Music for Earth and Spirit Podcast

I’m calling my First Wednesday concert for May 6 “Harmony,” because we need it. Maybe a song of gratitude can help heal our current political, cultural and emotional angst. Everywhere I’m going lately, I’m saying we can’t be divided. But first:I’m going to tell you the end of this right in the beginning, taking a cue from Caity Weaver, a wonderful writer who I discover is a staff writer for Atlantic Magazine. Atlantic Magazine helps me cope, you should subscribe too, they can use it. Also, Harper’s Magazine, and The Nation, and Mother Jones – and NPR and Pacifica Radio for that matter - then we’ll all be on the same page. (I don’t do TV.)Ms Weaver wrote a long article about the best bread you can get served for free in any restaurant. This is an article that qualifies to be a cover story? She tells you right up front that she will eventually tell you the answer, and it’s not at the end where you might jump to. She made me read the whole thing twice. In there, her assessment of a man who looks like he could have existed in any era of human history still has me laughing, and thinking. The art of making something interesting is something to which I aspire. At the end of this, I’m leading up to pasting in the recording of my song “Harmony.” And, in the process of describing its roots, evolution and etymology, I will also digress.Both the poem and the harmonic structure in the song “Harmony” was a challenge, and I like challenges. I like to learn and I like to be creative, that’s why I haven’t paid much attention to AI. Computers might win in chess, but I think an inveterate storyteller still beats AI. I’m confident Harpers and Atlantic articles will not be written by AI. I write a lot of words about nature and science, which can be interesting, but there can also be a fine line between a poem/song and a lecture. So, I do try not to do that, though I’ve been accused. As introduction, I hope to say something about the value of life, and how the oligarchs are accomplishing their objective of getting us all back to being illiterate, ignorant, barefoot, pregnant and desperately broke is something I could write a treatise on. But I won’t for now. Just know they are working hard and spending a lot of money on it. Ages of enlightenment throughout history seem to be followed by reactionary eras of ignorance. I hadn’t put together that these eras are directed, planned, and executed from the ruling class. They don’t want an informed, healthy public demanding rights, those kind of people cost too much to employ. Slavery and indentured servitude will be more profitable. Women’s rights are not good for product sales. Spirituality also seems to swing back to simplicity, ignorance and superstition rather than an introspection informed by science and art. Science will show us how things work, and Art will give us someone else’s perspective. This is valuable stuff, leads us to empathy. An informed sense of wonder wouldn’t hurt either. My friend Michael Dowd, who left us too soon, wrote the book “Thank God for Evolution.” He was a Congregational minister, so he had the desire to keep a deity involved. He and his wife/partner, scientist Connie Barlow, eventually let go of that priority and focused on Ecology and Climate Change, powerful presentations. I try not take time with my writing to vent about the corrupt government, though I complain with friends. You can find that anywhere these days. My biggest artistic motivation is to not let it all divide us (because that’s the goal for corrupt leaders). What could I do to not have it all be “us and them”? So – the song. I do frequent many churches. I’m tired of churches with a lot of magic and superstition. I primarily lurk in Unitarian Universalist churches, though I’ll play for anyone who will have me. In the UU world deities are optional and maybe more often poetry. I have used the term “God” in places, and “Holy Spirit” (informed by science) is even in one of my songs. I do associate with a lot of ministers, and I can enjoy discussions of spirituality. It was after one of those conversations I decided to write about the great mystery/great whatever, and find some paraphrases to explain it to myself, if not others. I don’t write a diary, or journal for my own good, my self-serving motivation is there will be some audience for this. I got a commission to write a song for the new UU Hymnbook that was coming out back in the 90s, several people did. So I wrote this song, and then was told “Oh, we can’t use that, it modulates too much, the time signature is weird and that double sharp will scare everybody.” So as Pete Seeger once said to me, “I wrote this song for a song contest. I didn’t win, but I got a good song out of it.”Celebrating a mystery was what I was after. Taking on the subject, I decided at the time that deity should not be included, but to say it some other way, for the audience who has little patience for that stuff. I’ve heard the phrases “God is love” or “God is peace,” so what about my metaphor/figure of speech describing it all as musical harmony? The Harmony of Nature, “Mother Nature,” we’ve all heard that. All these descriptive terms were in my first gathering of words, but they seemed easily trite or overdone – so, don’t include that stuff. I started with “Peace is…” and tried to answer that, flesh out some words with imagery. That’s often the way I do it, start with an outline or phrases that state my goal, even though none of that might end up in the poem or story. Sometimes the original is lost as the words write themselves and go in a different direction, a different topic, and that’s good for another song. I feel as though I watched it unfold, “Peace” (anthropomorphized – a being?) “is a rolling sea - a work of art - a field of grain...” I remembered a song, a hymn in the old UU Hymnbook, that said “Peace is the streetlights in a country town” (I think that’s it). What, a hymn to rural electrification? The opening line that was rhymed with was, “Peace is the (mind’s?) own wilderness cut down.” Holy Sh--!!! A hymn to the destruction of the wilderness? Apparently cutting down your wilderness was desirable. Were we into