If I had a hammer

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Pete Seeger, 1955

If I Had a Hammer is the title of a protest song written by Pete Seeger (music) with Lee Hays (lyrics) in 1949 , which became an evergreen .

History of origin

The folk group The Weavers made their radio debut on January 2, 1949 at the WNYC Folksong Festival in New York. Over the next several months, the song, originally titled The Hammer Song, was written as a protest against the prosecution of 11 progressive communists who violated the Smith Act for advocating an overthrow and in June 1949 before the Foley Square Federal Courthouse were indicted. This law, passed in June 1940, banned all activities that helped overthrow the US government. The Weavers had first performed the composition on June 3, 1949 in the St. Nicholas Arena in New York during a dinner with the leaders of the Communist Party , whose supporter Pete Seeger was until 1951. When the Internal Security Act was passed in September 1950 and, among other things, initiated the investigation of "subversive songs", Pete Seeger had to testify before the "House of Un-American Affairs" committee on August 18, 1955 and made it clear that he had " sung in front of vagabonds and the Rockefellers ”and he is proud that he never refused to sing“ in front of an audience regardless of religion, skin color or life situation ”.

The text combined the "Hammer of Justice" ( hammer of justice ) of the Communist Party USA (CPUs) with the symbol of the Liberty Bell ( bell of freedom ). It was about singing out loud about the dangers of the coming difficult times of the left-wing movement and warning about them, but also about the love between people across the country (“sing out danger ... sing out a warning ... sing out love between all my brothers and my sisters all over this land ”). The "hammer of justice" was not an allusion to the symbolism of the hammer and sickle , but was viewed as a treacherous promotion of the ideology of the Soviet Union. Seeger had borrowed this metaphor from the Spiritual Hammering Judgment and used it for power that is supposed to promote love and the fight against injustice.

The Weavers - The Hammer Song

The Weavers were signed to Decca Records . After Decca had refused the recording because of the political content, the Weavers first recorded the song in November 1949 in New York with the line- up of Pete Seeger (banjo / vocals), Lee Hays (vocals), Ronnie Gilbert (vocals) and Fred Hellerman (vocals / Guitar) for Charter Records . For publication , however, it did not come, because the small label was shortly thereafter liquidated. A new recording took place in December 1949 for the small label Hootenanny Records , which was considered a platform for subversive, politically left-oriented records.

Publication and Success

In Hootenanny Records , the single was The Hammer Song / Banks of Marble (Hootenanny 101) in March 1950 to the market. The B-side was also an extremely political song. After only 7 singles and one LP, this obscure label also disappeared from the market. This single became a collector's item, but could not place in the charts . The word combination “sing out” from The Hammer Song spread quickly and gave Sing Out! his name, whose first edition in May 1950 also had the cover picture with the lyrics of the Hammer Song .

Cover versions

Trini Lopez - If I Had A Hammer

There are at least 116 recorded cover versions . As one of the first groups, The Limelighters took up the folk song (LP The Limelighters ; March 1960), still as a hammer song . Peter, Paul and Mary rearranged the song, first titled If I Had a Hammer (LP Peter, Paul and Mary ; April 1962); the LP reached number 1 on the LP charts and sold two million copies. From this, they released If I Had a Hammer as their second single (August 1962) and sang the title at the Civil Rights March on August 28, 1963 . The single reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 . The Weavers presented the song live on 2/3. May 1963 at Carnegie Hall as If I Had a Hammer . This was followed in particular by the Brothers Four (LP Big Folk Hits ; May 1963), The Lettermen (September 1963), Martha and the Vandellas (September 1963), Bobby Darin (LP Golden Folk Hits ; July 1962, released November 1963), Brian Hyland (November 15, 1963) or Sam Cooke (July 7/8, 1964).

Trini Lopez recorded If I Had A Hammer live at PJ's Club in Los Angeles for his debut album Trini Lopez at PJ's . He and his company (Dick Brant / bass and Mickey Jones / drums) were booked here for three months. Music producer Don Costa , with the help of recording studio owner Wally Heider, captured the nightclub's live atmosphere with contagious audience clapping. The LP, released on June 5, 1963, sold more than one million copies, the single released in July 1963 remained in the US top 40 for 48 weeks, reached number 3 on the charts and became the number one hit in 36 Countries. It sold 1 million copies in the USA, 500,000 in Germany and more than 4.5 million copies worldwide. Another cover version was recorded by Ross McManus, father of Elvis Costello, with the Joe Loss Orchestra.

Claude François made the French version Si j'avais un marteau ("If I had a hammer") the number one hit in France (October 1963). Rita Pavone made it to second place in Italy with the twist version Datemi Un Martello ("Give me a hammer"; January 1964). A Spanish-language version with the title El martillo ("The Hammer") was made by the Chilean singer Víctor Jara known. A German-language version comes from the James Brothers under the title Had I a Hammer (1964). Wanda Jackson (November 8, 1968) brought out a country version that reached number 41 on the country charts. In 1969 Waldemar Matuška sang the Czech variant "Kladivo" ("Hammer"). Country colleague Johnny Cash performed a duet with June Carter Cash in June 1972 .

The song became an anthem for the American civil rights movement . The Internet platform Wikileaks chose the song about half a century after its creation as "Wikileaks song".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement in The Daily Worker of June 1, 1949
  2. ↑ Lewis MacAdams, Birth of the Cool , 2012, np
  3. ↑ Ronald D. Cohen / James Capaldi, The Pete Seeger Reader , 2013, p. 19
  4. ^ Robbie Lieberman: My Song Is My Weapon . 1995, ISBN 978-0-252-06525-5 , pp. 161 .
  5. ^ Mickey Jones, That Would Be Me , 2007, p. 51
  6. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 178
  7. ↑ El martillo on Allmusic (English)
  8. ↑ James Brothers - If I had a hammer. Retrieved February 2, 2018 .
  9. ^ Inspirational material. Retrieved March 30, 2013 .