes it manifests itself in the kinds of policies . . . that would further distance the haves from the have-nots in our world and society, that would fragment the value system that presumably is what America means to so many of us. . . .

But what does this have to do, you might ask, with Oberlin and Oberlin students? Well, college for me was never a place for my children to learn particular skills, as much as a place to form their ethical value systems and learn from the tools that they had by virtue of being students: how to collate information, how to determine that they wanted to do something there on campus or in the context of Oberlin, a town, to add to the knowledge that existed in some way and learn to use the tools of college by defining themselves differently.

My son Christopher became very active in his senior year in the creation of a book of art works that was produced by himself and other students. I forget the name of it but it's continued. He also became involved with his advocacy on behalf of certain efforts in the context of the art department, and he was also involved in a search committee and all of a sudden he was doing something with his skills, his knowledge.

I believe that my being at Oberlin and talking about these things and presenting the picture of the world as I've seen it and have lived it, through the music and through my own words, can allow me to be an advocate on the side of that kind of realization of self by the students.

Christopher now is a grassroots organizer and coordinator for Mark Green, who is the quintessential Ralph Nader's Raiders inheritor of that point of view and will be running against Senator D'Amato, happily and hopefully successfully in the next election. . . .

My daughter also went to Oberlin and ultimately got her degree at Yale, but nevertheless benefited enormously from her time at Oberlin, and then she went abroad . . . having made a film. . . that she shot herself in the townships of South Africa that was ultimately shown on public broadcasting that spoke to the empowerment of women and their capacity in these townships to pave the way for the dismantling of apartheid at the grassroots level.

What I intend to share when I'm there - and this is my gift back to Oberlin as a way of saying thank you for all that Oberlin has given Christopher and Bethany - is to share the tradition of Peter, Paul and Mary and it's mostly shared in song but it has at its heart the belief that people, acting together, regardless of their wealth, status, power in society . . . have the capacity to make things better and to change the world.

And I believe that even if there are opportunities for doing so on the campus, those are the testing grounds and in the context of the college, those are the testing grounds for the ultimate pursuit of that kind of effort, once someone leaves Oberlin. I also believe that Oberlin is a place where there is much to be resolved, it's a place where there is a kind of a microcosm of some of the concerns and conflicts that exist elsewhere. And I believe that the will to deal with those challenges and conflicts is something that needs to be addressed from everything that I've understood from being my son's father and my daughter's father. All of this has great resonance and meaning and for me, it's not terribly unlike what I do in any event .

GG: I was wondering what you think of the trends that rock and roll has taken.

PY: Well, I think that part of it is just business as usual, rather than creativity in music. Music is a huge business now. It was not the case [when Peter, Paul and Mary emerged].

A lot of music, however, is a matter of inspiration, rather than money: Huge record companies, putting in enormous amounts of money into one project or another. The rap music that seems to celebrate violence and titillate one is reprehensible and destructive. If you see Schindler's List, you see violence that is horrific, but you walk away horrified by violence rather than delighted by it. The part of rap music and its derivative forms that celebrate violence and nihilistic behavior is horrific to me. But the part that is a cry from the soul to say there is pain here, you must look at it as valid and important, even though it may be painful to listen to.

I think a lot of music is trivial now. However, on an underground level, because of the Internet and because of other ways of people making their own records, there's a huge body of work that is being shared that can bypass the money system. Therefore you have wonderful acoustic acts whose reputations are growing and it's not millions and tens of millions of records but it's significant. You get people like Christine Lavin, Sally Fingeret, Buddy Mondlock and many others. And these are new acoustic artists, but there are other kinds of artists that are emerging.

I do believe that with alternate forms of communication, the lives and reputations of these people will be allowed to emerge.

GG: Would you say that those you just named are your favorite artists?

PY: My favorite artists are the newcomers who bring the same kind of spirit and energy to the music that was so essential many years ago.