that at the time? Sometimes imagery can be so shallow we don’t realize what we’re conforming with. Like “civilizing” another culture by forcing on them our religion, or colonizing under the guise of “democracy.”It may have been a response to that hymn that motivated me, I’m vague on that. Anyway, I was excited when the poem came together as a communication, a conversation: “Harmony of Harmony” (is that the being - deity?) “I hear you sing to me…” And as I’m implying it’s a metaphor for Peace, it came to me to include “I am your instrument, let peace begin with me,” borrowing from the Prayer of St. Francis, “Let me be an instrument of thy peace.” I sometimes like making use of some anachronistic language to give things a timeless maybe old fashioned hymnlike character, if not lending some poetic elevation. I had an idea of melody, as I pretty much do when I write words, though it’s always flexible. For harmonic progression I had the idea of the verses over a descending bass line, and it settled itself into a slow 3 beats per measure, like a Saraband, a baroque dance that has an emphasis on the second beat. Try counting 1-2-3 and putting an emphasis on 2. You’ll see.The bass line goes down in the verse, modulates (changes key) and then in the chorus, the bass line creeps up, and changes keys some more. I like doing things like that, typical folk and pop songs don’t change keys that much. Broadway musical songs by the great composers do though, it’s not that unusual. I love how Brahms goes through modulations always with reference to the original key, not changing the key signature as is done more today. He will take you all over the place with double sharps and double flats, like continuing to write in the key of Bb (B-flat) when you have a Db, and Fb and Bbb (B double flat) and you’re actually in the key of A. Don’t let your eyes glaze over, even if you don’t know music notation, the point is it takes us on a journey, tells a story that wanders but never loses track of where we came from. And the magic of music is, once you hear it, you hear it again and you know just where you are. But songs of mine that delve into this have gotten criticized, or I’m told, scared people off when they look at the written music. Some pretty accomplished musicians have stumbled playing it with me for the first time if they don’t know it. I more than once have had someone tell me “If it’s called ‘Harmony’ you should stay in one key so I can sing harmony with it.” OK, it may be challenging to sing harmony on a song with that name. I thought the harmony of nature would be a little mysterious. I’m not bragging (maybe) but I’m just saying this pushes the envelope a little. What I’d like to think is I accomplished this thing I try to do as a composer, put some complexity in there and still have it sound easy and accessible. That performance takes practice, I’ll admit. Some people do notice. I’m then fulfilled by the outcome.I think it tells a story, unwinds and progresses down, then rises up. I love playing it and I’ve made various arrangements, choral, with a string quartet, etc. If someone would ask me what kind of music I make (to know if the guy’s any good) this is a song I would pick to represent what I’m about. Harmony © 1990 Jim Scott Peace is a rolling sea, So full of mystery; I feel its harmony in ebb and crest. Peace is a work of art That moves the open heart, Peace is a place to start and final rest. Harmony of Harmony, I hear you sing to me. Let it wash over me - let it begin. Harmony of Harmony, unfolding melody I am your instrument; let peace begin with me. Peace is a beacon bright That brings us inner sight, A radiating light conquering fear. Peace is the wild bird's call, The painted leaves in Fall. Peace is the health of all, I feel it here. Harmony of Harmony, I hear you sing to me. Let it wash over me - let it begin. Harmony of Harmony, unfolding melody I am your instrument; let peace begin with me. Peace is a field of grain 'Neath sun and gentle rain In nature's glad refrain of love begun. All beings' songs are sung As bells together rung. Peace speaks in every tongue, all songs are one. Harmony of Harmony, I hear you sing to me. Let it wash over me - let it begin. Harmony of Harmony, unfolding melody I am your instrument; let peace begin with me. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

In 1970 I was riding the bus with the Army Band, reading Life Magazine, I believe it was. Pictures of rivers foaming with detergent, and perhaps the one that caught on fire framed the announcement of the first Earth Day. It was not a light family celebration, that first one, it was activist. I went the Earth Day celebration, I think in College Park MD, and read about others. On that Army bus, I wrote some lines about the toxic river flowing to the sea. I think I had lines like “Go to the river,” or “Tell the river…”. I don’t remember it all, but I carried pieces of paper with that and other notes around in a notebook for years. Not the most auspicious, but it marked the beginning of my using my music in my political and spiritual journey.In that Nixon/Vietnam era, wasn’t there enough to protest? A giant “Oil Spill” off Santa Barbara California, sewage, toxic waste fields, air pollution, and the pesticides named in Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” had awakened me, and the country, to threats to our survival other than the war. As well, Black Power and the police killing of Fred Hampton and Black Panther leaders was very much in the air. Dennis Hays, a student activist had connected with Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, and the first Earth Day “Teach In” was planned. It should be after Spring Break and before the end of college semesters, was their timing. It worked - on April 22nd the country turned out for massive demonstrations. And let’s remember this was still in the midst of Civil Rights consciousness and resistance to the Vietnam war. News of the escalation of illegal bombing in Cambodia brought about, only a couple of weeks later, huge antiwar demonstration in Washington. I went. Many of us in the band went – “Just don’t wear your uniform.” One could be in the