a playlist for short 022, the peace sign
14 tracks · 57 min
gerald holtom drew the peace sign in 1958 and said it was a picture of himself, in despair. this is music from his story: the march it was made for, the sign going round the world, and the words on his gravestone.
open in spotify ↗watch the short ↗a child of our time: deep rivertippett
holtom signed the peace pledge in the 1930s. tippett, jailed as a conscientious objector in 1943, became the peace pledge union’s honorary president in 1958, the year of the sign.
what have they done to the rain?malvina reynolds
a 1962 song about the fallout from bomb tests.
threnody for the victims of hiroshimapenderecki
written in 1960 and dedicated to the victims of hiroshima: what nuclear weapons do.
h-bomb thunderarthur johnstone
john brunner wrote it for the first aldermaston march, and it became the campaign’s anthem. this is a later recording.
there’s better things to dopeggy seeger and ewan maccoll
peggy seeger wrote it as a marching song for the first march. this is her own recording.
down by the riversideken colyer
ken colyer’s jazzmen played on the first march. “ain’t gonna study war no more.”
easter oratorio: sinfoniabach
for easter day, holtom planned green placards in place of black, “from despair to a belief in humanity and life.” so many came that all of them, black and green, were carried on the first day.
quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñorgranados
holtom said he drew himself like goya’s peasant before the firing squad, though goya’s man has his arms raised. granados wrote these pieces after goya.
nobody knows the trouble i’ve seenbayard rustin
the war resisters league paid for him to go to england and help set up the first march.
i ain’t marching anymorephil ochs
a 1965 song. the sign was on america’s marches against the vietnam war.
give peace a chancejohn lennon and yoko ono
1969. by then the sign stood for peace all over the world.
breathingkate bush
1980: fallout again, sung from the womb, as the marches grew again in britain.
russianssting
1985, the year holtom died: the fear the sign was made against was still on the radio.
requiem: in paradisumfauré
under the signs, his gravestone says “may he find peace.”
