On the way to Roanoke this week, I was listening to a fresh batch of music downloaded into my iPod Shuffle — a mix of contemporary stuff and some of my favorite music from high school and college, which is slowly but surely making its way into my digital archive.
I didn’t watch any of those benefit concerts for Katrina victims, but I couldn’t help thinking about the poor of New Orleans when this vintage Jackson Browne tune was playing:
Oh lord
Are there really people starving still?
Look out beyond the walls of babylon
How long will their needs go unfilled
I want to say right now i’m going to be around
I’m going to be around
When the walls and towers are crumbling
When the towers are tumbling down
And i will tune my spirit to the gentle sound
I want to hear the sound
Of the waters lapping on a higher ground
Of the children laughing
And then, two songs later, came this one, which seemed even more fitting:
Oh people, look around you
The signs are everywhere
You’ve left it for somebody other than you
To be the one to care
You’re lost inside your houses
There’s no time to find you now
Your walls are burning and your towers are turning
I’m going to leave you here and try to get down to the sea somehow
The road is filled with homeless souls
Every woman, child and man
Who have no idea where they will go
But they’ll help you if they can
Now everyone must have some thought
That’s going to pull them through somehow
Well the fires are raging hotter and hotter
But the sisters of the sun are going to rock me on the water now
Maybe I’m just an old hippie, but we could stand to bring some of those songs back right about now.
2 Comments
There is nothing wrong with being and old hippie and there is a lot of truth to be found in those songs!! I have always loved the old hippie tunes, and although I wasn’t around in that time period my mother has always said i am a flower child!!
You do have the soul of a flower child! Just born a little later…