In 1992, the band Cracker released a song called Teen Angst. It came to be known as “What the World Needs Now,” since the catchy refrain went like this:
What the world needs now
is another folk singer
like I need a hole in my head.
Not a ringing endorsement of folk music, exactly. So I wish to hereby express my disagreement with the 90’s band. I think the world, and especially Spokane, needs another folk singer. Specifically, we need the re-incarnation of Pete Seeger.
Spokane and the surrounding region are already graced with thousands of gifted musicians, singers and songwriters. If you’ve never been to the Fall Folk Festival at Spokane Community College, you’re missing out on a profound display of local talent. At the 2014 festival, there were many excellent performers who paid tribute to Seeger in a memorial sing-along.
As I left that sing-along buzzing with gladness, I was also curious how many of those wonderful performers were also out on the street, with the people, singing for the purpose of unifying a protest or voicing a witness for peace. How many of these gifted folks really lived like Seeger, working, singing, playing with the people?
Last week, a group of my colleagues and many others gathered in support of the NAACP chapter of Spokane. Wishing to express love and kindness in the face of racially-based hate, these leaders spoke powerfully about the ability of the people to rise up and tolerate hate no more. This group also sang. But as one friend described, “I wanted to sing. It seemed like e great tune, but I didn’t know it. How could I sing when I don’t know the words?”
Singing does something different than speech or signs. Singing naturally unifies. It bridges gaps. For this reason, we always follow a sermon with a song in worship; we need to re-unify after hearing one voice. We need to share our voices together. We need this in Spokane, too.
I know there are gifted people in our city who could gather and educate a small Protest Choir. Or Peace Witness Singers. Or Street Voices. Call it anything, but call it forth. Bring a guitar or banjo, a harmonica or a tambourine. Or just clap your hands. But in the words of Ani DiFranco, we need to “open our faces up and sing.”
If we don’t sing, if we keep to ourselves and forget our neighbors, if we remain silent while hate builds, if we let piles weapons stand for safety and homogeneity stand for civility, then indeed we will have holes not only in our heads but our hearts as well.
