The rarest, and my personal favorite, type of protest song is a positive one. Pete Seeger and Lorre Wyatt’s “God’s Counting on Me, God’s Counting on You” brilliantly combines protest lyrics with a sense of community and personal responsibility wrapped in an instantly catchy melody. It’s just the kind of song I love. But, I think what drew me to this song initially was as much about the song as seeing a Pete Seeger video of him playing the tune live. He had an amazing ability to connect with the audience and was able to get everyone singing right along with him. Literally putting the folk in folk music.
I did a video of this tune years ago in a stripped down format — just guitar and voice. Sometimes all you need is three (or four) chords, the truth and a guitar (or, in Pete Seeger’s case, a long neck banjo), but I wanted to do a more arranged/produced cover of the song. So that’s what’s in this video… As always, thanks for listening and I hope you like the music.
Jamie Bonk 