Helen asked us to use lyrics and music to express ourselves, how we create, how we get through for this Song Lyric Sunday.

I’ve already highlighted one song, Hallelujah, due to the death, this week, of it’s writer, Leonard Cohen.

I fall back on the same standards, the same anthems to get me by, to express what I can not put into words. Poetry set to music. Tears of joy, frustration, pain, grief, sadness, remorse, regret.

There are political songs from the 1970s and 80s that you only need substitute a name here and there, and the relevancy isn’t lost. Perhaps more potent for having marinated for 40 to 50 years. The same goes for the 1990s, some of which I’ve featured on my blog.

The world is changing – in ways we cannot stop or appear to have no control over. There are small ways we can take back control. Not give it all over to someone else. So, I’ve chosen to go with the Indigo Girls’ Let It Be Me, written by Emily Saliers in 1992. She is referring to George Bush #1. I made an editorial comment. (PS: I can’t get the title to edit. It should read: song lyric sunday: getting back the power)

 

let it be me

sticks and stones, battle zones

a single light bulb on a single thread for the black

sirens wail, history fails

rose-colored glass begins to age and crack

while the politicians shadowbox the power ring

in an endless split decision, never solve anything

from a neighbor’s distant land, I heard

the strain of the common [wo]man – how they sing it now

let it be me (this is not a fighting song)

let it be me (not a wrong for a wrong)

if the world is night, shine my life like a light

well the world seems spent and the president [elect] – my editorial editorial comment

has no good idea who the masses are

well I’m one of them and I’m among friends

trying to see beyond the fences of our own backyard

I’ve seen kingdoms blow like ashes in the winds of change

but the power of truth is the fuel for the flame

so the darker the ages get, there’s a stronger beacon yet

let it be me (this is not a fighting song)

let it be me (not a wrong for a wrong)

if the world is night, shine my life like a light

in the kind word you speak, in the turn of the cheek

when your vision stays clear in the face of your fear

then you see turning off a light switch is their only power

when we stand like spotlights in a mighty tower

all for one and one for all, then we sing the common song

let it be me (this is not a fighting song)

let it be me (not a wrong for a wrong)

if the world is night, shine my life like a light

Emily Saliers, 1992

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