Update: CitizenE just wrote the following, in the comments, and he is, of course, right: “It’s sentimental, for the moment, for our weariness, and given, it strikes me, with a generosity of spirit. We listen; there is a moment of grace in which our hands can touch the dream of the beating human heart….”
I’m torn.
A few days ago, commenter CitizenE (holla!) posted the Playing for Change version of “One Love” in a comment on my About Commenting page, and it’s lovely, just – lovely. The message of Bob Marley’s original, the production of this version, and the idea at the root of Playing for Change: “a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people.” Just lovely.
But at the same time, it’s also all wrong.
“Let’s get together and feel all right” only works until the first person has his feelings hurt, or her home destroyed. If we get too caught up in the idea that we’re all alike, if we fail to give due respect to the ways in which we are, in fact, very different, we can easily get sucked into disillusionment and anger, and ultimately, fail to achieve much of anything — or, on the contrary, make things worse. I’ve seen this play out in Israeli-Palestinian efforts at coexistence, and I think I’m seeing it play out all around the world every day.
We are different. I am no longer so willing to give myself over to stirring tunes and the emotional uplift they provide.
Of course, I am feeling weary and worn down, unable to see a lot of hope no matter where I look. So I may be overthinking this. And it really is lovely. So I present it here, and encourage you to check out both the Playing for Change website, and the other songs (I particularly like this one, “War/No More Trouble.” And not just because of the presence of a certain Irish singer).
I’m hedging my bets — because I’d rather feel hope than not.
The vids and recordings by the Playing for Change crew are an interesting mix of well known and popular musicians and very good amateurs–actually street musicians who “play for change.” This vid includes European pop megastar Manu Chao, who has performed all over the world, often in isolate places such as Siberia and the remotest parts of Colombia (he actually purchased a train to take his band and a travelling circus to these regions, many of them quite violent at the time, to perform), and has an ongoing arts project for young children in Tiajuana, Mexico; Vusi Mahlasela, who was one of the most prominent musical voices in South Africa during the resistance to apartheid and has since gone on to an international career; and of course American blues singer Keb Mo.
No doubt in our time it’s hard to get much mileage out of the “We Are the World” sensibility of such performances, but a number of things touch me beyond the performance of this. Many of these musicians come from places that are currently suffering from horrific events. No doubt Nepal, Zimbabwe, Israel are nations in which civil strife has been rampant, but the musicians from Congo particularly touch me. There has never been a nation that has suffered the way Congo, the cradle of music, the heart of musical light, has suffered, particularly in the last ten years, for the past several hundred years as well; never been a nation whose fundamental truth has been so much its music.
I also get a kick out of the “Exile Brothers,” the three Tibetan young men (who look so much like American Indians to me) living in India, following in after “The Oneness Choir,” a trio of women from India.
For me, this is a song of longing, rather than a guarantee of fairy tale promise, and a song of kindness that does not speak so much to actual change as it does to the need for us to be able to envision it through music, which unifies people all over the world destpite their differences.
It’s sentimental, for the moment, for our weariness, and given, it strikes me, with a generosity of spirit. We listen; there is a moment of grace in which our hands can touch the dream of the beating human heart, and then it’s back to the world we live in, the slog and often the slugging it our.
Comment by CitizenE — November 4, 2009 @ 9:47 am |