Lyr/Chords ADD: If I Had a Hammer (Seeger/Hays)

Subject: If I Had A Hammer and Blowin' In the Wind
From:
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 02:28 PM

I would like the lyrics to one or all of the following Folk songs, please:

1. "If I Had A Hammer", by Peter, Paul, and Mary
2. "Blowin' in the Wind", by Peter Paul, and Mary
3. "The Sound of Silence", ?????

   I need these tomorrow for a poetry class. Your help would be graciously appreciated...I don't know where else to go.

   Thank you.

Subject: RE: If I Had A Hammer
From: betty
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 03:46 PM

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the mornin, I'd hammer in the ev'ning, all over this land. I'd hammer out the danger, I'd hammer put a warning, I'd hammer out the love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land.

2. bell ---ring 3. song---sing 4. Well, I've got a Hammer and I've got a bell, And I've got a song to sing all over this land. It's the hanner of justice, It's the bell of freedom It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land.

Subject: RE: If I Had A Hammer
From: Peter Fisher
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 04:25 PM

The other two can be found in the DT database. Search for Bob Dylan and you will find, among many, Blowing in the Wind; search for Paul Simon and you will find Sound of Silence.

Subject: RE: If I Had A Hammer
From: sportiec
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 11:05 PM

Thanks Betty and Peter. You have made it easy and simple for me to meet my deadline and complete my assignment for tomorrow.

Subject: If I had a hammer
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jan 00 - 07:41 PM

Anyone know the chords to If I had a hammer? thank you

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 00 - 08:13 PM

Try these, fudge them a round a bit. I don't do cut and dried chords, usually, which is why I suck! :>))

C~~~~G~~~~~Am~~~~G
Ooo-oooo-ooo-ooo

C~~~~G~~~~~Am~~~~G
Ooooo-oooooo-ooooooo-ooo

C~~~G~~~Am~~~G~~F~~~~~~~C~~G~~Am
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning
~~~~~~~~ C~~G~~Am~~~~F~~~~~~G
I hammer in the evening, all over this land!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~C~~~Am~~~~~~~~~C~~~~~~~Am
I'd hammer out justice, I'd hammer out a warning!
~~~~~~~~~~~~F~~~~~~C
I'd hammer out love between
~~F~~~~~~~~~~~~C~~~~~~
My brothers and my sisters,
~~F~~~C~~G~~~~C~~G~~Am~~G
A-a-a-ll over this laaaaaaaaaaaaand,
C~~~~G~~~~~Am~~~~G
Oooooooo  ooooo  oooooo  ooooo
 

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Gary T
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 05:14 PM

This may fit a bit better (key of C):
Intro: C Am F G C Am F G
Verse:C Am F G C Am F G
C Am F - G - G -
C - C - Am - Am -
F C F C F C G -
C Am F G etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 05:21 PM

Sounds more like "Teen Angel" to me! Hmmph.

A

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Gary T
Date: 30 Jan 00 - 11:05 PM

Yes, it's a rather versatile chord sequence. Used in this song, it's rather quick--in the first line, the C, Am, & first half of the F all fall into the single word "hammer".

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Grab
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 09:47 AM

If I had a hammer, I'd bash the irritating git who started that (expletive deleted) song! ;-)

I'd hammer out fingers! I'd hammer out noses! I'd hammer out a warning to folks not to write such tripe, all over this land...

Actually that's a thought - has anyone got more interesting alternative lyrics to this?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 10:12 AM

Those are almost the very words we used to sing to that tune, in irritation against the saccharine commerciality of PP&M. Glad to see it wasn't a purelylocal aberration!

A

Subject: Chords Req: Botany Bay
From: GUEST,some guy
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 03:25 AM

if anyone knows the notes to Botany Bay or any other great tunes i can just barely recal from my childhood please send em this way

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 01:10 PM

There's a separate thread on Botany Bay (2 versions). As for the other great songs from your childhood, we know them, all right, cuz this here is the Mudcat!

But we'll have to know more about you before we start reading your mind; although we are psychic it's considered poor etiquette to use the gift on strangers :>).

What songs are you looking for? I bet you can get help from someone in this farflung and slightly whacky outfit!

A

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Gary T
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 03:34 PM

Amos, was that "psychic" or "psycho"? (BG)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 03:46 PM

It's poor manners, likewise, to use your psycho powers on strangers. Reminds me of the old Scots saying "Thar's manny a muckle maks an Mudcat amokkle". Or something like that. Meaning Mudcats may not run amok. :>)

A.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:06 AM

In the immortal words of Billy Connely... "If I had a hammer, there'd be no more folksingers!"

LOL!!!!

;-)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: If I had a hammer
From: GUEST,Herge
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 05:57 PM

Any redaers from the UK will know the fine job the English 'Folk Singer' Handy Andy did with this song!! Herge

Subject: Lyr Add: IF I HAD A HAMMER (Pete Seeger & Lee Hays
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 11:55 PM

As far as I can tell, this is the original version, as first recorded by the Weavers in 1949. I thought I heard an early version that had "all over this world" instead of "land," but I can't find anything to document that. The Peter, Paul and Mary version is, of course, different....

If I Had a Hammer
(Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, 1949)

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning,
I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land.
I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between all of my brothers,
All over this land.

2. If I had a bell, I'd ring it....

3. If I had a song, I'd sing it....

4. Well, I've got a hammer and I've got a bell,
And I've got a song all over this land.
It's the hammer of justice,
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between all of my brothers,
All over this land.

from a reprint of the May, 1950, issue of Sing Out!, Volume I, No. 1.

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: If I Had A Hammer (Pete Seeger & Lee Hays)
From: GUEST,sassi
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 01:26 AM

Peter, Paul, and Mary have a different tune (slightly) than the Weavers do. Great song, though!

Subject: RE: If I Had A Hammer (Pete Seeger & Lee Hays)
From: s&r
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 04:56 AM

[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

Subject: RE: If I Had A Hammer (Pete Seeger & Lee Hays)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 08:57 PM

Try here, Stu! :-)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords ADD: If I Had a Hammer (Seeger/Hays)
From: Felipa
Date: 25 Jan 22 - 04:44 PM

or here: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-weavers/if-i-had-a-hammer

Another quotation from that page:
In a 1988 interview with Paul Zollo, Pete Seeger said: "The way I sing it now, what I often do is joke with an audience. I point out that you can sing it the way I wrote it or the way Peter, Paul and Mary rewrote it, or half a dozen other ways, and they all harmonize with each other. I say, 'This is a good moral for the world.' As a matter of fact, I'm convinced that musicians have got a more important role to play in putting a world together than they're usually given credit for. Because musicians can teach the politicians: Not everybody has to sing the melody." (From Zollo's book Songwriters On Songwriting.)