military, we were told, and you’re still a citizen free to do such things. Having short hair was almost like being in uniform; you might be a Narc.That Monday, we got on a bus for a long tour. First destination was somewhere in West Virginia, and the culture shock was extreme. The town was that era’s version of MAGA-ville, totally pro-war and pro-Nixon. The next day we pulled into Columbus and Ohio State University – May 4th. Demonstrations all over the country had continued in many places. You could still smell tear gas on the street in front of the big buildings. But there you could see a suit-and-tie “red hot,” head down, striding across the grass toward whatever class, his briefcase flowing behind. This before the era of backpacks. We heard the National Guard had been called out in Kent State, another big university right up the road. That day came news of the students being shot or several killed. In America? We were a military band, but we just played jazz and even rock. We didn’t say “Join the Army” or that Vietnam was a good thing; we didn’t even play the National Anthem. The next day we were scheduled to play in a couple of high schools, with predominantly Black student bodies. I will have to ask Steve Gadd (drummer, and one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever been associated with) what he was thinking that day. My recollection is we played with a vengeance intended to destroy the status quo; it was our protest as indentured, uniformed servants. I have to tell this in present tense: I’d made an arrangement for the band of “Get Ready” by the Temptations. Great opener, the curtain opens and we start with that unmistakable bass line. The kids go nuts. We go on to some jazz material and several of the soloists get wild cheers, not what usually happens. And then we get to “Cissy Strut” by the Meters. It’s a current big hit song. And should I mention that “Cissy” is a gay reference, so revolutionary in its own way. Kids are dancing in the aisles. In the huge auditorium with steel seats bolted to the floor, several kids are standing on the steel arms dancing. The Principal is running down the aisle yelling “Sit down.” It doesn’t do a lot. He gets to the stage and yells at the Music Director “Pull the curtain!!” The guy has wide eyes in shock, but he doesn’t do it; you don’t pull the curtain on the US Army Band. Afterwards kids swarm the stage, though surely they ‘re supposed to file out to classes. I used to joke that it was great to be the Army Band going to a school and destroying discipline for the day. But that is not the whole story, it was a lesson on the power of music. Playing jazz and soul music that was their music, I think we gave those kids a sense of their own value and maybe their own agency. Less than two weeks later at Jackson State University kids are killed as their demonstration against racism is violently put down. This is the context of that first Earth Day - anti-war, civil rights, and now environmentalism. Insurrections of idealism are everywhere, and they can’t all be crushed by imperial business as usual. The focus on Earth and ecology might well have disappeared. But by the end of the year, we saw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act, and more. Give Richard Nixon a little credit - I guess. The next year, Nixon in China and soon after, Watergate. Post Army, I was a Graduate Assistant in the Music Department of University of Maryland. I met a wonderful poet, Joel Sattler. We were young and I was doing a little of everything in music - playing electric and acoustic guitars, studio work, doing jingles, pit orchestra for a couple of musicals, playing in smoky bars. I was impressed that he seemed to know who he was. Joel was a great teacher, I’d never seen someone so prolific, filling notebooks with words. Some I never understood, but many beautiful images. I set several of his poems to music. (Hi Joel). As it evolved, I came to want to write the words myself, in the fashion of the new breed of singer-songwriters expressing their own personality and whole lives. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I turned to Joel to help me put the song together, and his bridge “The Earth is where all life begins, the ocean is our origin,” just completed the raw ideas I had. Originally, we had the line “Who will look with awe upon the monuments of Man,” and I changed it a little later to “monuments of humankind” (rhyming with “No one will be left behind”). So it was 8 years after it started that I finished the song, 1978. I was messing with the chords I’d put to it at Pete Seeger’s Hudson River Revival Festival. The Winter Consort had played one set, and we were in a backstage semi-outdoor area. I had the melody sketched out and I asked Nancy Rumbel to play it on the oboe with me. Paul Winter came by and asked, “What is that, Handel?” I said it was a new song I was working on. He said, “Let’s play it.” Though I think I said it wasn’t really ready yet, he said, “You just play the chords and I’ll improvise.” So, we did, the two of us went out on the stage first and Paul announced, “Here’s a song for all of us.” That’s how the instrumental first version of the song came to be on the vinyl record of music from that year’s festival, entitled “A Song for All of Us.” We played the song, me singing, in every concert for years after that and it’s recorded on the album “A Concert for the Earth” live at the United Nations as well as on my own album, “Earth Sky Love & Dreams”.