It’s a weird coincidence that Pete Seeger has passed away at the very moment I’m resuming work on Pause of the Clock. One of his songs served as an early creative spark for the movie. I dug out the letter I sent him. That he was kind enough to reply to me almost immediately meant a lot to me.

I did actually call Harold Leventhal at his office in New York. Polite but gruff, he was certainly one of the last of the old school managers and promoters. When I mentioned the idea of us making a new recording of the song, he didn’t rule it out exactly but said, “Well, his voice is shot. If you did that he’d have to sing very softly, maybe even just whisper the words.” (Which is why when Seeger recorded an album several years later and it won a Grammy, I had to laugh.) I think I spoke on the phone with Leventhal once more, but my idea of using the song never really went anywhere. I was much too preoccupied with actually shooting the movie. The thought of flying to upstate New York with a Nagra to record Pete Seeger when I wasn’t even sure about how synchronization licenses worked was too far-fetched even for me.

It sure would be nice to follow through on my original idea and somehow use “The Bells of Rhymney” in the movie. Is that feasible? Who knows?