Everybody Has the Right to Live

Annotation — My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

The song "Everybody Has the Right to Live" - originally by Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, on the 1968 album Everybody's Got a Right to Live (which featured several references to the Vietnam War) - was updated in 1971. In the May/June 1971 edition of Broadside Magazine, Pete Seeger wrote a letter, with rewritten lyrics, referencing the My Lai massacre: "can't you hear the women and children over in My Lai, Lt. Wm Calley, why do we have to die?". Seeger's letter said: "Dear Sis and Gordon: There was much music in D.C. May 1-5 as well as April 24. Enclosed are some of the new verses Rev. Kirkpatrick and I made up for 'Everyone Has the Right to Live'." (1) "Sis and Gordon" referred to Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen - who founded the mimeographed publication Broadside, in 1962, to promote contemporary folk and protest songs. It also had a music label: Broadside Records. It usually published both lyrics and notations of songs, as well as articles and interviews about folk music, and newspaper clippings of current events. While many of the songs would have been played at the folk clubs and festivals, not all of the artist recorded the songs.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Updated lyrics for the My Lai massacre published in Broadside Magazine #113, unrecorded

About the artist

Born 3 May 1919 in Manhattan, New York, USA, died on 27 January 2014, same location

Themes

Anti-War · My Lai · Anti-Calley

In collections

My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs · Pete Seeger Songs