“A Song For The Earth“ has been recorded by many people. No one has succeeded in getting famous, but it was my first activist song, and many followed. Les Line, editor of Audubon Magazine wrote “I nominate it as the anthem for the whole environmental movement.” The head of the United Nations Environmental Programme (that’s the way they spelled it) said he’d like to use it, though it never came to pass. My first venture, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was the beginning of my trust in the power of music to effect change. I’ve watched the audience and seen how the song and others go over. My philosophy has evolved with every song that has followed. Though I think I draw on lots of things, Jazz, Latin, Folk, for many of my songs I certainly have been influenced by Bach, Handel, and maybe Procol Harem. I use those classical, baroque chord changes on purpose sometimes for emotional weight. I can still sing it in the original key I wrote, but I worry about hitting the high notes. A Song for the Earth ©1979 Music, Jim Scott Lyrics, Jim Scott and Joel Sattler As the rain sifts through the trees, It threatens nature's ancient harmony. Poison rain from an ailing sky, Beneath the ground roots will die, And that is why I sing this song for the earth. The tainted river struggles to the open sea. Defiled is the mountain's majesty. All of life is a chain; when one is hurt, we all feel the pain. What do we gain? For what it's worth, I'm offering this song for the earth. The sea is where all life begins. The ocean is our origin. If she dies, nothing survives. No, no one will be left behind. And who will look with awe upon the monuments of humankind? But the trees still strive to grow, watching generations come and go. Green and tall, the land is theirs, Feeding the soil, clearing the air, Living their song, a song for the earth. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

Something is happening. Not sure what yet. Words like “transition” sound trite, shallow. After marveling at Boston Harbor and then Baltimore Harbor and a view of what was once a bridge and will be again, I’m starting to write this in Thurgood Marshall Airport. In the midst of the mess our criminal occupant is making of the world, I’m negotiating a personal uprooting – again. My grownup son and I have lived in upscale suburbia this last year. Lou is heading for California and I’m moving. Not sure where. I wish Lou would wait a couple of days, as the monster storm is crawling across the southern interstates that would be his route. In a few hours I’ll be in Tampa and below any predictions of snow. The privilege of traveling musician. This is my report from the field. In my travels I am seeing a big movement coalescing. And I’m in front of people preaching we’ve got to get active. So - me too. My second flight is delayed. Half a century of this has shown me I’m Type B. Instead of getting agitated at it (at least I have no gig tonight) I have permission to let all concerns with appalling news and looming destruction of the Earth go for just a few minutes and look at titles of books or covers of magazines. I can marvel at the inflated prices and pass by. I can sit now in the new beautifully expanded living space between Concourses A and B just opened a little more than a week ago. A refuge rather pleasant, I am lucky to be here. And I can write this. I love that this airport is named after such a hero, Thurgood Marshall, and though we endure the tenure of his doorstop successor, I can feel a bit of that hope, for the justice we used to think was so close at hand. I have the optimistic premonition that there’s an uprising about to happen - a peaceful one, I hope - and I am wondering about my involvements in a new social circle. (I’ll be letting you know about that). I wrote in my previous entry here, I want to spend this year making the most of what artistic political leverage I have to affect that looming election in November which will determine our survival. And if you ask me (I’ve written before) we can not fall into divisiveness - the work must be educational and healing. Easy to say.The other day I heard Martin Luther King (as the usual sources, NPR / PBS, bring him back on his birthday) give his prophetic speech back in 1957 about loving your enemies. I was in elementary school and I remember this. I’ve heard it since, but I got tears in my eyes last Monday. Thurgood Marshall’s legal forces had won the Brown vs Board of Education case integrating schools a couple of years before. Something revolutionary was happening. My life was changed by the courage of people who know the way to win is with love. I didn’t know how to put it together or find any voice of my own for a long while - maybe I have it now.Marshall’s words, “Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage,” are often quoted. MLK of course went on to inspire the nationwide movement of non-violence, and people of color taught me to love my enemies. He certainly didn’t invent the idea, but his insistence that there is no future in violence was courageous, and not without controversy. The other speech I heard: In 1967 MLK got a lot more controversy with his speech linking war in Vietnam, fought by many people of color, with the inequities when the guys come home. They fought like brothers in Vietnam and come home to not being able to live on the same street. In the same year, Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court, the first black Supreme Court Justice. There were “riots” each summer in the 60’s – insurrections against the inhumanity that was the law of the land. I was playing with a band of black and white musicians (Eastman School of Music products) and every high school wanted a band like that. Then I got into the Army Jazz Ambassadors Band in Washington DC and discovered there were separate black and white musician’s unions until that year - the year MLK was murdered. Thurgood Marshall met with President Lyndon Johnson, advising how to deal with civil unrest in the wake of the murder. But he had a different vision of tactics than King, and went on to use the legal process against racism, segregation and move America to live up to it’s promise. When our touring Army Band was stationed at Ft. Meade, next door to Friendly Airport (then name changed to Baltimore Washington Airport - BWI) and I played cocktail hours at the Sheraton Hotel there, I wouldn’t have imagined it would be named after Thurgood Marshall. That’s a victory I hope no criminal occupant will take away. I tell him every time I go through there, I hope we are still living up to his revolution. We’ve had some setbacks. Unitarian Universalists just recently adopted an 8th Principle, we had 7. Not of what you must believe, but principles we think everyone should embrace. ” … to build a diverse, multicultural Beloved Community and dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.” What that means to me is, to engage with that person you least want to engage with. I regret that we, as Americans, as humans, still are afraid to come to love. Here’s my song about that. Afraid to Come to Love © 1997 Jim Scott Longing for that state of grace, We claim our rights, fight for our place. Yet we’re afraid to come to love. Struggle for access and equality, Poised to turn crisis into opportunity, Yet we’re afraid to come to love. Drawn by the conflict, caught in the tide, Blind to where the cycle ends - Yielding nothing of the secrets we hold inside Passing our pain to lovers and friends - It’s a race no one can win There’s only a place to begin, Just surrender the boundaries and let each other in. Confront injustice with no regrets, Yet the more that we struggle the harder it gets, We’re afraid to come to love. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

