I just remembered another song I really dug from last night’s “In the Blood” performance by Robert Mirabal. Whatever it was, this is the chorus:
Life is a MYSTERY
not a problem to be solved
THERE IS NO DESTINATION
THERE IS NO DESTINATION
He also did a kind of dramatic recitation based on this portion of a talk by Sitting Bull: “If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it, he will find it, and that is what the Indians are doing now when they ask you to give them the things that were promised them in the past. And I do not consider that they should be treated like beasts, and that is the reason I have grown up with the feelings I have. I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name. It used to have a good name, and I sit sometimes and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name.” Only when Robert spoke the words, he punctuated the words by jabbing his hand down in front of him like stabbing a spear into the ground, and he repeated certain phrases, like so:
I feel that my country has gotten a BAD name
a BAD name
a BAD name
a BAD name
I want it to have a GOOD name
I want it to have a GOOD name
a GOOD name
a GOOD name
a GOOD name
And when he said, “I sit sometimes and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name,” it was more slowly called out, and with emphasis, like a hammer on a cast-iron skull.
Excellently done.
Related posts:
