On Mary's Death

I'm not as young as I once was--have I mentioned I'm turning 40 this year? no? if I can ever get back on my treadmill and write like I'm supposed to be doing, I will. But I'm still a good deal younger than most serious fans of Peter, Paul and Mary, a trio who recorded some of the most wistful, melancholy ballads I have come across, along with some of the most authentically earnest, persuasive protest songs of all time.

I grew up on Peter, Paul and Mary, one of the few groups my parents both loved. Peter, Paul and Mary rocked enough for my dad but were folksy and lyrical enough for my mom. And my sister and I loved every song that they sung. I think the songs you hear as a child, that you see your parents loving, are formative. My affection for Rod Stewart (thanks, Dad) and Cat Stevens (you, too, Mom) falls into this category. But my love for Peter, Paul and Mary transcends my childhood memories in that the songs I grew up loving, knew by heart, are the same songs--really the primary songs--I sing to my own girls now.

This is in part because I know all of the words, which I cannot say of so many other songs that I love. But it is also because the songs themselves have such a universal, ageless quality. I have to confess that there is no--zero--music written expressly for children that I can tolerate, with the occasional exception of the Free to Be, You and Me soundtrack, and that is definitely thanks to nostalgia. But "Puff the Magic Dragon" is another story altogether. The first time Lily really listened to the lyrics as I sang it, as I have been doing since the very night of her birth, she started to sob. "It's so sad," she said, and I felt both pride and a jolt of preemptive anxiety for this child of mine, so like another little girl whose fear of leaving childhood behind kicked in much earlier than it should have.

And the other songs I loved, love still: "Lemon Tree," also sad, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Blowing in the Wind," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone"--for a solid year the only song that would make tiny Lily stop crying, then Annika, too. It took me a while to realize that this one is, as a small friend of mine would say, "unappropriate." But I guess they all are, if you shy away from death, separation, loss, in your kid music.

Not all, though. Not all. Not the protest songs. My childhood friend Kate, whom I loved instantly upon first meeting but even more so when I learned that Peter, the actual Peter, was her godfather, and I used to jog around the high school track, wash our cars, drive to the movies, singing "If I Had a Hammer" at the top of our lungs. When we marched for a woman's right to choose on the mall in DC four years in a row, we sang it then, arms linked, understanding on some level that the words had prepared us for our actions.

Peter, Paul and Mary was a great introduction to popular music; I am grateful to my parents for instilling a love for it in me. And I have seen many Peter, Paul and Mary concerts since that first one, one here in New York with an especially sympatico friend (you can't just invite any twenty-something to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert) at Carnegie Hall. I made fun of us for being there, mocked myself for my uncoolness. But we both sang along to each song. Knew every word.

A few weeks ago I was stuck in traffic with the girls, a situation in which I can occasionally be prevailed on to sing. "The plane song, Mama," Annika said, and Lily concurred. "Jet plane, Mama," she said, and I sang, sang the chorus again and again at the end until they'd both drifted off into sleep. I hope Mary knew that there were those of us out there passing it on to the next generation. I think she probably did.