Artist & Tune
About the Song
First recorded by Seeger on her 2021 "First Farewell" album on Red Grape Music. The 2nd recording is with her son (with Ewan MacColl) Calum McColl accompanying her.
Peggy says: "This is a completely truthful song & sometimes it’s important to just say things as they are. When people talk about hypocrisy & greed they normally mean someone else’s hypocrisy & greed. We consume an enormous amount. I’m the same - I’m guilty too. We all are. When I wrote the song, I wanted to state it just very simply — my deep desire to stop the fighting, the battling, the tearing down other people & being rude & assembling riches while so much of the world is poor. I really do long for peace & it’s a pure cry from the heart."
Rhiannon Giddens, Crys Matthews & Resistance Revival Chorus recorded Seeger's song in September 2024 as a powerful call for community and civic engagement in partnership with Joy To The Polls and HeadCount.org.
"This & every election season, we get a chance to show up at the polls and vote the world we want to see closer to existence – a more just and peaceful society envisioned in this incantation of a song. We dedicate this recording to survivors and victims of war, injustice, and poverty everywhere. As we long for peace & justice across the globe, may you use your voice and vote."
To play along: capo up for 4 to E for Peggy's original recording or up 2 to D for Peggy's video with her son and the Resistance Revival Choir / Giddens / Matthews recording.
O how I long for peace
Among the peoples & the nations
How I long to halt the plunderof the wonders of creation
O how I long for peace
Fmag7 G C - / F C / F Em / Dm G / Fmaj7 G C -
I cannot understand
How the sisters, wives & mothers
Cannot stop the slaughter
Of the husbands, sons & brothers
G C / F C / F Em / Dm G
There never will be peace
Till men abandon fighting
As the way to deal with problems
That prevent us from uniting
The profits made from war
There's few that can resist them
Hypocrisy & greed control
The lifeblood of the system
The world can wait no longer
For political permission
Sit down, disrupt, do anything
To make the whole world listen
— lyrics & music by Peggy Seeger
(c) 2011 Harmony Music Group Ltd / Bucks Music. All rights reserved.