By Pepper Provenzano
TreeLink Executive Director

Calling all musicians! TreeLink is sharing this hand-written song, I Am the Tree You Plant © by recording artist Pete Seeger, and we're encouraging musicians everywhere to try it.

Ten years ago Pete Seeger visited Utah to perform with Children's Dance Theatre in Salt Lake City. Before his arrival I asked the director of CDT, MaryAnn Lee, if she would kindly pass a request to the recording artist.

My request was specific. I asked Mr. Seeger to write a special song for the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. I asked for a song about trees. Who better, I said, than the international folk poet laureate of three generations? What better message than the simple act of planting a tree? What better time than now?

Weeks went by with no response and in time I assumed the recording artist had better things to do than to respond to dreamers who plant trees.

Then one day the phone rang, and the next thing I knew, I was on my way to pick up the artist at nearby Alta ski resort. I had little previous brush with fame, and the prospect of meeting the man - at this time in his 70s - who created a legacy of folk songs and some of the greatest antiwar music of all time, was more than I expected. Then came the real surprise.

When I arrived, this snow-haired sage answered the door half asleep and said very little. After introductions, he retreated into a back room and emerged with two pages of hand-written sheet music, and handed me this song.

"Songs evolve as people sing them," he said. "Use this song as you wish. The © is just in case you ever print it or record it."

Now remember, this was 1994. Within a year I contacted and shared the song with interested musicians in Oregon and Colorado, but I'm not a musician, and I couldn't figure out how to distribute the song to a wider audience. And so, for too many years, the framed song resided in a place of honor on our living-room wall.

Fast forward to the 21st century and the growth of TreeLink, now visited from 70 plus countries.

The song is entitled: I Am the Tree You Plant © and you can view the hand-written document here and now. You can even add to the lyrics, as the artist himself suggested. And maybe someone out there will bring the talent and instruments together, and the song will grow and spread like a tree, as the artist envisioned.

>>Download the complete pdf of "I Am The Tree You Plant"© by Pete Seeger.

I'm proud to say I spent a few hours with the artist that day - a gentle, articulate soul with an obliging smile and a giving heart to match his voice, as big as an amphitheater. I have always imagined this song being sung by a small band of musicians in a major metropolitan park, accompanied by steel drums and modern dancers, adults and children and, of course, trees in the city.