Dear Diary: If A Song Could Raise An Army

Damien Stone shared this wonderful music video he made, derived from me, Kamala and Leila singing "If A Song Could Raise An Army" at an event in Dorchester, England.

I introduced the song, which was the first one in a short set we were doing, talking about how I had been just flailing around for months, waking up every day trying to figure out what I might possibly do today that could somehow bring an end to this genocide.

My thinking generally is people need to know what's going on, first, if there's hope for them to act.  Over the past few months I've written and recorded a lot of songs that I'd hope would win over hearts and minds of people who hear them, and, along with lots of other people very involved with this process, done what I could to disseminate them.

On the days I don't have a particular project that is somehow related to bringing attention to what's happening in Gaza, I don't really know what to do with myself.

I don't normally write much about this sort of thing -- mental health I suppose would be the general category.  But overwhelmingly I find most of the people I know are having the same, overwhelmed experience.

If I were active on TikTok I might be feeling even more like this.  I hear anti-genocide posts outdo pro-genocide posts 60 to 1.  Gotta ban that app.  But just paying attention to nonwestern media gives me plenty of gory, daily, deadly updates on the latest horrors.

What would I do, I found myself asking myself today, if I weren't busy raising small children?  I would not burn myself alive in front of the Israeli embassy, as much as I admire Aaron Bushnell and everyone else who has brought the wars home in that incredibly powerful way.

I don't know what might ever have an impact on the overlords of death, but the only way to spend every day that seems the least bit sane is to engage in daily efforts to make them stop the killing.  I find myself fantasizing about basically just doing some version of what I used to do all the time, prior to becoming a parent -- traveling from one community to the next, playing concerts, and singing at protests and other events.

Realistically, more than anything that busy touring lifestyle choice may always have been about mental health, a way to cope.  I mean, was I reaching more people by singing for physical audiences in different towns, compared to the numbers of people who might end up watching a well-produced music video online?

And anyway, if I wanted to tour incessantly like that, like I used to, with or without kids, it wouldn't be an option anymore in the USA.  There just don't seem to be the prospects for surviving by touring like that here anymore.  I'd have to move to Europe.  

There are lots of protests to sing at in Europe, and lots of useful things to do as part of the much better-organized and sustained social movements they have happening there all the time -- in comparison with what seem like our feeble outbursts over here in the heart of the beast.  

But then that's the thing, this is the heart of the beast, like Jose Marti said.  This is the place where things most need to change, where the hearts and minds need to be won.  

My fantasizing then leads me to the idea of just venturing out with no plan, like so many people I've met along the way, doing things that may seem extreme, but also may stand a chance of breaking through the walls and reaching people -- things like walking across America for peace like the Buddhist monks and nuns periodically do, or setting up a permanent encampment in front of the White House like my friend Ellen Thomas did for so many years.  

Or going overseas and getting as close to Gaza as I can, joining one of the many efforts being made to do something -- get on one of the boats of the Freedom Flotilla being organized right now, perhaps, despite how prone I am to seasickness.

I start thinking if I can't do gigs across the country like I used to, I could just scale down, live out of a vehicle, live off of my earnings from Patreon, and sing these songs about the slaughter on the sidewalks of America.

A major obstacle to such a plan, other than having children to raise and rent to pay, is that I used to be a full-time busker in the early 1990's, for years, playing similar kinds of songs that other obscure artists wrote.  I know what it's like, so it's no longer possible for me to romanticize the idea.

But I think for a lot of the people who venture out for a walk across America, or set up camp in front of the White House, or who travel across the ocean to try to do something -- anything -- it's not that they think they've found anything like a solution, any more than Aaron Bushnell thinks he did.  It's just that they don't know what else to do.