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.
a playlist for short 022, the peace sign
the man in despair
the hour
14 tracks, in the order they play
each block is a track, drawn as long as it plays57:28
the pacifist and the bomb
0:00 – 15:070:00
a child of our time: deep river
01 · tippett
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.
3:423:42
what have they done to the rain?
02 · malvina reynolds
a 1962 song about the fallout from bomb tests.
2:186:00
threnody for the victims of hiroshima
03 · penderecki
written in 1960 and dedicated to the victims of hiroshima: what nuclear weapons do.
9:07the first march, easter 1958
15:07 – 28:3215:07
h-bomb thunder
04 · arthur johnstone
john brunner wrote it for the first aldermaston march, and it became the campaign’s anthem. this is a later recording.
4:2819:35
there’s better things to do
05 · peggy seeger and ewan maccoll
peggy seeger wrote it as a marching song for the first march. this is her own recording.
2:3322:08
down by the riverside
06 · ken colyer
ken colyer’s jazzmen played on the first march. “ain’t gonna study war no more.”
2:3824:46
easter oratorio: sinfonia
07 · bach
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.
3:46the man in the sign, and the world
28:32 – 44:3228:32
quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor
08 · granados
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.
6:2334:55
nobody knows the trouble i’ve seen
09 · bayard rustin
the war resisters league paid for him to go to england and help set up the first march.
2:0737:02
i ain’t marching anymore
10 · phil ochs
a 1965 song. the sign was on america’s marches against the vietnam war.
2:3539:37
give peace a chance
11 · john lennon and yoko ono
1969. by then the sign stood for peace all over the world.
4:55the fear again, and the stone
44:32 – 57:2844:32
breathing
12 · kate bush
1980: fallout again, sung from the womb, as the marches grew again in britain.
5:3050:02
russians
13 · sting
1985, the year holtom died: the fear the sign was made against was still on the radio.
3:5854:00
requiem: in paradisum
14 · fauré
under the signs, his gravestone says “may he find peace.”
3:28