When we get through the destruction of democracy and poisoning of the world, and I believe we will, how will this all go down in history? I am an optimist and I think we will survive this attack on humanity. I see the glass half full, in process. Then there are those pessimists who say half empty. Then there is the government, who sometimes says the glass was too big in the first place.(I know, the original is the engineer saying it, but I’m telling the jokes here.)I wrote a song in my musical about saving the forests, You’ve Traded Your Wealth for Money. Now one would think this is the most obvious thing, but more than one educated person has asked “What does that mean?” Here are some of the lyrics:The chorus:You’ve traded your wealth for money, You’ve traded the bee for its honey. There are parts of life the strongest hand cannot hold, Parts that won’t be traded in gold, There is no price on the spirit to unfold.Later I say, For the golden egg, you’ve done in the goose… More to it - but you get the idea. I wasn’t going to dwell on that, but now that I bring it up, the big money, corporate raider investor who buys the failing lumber town, sings the song When I See Forests, I See Green. Then later, in a kind of disclaimer, he sings It’s the Banker That’s the Rich Man (“I have to do this”- cut down all the trees to pay my debts).What I find myself saying a lot these days in my presentations, is that men in suits who lie are nothing new. The difference now is they’re not just lying, denying justice, stealing from the historically marginalized minorities, they’re coming for the privileged white middle class - upper, for that matter.My eyes were really opened to what you might call class struggle when I went to Nicaragua with Holly Near (dropping names). I accompanied her for a couple of weeks in 1984, pianos being hard to find in remote Central American towns. She’s of course a real committed activist and she changed my life, along with others like Pete Seeger. We traveled all around, though not too far from Managua, and saw good people who just wanted to have what we take for granted, the right to vote, education, health care, all that radical stuff.We played a number of small concerts, and we were invited to various events, particularly a big stadium gathering where they announced elections to be held in the fall. The young Daniel Ortega explained that they had needed to do a great literacy education program to have the populace ready for democracy and elections. He said they did it in less years than the US did after declaring independence from England. I’m going to distract from my point here to mention, he was a progressive President and he’s back again now, corrupted from the ideals we thought he represented then, trying to hold on to power.“¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” (“The people united will never be defeated!”) The chant that led to the defeat of the dictator Pinochet in Chile, was something you heard all the time. Nicaragua had thrown out Anastasio Somoza, the latest in the family who had ruled and stolen as much as they could for nearly half a century. If there’s any excuse for the US being on the wrong side of this in the 1980’s, it’s that our ruling class thought that communism was coming, and getting closer to Harlingen Texas all the time, according to President Reagan. I didn’t see communism there; all I saw was desire for democracy and rights – Mom and apple pie America. All I heard from people there was “Go and tell Ronald Reagan we don’t want war, we want trade” - and Baseball and McDonald’s - I exaggerate, but that’s the gist of it.Now, here’s what I want to bring up. With Holly, we went to the gates of the US Embassy. There were a few people with signs, they’re kind of there all the time, not much of a protest. And there was the pretense of peace, though Reagan’s folks were creating a fraudulent army to try to fight the threat of democracy coming. The elections were free and fair, by the way, according to international observers.At the gate, there were two men in suits, not together, but the suits in the hot weather set them apart. We got into a conversation with the first one, and he turned out to be in some way representing the US government. I wish I had gotten his name. We were not recognizable as anything but two red-haired Norte Americanos, maybe misguided tourists. Holly asked innocent questions like “Haven’t they accomplished good things in Nicaragua?” They’d won awards from the World Health Organization (I think it was) for a huge reduction in infant mortality, and educating most of the country who had been functionally illiterate, and in just four years. He got this look on his face and with a slimy smile like a used car salesman, he confided to us, “Well, you know, that’s not really in our interests.” (“is it?” – speaking to red-blooded Americans).The other guy in a suit, that as I said opened my eyes, was from the AFL-CIO. He’s there working on unionizing workers. I suddenly got it. All over the world they sing the “International” – Arise, ye workers from your slumbers… Unionized workers have fought for human equality against oligarchs and corporate power for a long time. The people united – dangerous. And we’re told the movement is