Music & Social Change
A couple weeks ago, B and I went to see a tribute concert for Marvin Gaye at Berklee College of Music. Headlining the show was Aloe Blacc, one of our favorite musicians. It was a great concert overall, but the most powerful song was "What's Going On", sung by Blacc towards the end of the show. Throughout the entire rendition, the concert hall was so silent you could hear a pin drop. It was evident that everyone was attuned to the still-relevant lyrics from a song first released in 1971.
With lyrics like:
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
And:
Don't punish me with brutality
It's hard to not to see their relevance to America in 2014. After the concert, B and I both said that we had chills listening to the song. We couldn't help but reflect on the recent events in Ferguson and Long Island, not to mention Trayvon Martin and all the other men and women of color who have been killed unjustly but don't make headline news.
Just yesterday, B and I were driving in the car and we were listening to the great Cat Stevens and his song "Peace Train". Similarly released in 1971, I was again struck by the lyrics and their relevance today:
Oh I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, some day it's going to come
And:
Now I've been crying lately, thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating, why can't we live in bliss
Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again
When B and I were talking about these two amazing songs, I realized that there aren't many, if any, current songs that speak to and promote peace, love, social awareness, etc. Sifting through my iPhone, B put on "Same Love" by Macklemore. This song was released in 2012, so it's a few years old, but we realized that it does exactly want Marvin Gaye and Cat Stevens' song does:
The right wing conservatives think it's a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And "God loves all his children" is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago
And:
It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference!
Live on and be yourself
As I mentioned in a previous post, artists, including musicians, have a unique ability to speak about difficult issues and deliver them to the masses in coherent messages. As thousands of people continue to protest for changes in race relations, we should include protesting for changes in the messages (violence, rape, guns, drugs, sex, misogyny, discrimination, etc.) that we allow some musicians to give us. The songs above provide truly important messages of peace, love, and positivity. More music in 2014 should focus on these messages.