[1980:] Lee Hays and I wrote Hammer in 1949. It was the very first song recorded by the Weavers. A collectors item. ("No one but collectors ever got it.") But nine years later a brand new group of singers, Peter, Paul and Mary, put it on every radio in the country. They rewrote my melody slightly, and most people nowadays sing it as they heard it on PPM's record. I made an interesting discovery, though: both versions can be sung at the same time, and they harmonize with each other. A moral there. (Notes Pete Seeger, 'Singalong')

[1980:] For the old-timers, the feeling [in the early days of People's Songs] was something on the order of a class reunion. At one of the first board of directors' meetings, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays entertained themselves by passing a sheet of paper back and forth, gleefully collaborating on the lyrics for "If I Had a Hammer ..." (Klein, Woody Guthrie 316)

pasted from somewhere (lost the ref)

Stu