communists, anarchists, or forces somehow evil and destructive to the American way. Equality is not in the interests of the corporate, colonial, ruling class. They function on the assumption that we need an underclass that is uneducated and desperate, so they won’t fight for their rights. We might call this oppression.So, we can hope truth will eventually win out over lies. Though we know the history is written by the winners, and the publishing of books is controlled by the “economy.” And just who is served by this economy? (Where’s my bailout?)Here’s a song that says something about this all, and something about other stuff too.Nothing We Haven’t Seen Before © Jim Scott 1995 Nothing we haven’t seen before, From covert conflict to open wars. Area prone to domination, Little hope for repatriation, So much pain and so many tears, So the lessons can fall on deaf ears. At what cost the war is won? It’s all over, but the revision’s just begun. Everything looks different but you’re just the same, Still looking for someone else to blame. Whispered words of what is fair Drown in the silence of despair. All wisdom and advice falls short of help; A mirror’s no use ‘til you can recognize yourself. You were tryin’ to find that flag of truce even as the bridges burned. It’s all over, but the second thoughts await their turn. Without closure, the curtain’s drawn. The wounded search for meaning, the proud move on. Dreams were dashed and trust was broken, Faith so bound in words unspoken. Do you pick the rubble for what might have been? No one in their right mind would want to feel that way again. The clock waits to extract its toll, The credits fade, and the regrets start to roll. So frustration found release. Did anyone remember to speak for peace? Was it for law and order that rights were wronged? In the name of justice the war prolonged? Yet through it all, some greater love was grown, And weren’t there moments beyond anything you’ve known? So pack up your guilts and fears, It’s all over, but the memories start here. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

I had some skin taken off my nose, and have a big bandage - facial recognition doesn’t work. That leaves me glad to spend some time at home, no gigs this week, catching up with travel plans and finally filling out Google Calendar. Here we are in this context of harvest (and our privilege) in the midst of such inequality, corrupt leadership and an unsustainable war on our life support system. I wonder what effect on the world I’m having, compared to tearing down the White House and dumping excrement on peaceful demonstrators? There are much more serious concerns as well, though I won’t take that on here. Plenty of pundits expound on it all, and you’ve probably read it. I’m personally tired of the talk about how we can’t believe what’s happening. We have a year to change minds and hearts and save not only democracy in the US, but nature and this little planet. We need engagement, not necessarily money (but that helps if you have the wherewithal to contribute to good causes). We need a year-long campaign, boycotts maybe, and things other than just registering our discontent. I’m saying it all the time, we need diplomats, teachers, healers. I’m planning to spend this year living up to that.So I want you to know, I’m going on a tour soon with my multimedia show and business is picking up. It makes me feel good to be getting busy with my work. I’m delighted that people are responding positively to my messages and I’m primed to go do it a bunch. I’m mostly preaching to the convicted, as we say, but I think it’s important for us to get up and remind each other that we have work to do. My “The Year to Save the Earth” multimedia concert has a new name, “A Vision for the Planet”. I’d gotten some feedback that it sounded too much like a lecture. Or was going to be all gloom and doom “Here’s the trouble we’re in.” It really isn’t. There are some take your medicine songs, but also a lot of celebrating the Earth and nature. The jury is still out on that name change. If you have an opinion, I’d like to hear it. First off in November I’m visiting a great little Universalist church in West Paris Maine. After a few days at home, I hit the road. I’ll be visiting Eastern North Carolina and then up to Chicago IL and Madison WI. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but I’m driving the internal combustion vehicle on this tour, mixing in some visiting with friends. Greenville and New Bern NC for the first weekend. Then I will actually have a face-to-face meeting with my friend Chuck Wiggins in Southwestern OH, who puts together these posts for Substack. We work by email and phone, so who knows what might come out of a live collaboration. I always love visiting my great guitarist friends Helen Avakian and Dave Irwin. I’ll be joining them again on their weekly online concert Nov. 13. They have been guests on my First Wednesday concerts, and we’ve done live events together as well. It’s a lot of strings and always fun. Then, there’s Madison and Chicago concerts. Then back around home for the rest of the month. My big show has evolved a good bit, I’ve added and subtracted songs, now including my song about plastic and one about diet to save the planet. And - I’m now singing with back-up tracks on a lot of it. That really raises the energy and we’re rocking it up. As several songs have ethnic flavors, the tracks help transport us. It’s great fun to play that reggae or salsa song with a rhythm section. Bruce Kahn is helping with all this process, and we’ve done the collecting of hundreds of pictures together. Some songs are quite orchestrated. So it may be canned, but it’s the opposite of AI. Humans did it, although there was no recording session with human musicians. I wrote the music out for piano, bass, drums, organ, strings, sometimes horns, and a bit of choir “Ooo’s.” The written notes then go to MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and become whatever instruments I want. All the back-up makes for lot of new interactions, but I also left it open enough to still have live musicians join me. The other great step forward is no longer needing someone to