The Story and Meaning Behind “Get Together,” the Youngbloods Anthem That Came From an Unlikely Source

Part cosmic musing, part call to peaceful action, “Get Together” has been entrancing audiences with the wonder of its wisdom for six decades now. The most popular version of the song, performed by The Youngbloods, became a Top-5 U.S. hit in 1969.

It’s a song that’s survived and thrived despite a series of obstacles, including the unpredictable life of its writer and an initial commercial failure. Thankfully, it made its way to the mainstream, and its message has stayed relevant through all the intervening years from then to now.

A Writer on the Run

He was occasionally known by Dino Valenti, or sometimes Jesse Farrow. But the author of “Get Together” possessed the birth name Chester Powers Jr. (Chet, for short). Powers was a hard-charging character who served in the U.S. Air Force before turning to folk music. By all accounts, his demeanor was about the opposite of what you would expect from a guy who wrote one of the most enduring peace-promoting anthems of all time.

Nonetheless, people were falling all over themselves to record this song from the time he wrote it in 1963. The We Five scored a minor hit with it in 1965 as a follow-up to their bigger smash “You Were on My Mind.” The pre-Grace Slick Jefferson Airplane included it on their 1966 debut album.

The Youngbloods, a quartet who emanated from the New York folk club scene, recorded it on their debut album in 1967. Jesse Colin Young, the group’s lead singer, had heard someone else singing “Get Together” in a club and asked the performer to write all the words down for him, so amazed was he by the song.

Belated Success

Alas, the original release of “Get Together” didn’t go so well, barely denting the charts at No. 62 in ’67. The Youngbloods moved on with their career and recorded a few more albums, when a lucky break unlocked the potential of the song. It was used in a 1969 public service announcement that was shown across the country.

Television viewers heard the song playing under this spot and wondered what it was. The Youngbloods realized what was happening and begged their record label to rerelease the song. They agreed, and “Get Together,” an ideal song to soothe the nation’s nerves at a troubled time, went all the way to No. 5.

What about Chet Powers? In an out of problems with the law due to drug busts, he at one point sold the rights to “Get Together” to pay for legal representation. (Eventually, he regained those rights.) He enjoyed some success as the chief songwriter for Quicksilver Messenger Service in the early ’70s. Sadly, health problems struck in the ’80s, and he died in 1994 at age 57.

What is “Get Together” About?

When you listen to “Get Together,” it’s easy to get swept away by the simple message within the sing-along chorus: Smile on your brother / Everybody, get together / Try to love one another right now. But Powers’ verses hint at much deeper mysteries without being too showy about it.

The first two lines offer a striking dichotomy of two alternate paths to approaching life: Love is but a song to sing / Fear’s the way we die. In the second verse, the narrator references a messianic character waiting for the right moment to come back and redeem us, which puts our existence into perspective: We are but a moment’s sunlight / Fading in the grass.

In the final verse, Powers’ lyrics imply that humanity possesses the agency to set its course, for good or bad: You hold the key to love and fear / All in your trembling hand. “Get Together,” brilliantly written by Chet Powers and tenderly performed by The Youngbloods, lays out the profound questions and then definitively answers them all with its stirring call for universal love.

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