GG: Do you feel you can still reach people with Peter, Paul and Mary's music?

PY: Unquestionably that's the case. We know because on a one-to-one basis, people tell us how it affects their lives. And we're talking about just the intimate communication, one person to one person. It's not a matter of selling a record or enjoying the show. It's a matter of really having the kind of contact that we feel is very, very meaningful. It's multi-generational now, we have four generations.

GG: Does the music mean the same to you today as it always did?

PY: . . . It does. It's more for me a mechanism for finding the essence of community rather than entertaining people. It never was really that.

GG: What is your favorite Peter, Paul and Mary song?

PY: I don't have such a song. They're like children: you love them all.

GG: What do you see as today's salient issues that you concentrate on?

PY: There are multitudes. For one thing, I'm involved in an attempt to make sure that the less viewer-sponsored component with the public and corporate component that supports public broadcasting be sustained rather than allowing Gingrich to rule the roost and defund public television and the radio. I've been to 15 cities and raised a lot of consciousness and hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. I'm involved in 10 different races, including the Presidential race and the John Kerry race in Massachusetts, the Jesse Helms race, he's running against Harvey Gant. Some of it's electoral-political, it's a crossroads, watershed period of time of great importance in the United States. Education is a priority.

Our value systems, as they reflect our interest in the people who are least fortunate in society, as I mentioned before, certain environmental issues are of a critical nature. And gun control.

GG: I was wondering if you're coming for a certain occasion.

PY: When I saw Nancy Dye, I spoke to her about something that related to a perspective that emerged because Christopher went to Oberlin for four years. . . . I believe that Oberlin is so synonymous with the kinds of energy and point of view of what Peter, Paul and Mary and folk music are all about.

Since I know that folk music has such a capacity to underscore the whole idea of community very powerfully, I realized that I might be able to come to the campus and sing and teach classes and add my voice to those who say: One, the sense of community that exists at Oberlin is something that needs to be applauded and encouraged and enlarged; two, that the world out there is desparate for people to feel empowered to make a difference and try and make things better and address the dilemmas of our time and consider themselves to be a necessary part of the attempt to find solutions and that having been an activist and an organizer for many, many years have felt that doing what I ordinarily do, whether it's in concerts with Peter, Paul and Mary or separately, doing lectures etc. could be brought to Oberlin and I could make my contribution and add my voice.

And we discussed when we might do it. We were thinking of doing it last spring and then we decided not to. And this is a benefit, not in the sense that we're trying to raise money, but in the sense that I'm doing it because I want to do this, not because this is a business, I'm not being paid to do it. So, I've been on campuses, I've been at Oberlin, and talked to students . . . about what we learned in the era of activism and transformation of the country in the 1960s, . . . what I see the dilemmas and challenges of today to be, how I view them and simultaneously engage people in the way that folk music does . . . and I will do that inevitably in each of the circumstances in which I perform because it's something that comes through me, it's inherent in the nature of the beast.

GG: I was also wondering about your upcoming projects and work, either alone or with Peter, Paul and Mary.

PY: Well, I've been engaged in a nationwide tour of 15 cities, where I went to the local PBS stations and hosted a Peter, Paul and Mary concert called "Lifelines," which was recently the recipient of an Emmy nomination.

In that context I solicited memberships [for the stations] and talked about the partnership of viewer-sponsored television and governmental support, support that has been opposed and abominated by Newt Gingrich and others who would like, I believe, to decimate that partnership and, effectively, public television.

In any event, I've raised hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 15 cities and also raised a lot of consciousness about the importance of public television. Saturday morning I fly to Boston, where I'll be a part of [the John Kerry race] one of the 20 races that I'm involved in.

I'm in the process of organizing a big effort to establish a fund to allow children without the means to get medical treatment, to have vascular, neurosurgery on their brains and in their spines, not just for the United States but for all over the world. I could go on all night talking about these things; some are political, some are not.