Today is National Voter Registration Day in the US. For the 12th year running, thousands of partner organizations are spearheading a nationwide drive to help people ensure that they have a voice in the upcoming US elections, which take place seven weeks from now, on Tuesday 5 November.

Teaming up with community and civic engagement platforms Joy To The Polls and HeadCount, Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens has marked the occasion by sharing a new cover of Peggy Seeger's "How I Long For Peace", written by the folk legend decades ago but not recorded until 2021's First Farewell.

Giddens is joined on the song by the Resistance Revival Chorus and Nashville-based "social justice music-maker" Crys Matthews, who originally brought the idea to Giddens after watching an old video of Seeger singing the track live. As Matthews explains in a statement shared by Nonesuch Records:

"I fell in love with it, and adapted it to feel like how I would sing it in my family’s church because that is where I first learned about social justice music and freedom songs. I carried that song with me for many years and then, one day, after seeing a post on Rhiannon’s Instagram about a student-led, antiwar demonstration she had witnessed while giving a commencement address, I sent it to her. Next thing you know, she and I are in a studio in NYC singing it with the Resistance Revival Chorus.”

Giddens adds:

“When Crys asked me to collaborate on this with her I got really excited. I have been a longtime Peggy Seeger fan and think she has written an incredible song that says some hard but crucial things and most importantly allows space for us all to wish for a better world.”

Listen to "How I Long For Peace" below and – most importantly – check your voter registration and make sure you're able to vote up and down the ballot come November.

Seeger herself has praised the new recording, calling it "an amazing interpretation" that "will take this simple song to new levels."

Posting on YouTube, Giddens, Matthews, and the Chorus wrote:

"This and every election season, we get a chance to show up at the polls and vote the world we want to see closer to existence – a more just and peaceful society envisioned in this incantation of a song. We dedicate this recording to survivors and victims of war, injustice, and poverty everywhere."

Giddens, who found a whole new audience earlier this year through her banjo skills on Beyoncé's "Texas Hold Em", has a tour with the Silkroad Ensemble lined up for November. Full list of dates below:

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