Music for a Better World

Conservatives have prayers and loyalty oaths. Liberals need something to inspire them and fillt hem with strength, and music is the prayer of the people.

But Singing isn't done anymore. It is not fashionable, not cool. People don't do it, not even when they drink.

Imagine if, during the DNC, someone had taken center stage and began:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe" says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man"
Says Joe "I didn't die"
Says Joe "I didn't die"

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe "What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize"

First of all, it would make all the corporate sponsors squirm in their seats; but that's a whole other issue. No, people would be simply embarrassed. It would seem like something from another era.

In fact, we'd be mortified if anyone began singing, even a good tune and simple poetry like this:

The people's flag is deepest red
It shrouded oft our martyred dead;
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their hearts' blood dyed to every fold.

Then raise the scarlet standard high!
Beneath its folds we'll live and die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here.

Is it no longer true? Are those concerns obsolete? Hardly; modern music has become fractured and unsingable. All our new protest songs need a band and a dozen singers.

I await a new revolutionairy songwriter to give us a dozen notes to hum on our way to vote.