February 25, 1968: Waist Deep In Two Big Muddies

February 25, 1968: Pete Seeger appears on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour -- Take 2.

Born on May 3, 1919 in New York City, Seeger became one of the top folksingers in America in the late 1930s, working with Woody Guthrie. In the early 1950s, he was the leader of The Weavers, the country's top folksinging group, also including Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and a female member, Ronnie Gilbert.

In 1953, the group was blacklisted for their Communist leanings. Despite a successful concert at Carnegie Hall on Christmas Eve 1955 and a subsequent tour, The Weavers were persona non grata. Seeger and Hays had written "If I Had a Hammer" and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine"; The Weavers had popularized Merle Travis' "Sixteen Tons," before Tennessee Ernie Ford; and Seeger had introduced mainstream white America to such songs as "On Top of Old Smoky," "Down by the Riverside," "Goodnight, Irene," "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena," "Kumbaya" and "Wimoweh," which became "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." In spite of this, Seeger found it incredibly difficult to get gigs.

In 1962, The Kingston Trio recorded Seeger's antiwar song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" That became a Top 10 hit. In 1963, his adaptation of the African-American hymn "We Shall Overcome" became the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement, and he appeared at the Newport Folk Festival with his successors as the biggest folksingers in America, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

In 1965, The Byrds recorded his song "Turn! Turn! Turn!," adapted from the Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verses 1 to 8. That hit Number 1. The same year, he hosted Rainbow Quest, a music show broadcast on Newark-based, New York-aimed, TV station WNJU-Channel 47. In 1967, that show's 38 episodes were broadcast on New York's WNDT-Channel 13 (soon to become WNEW-Channel 13, the flagship station of PBS.)

By that point, he had been rehabilitated enough that, when CBS told Tom and Dick Smothers, folksingers and comedians, and hosts of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, that they were willing to do them a favor, they said, "Let us have Seeger."

For the opening show of their 2nd season, September 10, 1967, CBS let "the Smos Bros" have Seeger. He sang some songs, and explained how songs can have special meaning to people. Then he was shown singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" But there was an obvious edit in between.

And it got out that the reason this previously-recorded program was edited is that he had sung "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," an anti-war song that seemed to criticize not only people who supported the Vietnam War, but the man leading the American effort in it, President Lyndon B. Johnson, suggesting that he was "the big fool." CBS did not want to anger LBJ and his supporters.

Well, they angered Seeger's supporters, and the Smothers Brothers' supporters, and people who opposed the war, and even people who supported the war but stood up for freedom of speech. A backlash developed.

And other things happened. On October 21, there was the biggest antiwar demonstration in Washington to that point. On November 30, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Wisconsin announced he was opposing LBJ in the Democratic Presidential Primaries, on an antiwar platform. On January 30, 1968, the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive. Although it was a strategic disaster for them, it was a public-relations disaster for America: It showed that, no matter what LBJ said about how "we" were "winning," we weren't.

What's more, CBS owned Columbia Records -- at the time, Seeger's record label. They began to fear of a boycott of their records. And so, the network gave him another chance: On February 25, he appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour again. And he sang "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," and CBS showed it.

Though a pacifist, during World War II, Seeger served in the U.S. Army, in the Pacific Theater. He was trained as an airplane mechanic (the Air Force wasn't separated from the Army until 1947), but was reassigned to entertain the American troops with music. Later, when people asked him what he did in The War, he always answered: "I strummed my banjo."

So the story of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" is not strictly true: He did not experience it. However, there was a similar story, "The Ribbon Creek Incident": In 1956, at the U.S. Marine base at Parris Island, South Carolina, a Staff Sergeant conducted an exercise that led to the drowning deaths of 6 Marines. He was acquitted of manslaughter and oppression of his troops, but was found guilty of negligent homicide and drinking on duty. He was sentenced to 3 months' confinement and was demoted to Private, and later rose back to Corporal and received an honorable discharge.

Seeger no doubt learned of the incident, and, once the situation in Vietnam began getting worse, wrote the song based on it, making it an allegory for World War II veterans not understanding that this was a different war. He included the words "Nervous Nellie," a term Johnson had used for antiwar activists.

Johnson had run for a full term in 1964 in part on being "the peace candidate," with the Republican nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, being an aggressive anti-Communist. Johnson won in a landslide, but couldn't win the war.

Once, asked if he was still a Communist, Seeger said, "I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other."

The song has 6 verses. I was tempted to post all the lyrics here. Instead, I'm posting a link to the performance. The studio audience gave rather nervous applause, wanting to salute the performance, but not really wanting to support the stand.

Two days later, on February 27, CBS broadcast an even more influential program: Walter Cronkite, anchor of The CBS Evening News, aired film of his report from Vietnam, and recommended that America should get out.

Two days after that, on February 29, Robert McNamara resigned as U.S. Secretary of Defense. On March 12, Gene McCarthy came close to beating LBJ in the New Hampshire Primary. On March 16, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York entered the race. On March 31, LBJ dropped out, saying he needed to concentrate on ending the war, not on his personal political vindication.

On June 4, Kennedy beat McCarthy in the California Primary, essentially knocking him out of the race. The next day, Kennedy was shot, and died the day after that. On August 28, Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination for President, while Chicago police beat antiwar activists, just 4 miles from the Convention site. On November 5, Richard Nixon -- the man that Johnson, Humphrey, Kennedy, McCarthy, and certainly Seeger and either Smothers Brother did not want to see win -- won the Presidential election. The war went on another 4 years.

Pete Seeger remained America's grand old man of song, through the rest of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Reagan Years, two wars with Iraq, the end of the Cold War, 9/11, and all kinds of governmental abuses, singing his last on January 27, 2014, at the age of 94.

As for the other Weavers: Lee Hays died in 1981, not long after the Weavers' final concert together, at Carnegie Hall; Ronnie Gilbert in 2015; and Fred Hellerman in 2016.

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February 25, 1968 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Detroit Pistons, 124-115 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Cazzie Russell scored 38 points for the Knicks.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the St. Louis Hawks, 126-119 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the San Diego Rockets, 127-112 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena). Elgin Baylor scored 41 points and had 22 rebounds.

The American Basketball Association was in its 1st season, and these 4 games were played in it on this day:

* The New Jersey Americans lost to the Minnesota Muskies, 92-83 at at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Both teams moved before the next season: The Americans, playing their home games at the Teaneck Armory, moved to Long Island, becoming the New York Nets; and the Muskies became the Miami Floridians.

* The Indiana Pacers beat their arch-rivals, the Kentucky Colonels, 100-93 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

* The Anaheim Amigos beat the Houston Mavericks, 114-109 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

* And the Oakland Oaks beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 115-105 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Jim Hadnot scored 41 points for the Oaks.

And there were 4 games played in the NHL: 

* The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1. It was only the 3rd game the Rangers had played in the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Oakland Seals and the Minnesota North Stars played to a tie, 3-3 at the Met Center in Bloomington. Yes, it hosted an NHL game and an ABA game on the same day.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Montreal Canadiens, the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Black Hawks and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.