follow the script and push the buttons for the PowerPoint pictures. It’s all becoming one continuous show, which makes it much easier to present. My original NEA grant provided for a projector and screen, so I can come with my whole dog and pony show with the visuals on a big 15-foot screen, for greater emotional impact. I’ve done it with choir and band several times, but mostly I’m doing it myself, from big events, to sitting beside a video screen with an intimate little audience. I keep saying I want to take this message everywhere. So if you have ideas, I’d love to hear. Here’s where to find me in November:* Sun. Nov. 2 – 9 AM Service, First Universalist Church of West Paris, 208 S Main St, West Paris, Maine 04289* Sun. Nov. 2 – 2 PM, A Pete Seeger Songfest, First Universalist Church of West Paris, 208 S Main St, West Paris, Maine 04289* Wed. Nov 5 – 8 PM First Wednesday Online concert, ”Harvest Moon”. YouTube , Facebook personal page, Facebook musician page* Fri. Nov 7 – 7 PM A Vision for the Planet multimedia concert, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greenville,131 Oakmont Dr, Greenville, North Carolina 27858* Sat. Nov. 8 - 4 PM A Vision for the Planet multimedia concert, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 308 Meadows St, New Bern, North Carolina 28560* Sun. Nov. 9 - 10:30 AM Service, Gaia, Mother Earth and The Oneness of Everything, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 308 Meadows St, New Bern, North Carolina 28560* Tue. Nov 11 - 7PM House Concert in Cincinnati, Ohio. Contact Chuck at [email protected] for details.* Fri. Nov 14 – 7 PM A Vision for the Planet multimedia concert, Prairie Unitarian Universalist Society, 2010 Whenona Dr, Madison, Wisconsin * Sat. Nov 15 – 7 PM, A Vision for the Planet multimedia concert, Prairie Circle UU Congregation, at Byron Colby Barn 1561 Jones Point Rd. Grayslake, Illinois 60030* Sun. Nov 16 – 9 AM Service, Gaia, Mother Earth and The Oneness of Everything, at Byron Colby Barn 1561 Jones Point Rd. Grayslake, Illinois 60030* Sun. Nov. 16 – Concert TBA * Sun. Nov 23 – 11 AM Service, The Season of the Grateful Heart, First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, On the Common, 7 Concord Rd, Billerica, Massachusetts 01821* Wed. Nov. 26 – Online concert Thanksgiving Eve. The Season of the Grateful Heart. YouTube , Facebook personal page, Facebook musician page* Sun. Nov. 30 – Service, The Season of the Grateful Heart, Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Milford, 20 Elm St, Milford, New Hampshire 03055Finally, a song of this season of harvest and many changes. In peace, Jim Season of Change Jim Scott ©1985 So you’ve pushed back the wilderness and you’ve fought for your piece of land. Now your hunger is forgotten as the earth pays on demand. But what has your hard won peace afforded amid the cries of those in need, Who, like the soil, know the tyranny of wealth and the bondage of poverty. Season of change - My eyes are open I know the debt must be repaid. I’m just lookin’ for love to save us From the mistakes we’ve made. So now the great nations are defended and the speeches have all been read, But have we learned to live in harmony, oh people, we’ve been misled. So you know of the inhumanity but you feel so powerless alone, And the distant cries grow louder, bringing it all back home. Season of change - My eyes are open I know the debt must be repaid. I’m just lookin’ for love to save us From the mistakes we’ve made. You say you’re not participating but we’re all caught in this warring race. And how long can the earth keep waiting for us to put nature back in place? We’re all together, under the gun, and the crisis grows alarming, But I know that the solution is to disarm, and be disarming. You want to tell me it’s out of our hands, tell me we have no choice. Well I may be just one man, but you’re gonna hear my voice. Season of change - My eyes are open I know the debt must be repaid. I’m just lookin’ for love to save us From the mistakes we’ve made. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

There are four sheet music versions of this song available to paid subscriber in the Library section of my Substack - you can find them hereI’ve discovered that there are a lot of versions of my song “The Oneness of Everything” online, on YouTube. It’s kind of an adventure, going through different musicians’ takes on what I have written down. It’s probably not my place to say I’ve been culturally misappropriated (and this wouldn’t be the song to complain about) but there’s no telling what can become of putting black dots on a graph.I was in a dentist’s office decades ago and there was thankfully no background music playing. At that time, before hand-held devices, I carried around music staff paper in my zippered notebook. I still have a zippered notebook, and it’s still filled with papers. Which is good, because it has a zipper and you can put it on top of your car and drive away and then go back and get it. What organization I have! Everything to be remembered is now on my computer, except for what isn’t. I haven’t figured out how to have it all at my fingertips on the phone, but I know it can be done.So, the dentist’s office: I pulled out a piece of paper and thought what I could do to pass the time would be to write a hymn tune. Like a limerick it’s a short well-trodden path, four lines mostly, unless you’re going to break away and be radical and add maybe a repeated line or something. I wrote down three tunes, just imagining and not even humming aloud. I have studied enough to be able to analyze what notes of the scale I’m coming up with and put them on a music staff. The other two were forgettable.But this one, starting on the 5th (sol) and going down the scale, plateauing on repeated 3rds of the scale (mi) before going on down to 1, then jumping up an octave, then 6 and back to 5 – it had something that set the tone of heading out somewhere. This melody came to me in a partnership with the bass starting on the 3rd and making some suspensions in the melody as it climbs up. 3 – 4 against the 5 in the melody. Then – 5 – and sharp 5 under those 3s – and finally 6 and then 4, as the melody