Song of the Day 6/9: The Weavers, “The Hammer Song”

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson will wield the hammer of justice — a gavel, actually — when the House select committee he chairs on the Jan. 6 insurrection presents its findings tonight at 8 p.m. in that old-school format, the prime-time television broadcast. I’m not sure how that will play in our post-TV era.

Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote this song of solidarity in 1949 and debuted it at a dinner supporting Communist Party leaders on trial for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government. The audience liked it so they recorded it with their quartet, the Weavers. The record was, as they say, not commercially successful.

It did, however, become the subject of Seeger’s grilling before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. Asked whether he had performed the song for a Communist gathering in 1949, Seeger replied,

I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.

For repeatedly refusing to answer the question directly, he was charged with contempt of Congress and sentenced to a year in prison. He never served it — the sentence was vacated in 1962 — but none of the three government-licensed broadcast networks would put him on the air afterwards.

The atmosphere was a bit different by 1962, when Peter, Paul and Mary included the song on their first LP. They simplified the melody for their version, which rather irked Seeger at first, but that’s how almost all subsequent singers have performed it. Released as the group’s second single, it became their first hit, reaching No. 10 on the Hot 100.

Lots of people recorded it after that, but Trini Lopez had the most success with the tune. His live recording went to No. 3 in 1963, the height of the Great Folk Music Scare.

That opened the floodgates. Over the next two years it became a civil rights anthem and was recorded by dozens of acts, everyone from the Lennon Sisters and the Lettermen to Martha and the Vandellas and Sam Cooke.