jumps from 1 up and octave to 1, or is it 8? (low do to high do).OK enough numbers and Italian syllables. I tell you this to descript what I think I was thinking. The thing is, the melody goes down as the bass line goes up. We call that counterpoint – grade one. The first long line, ending on 5, then needed a second long line, which eventually cadences back down to the 1 – (do). I would write such things with just a single line for melody and the harmony designated with chord symbols – D/ F# (a D chord with the 3rd in the bass) and so on.This is not magic, but basic stuff you learn in music school, or on the street or the gig. Well, this melody hung around on paper and I even recorded and instrumental version of it, when I was making some stretching music for a Yoga video. I didn’t use it there, I don’t think.It was a while later that I did something I rarely do, I wrote words to the melody. I usually work the other way around. Words with at least a vague idea of what melody will serve them. But then I will change my mind or have forgotten what the original idea was. I try to let the words sing to me, dancing to intervals that I will certainly put some thought to, so as not to be just plodding around. I will think, “that word could jump up an octave and get even more meaning and emotion attached to it.”So having the music first is a little different, not that I’ve never done it, but it hasn’t been a practice. I have a bit of aversion to writing words to music that started as just music and they were given a life that way, setting sail with no dialog or narration. Then someone adds words, like “This is the symphony – that Schubert ne-ver- finished.” Then you can’t get it out of your head.The third line, melody and bass climb kind of parallel, building up, and the fourth line takes it from there building up again and more, and then has a little extra tag after the four equal lines. And that ended up where the title of the song isSo, walking the woods in Oregon, where I’ll say many good ideas come to me, in the forest. Having just come back from Kansas, I’m reminded that being around trees is a conducive setting for me, including making a musical about the destruction of the forest. More about that later. This song, although it didn’t move the plot along, became sort of the anthem of the musical – kid fights to save his favorite tree from being cut down. But I digress.The word Oneness, I wasn’t even sure was a word. It is. I wanted to say something about the relationships of everything to everything else. Some of the lines that came to me first have ironically been left out of the shortened version of the song that is in the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook and in some other places. Such is the challenge in the artistic process, how to get some use out of the song, how to get it used. Editors, producers, collaborators, egos, territories.There are four original verses, and I cut some of two verses out, as the hymnbook folks didn’t want to have verses with different amounts of syllables under the same note, as all verses will be put under one set of notes (“We’re not going to write it out again”). So, these words “From chords that sound of molecules spinning billions to a cell, the call resounds afar, to the sun who warms the dancing Earth and whose song hold it close on the journey of a star” (Ooh, these are long sentences to make sense of) got left out. That was amazing, I took an already long sentence and made it even longer.I tried this song on the UU Hymnbook Committee that made the gray book in 1991. I had written the song in eighth notes, with a few sixteenths in there, in a slow and stately 4/4 time. That just looked too complicated, and they didn’t take the song, also said it was too long. So I doubled the note values to quarter notes, which I don’t like to do but pop writers do it, and then it looks much easier. Wouldn’t have passed in my Theory classes at Eastman, but it is what you see with so many pop ballads. I’ll bet “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” is probably written out that way, in cut time. I can’t think of another example. Then a decade later when the UUs made another hymnbook, I tried the quarter note version with a verse cut out and they took it. And now there are a lot of performances of the song on YouTube.Nighttime looking up through Douglas firs to stars (maybe moon or light reflected off clouds) I came to the opening words, “Far beyond the grasp of hands, or light to meet the eye, past the reaches of the mind…” Now in my multimedia concert, I have those words illustrated by views from the Hubble telescope. These are challenges where the artist never gets done, now making a slide show to go with the song. There was a beautiful choreography by a single dancer in the production of my play at Albion College so long ago. But more digression, we didn’t even get a video of it, so long ago.I’ve made various arrangements of the song, and a choral version is published by Hal Leonard. That version is a soloist with four-part SATB choir. I’ve tried selling them on the idea of offering another version of just choir with no solo, but it hasn’t sold enough for them to want to do that.What this song is for me is a testament to what I believe. I try not to get too serious about that. I never got it about the bearded old man in the sky, but I do get it about the very round woman in the sky, our mother Earth. Is she a Goddess, a deity? I don’t do that, but I believe she is our mother, our ancestor. Everything we are she modeled a long time ago. And after four and a half billion years, came up with us. And we are made in her image – a little less spherical perhaps. So, this is not my whole treatise on my belief system, but you don’t put your whole life in one poem. There will be others.The Oneness of Everything ©1988 Jim Scott Far beyond the grasp of hands, or light to meet the eye, past the reaches of the mind, There, find the key to nature’s harmony in an architecture so entwined. Like the birds whose patterns grace the sky and carry all who join in love expanding, The message of peace will rise in flight taking the weight of the world upon its wings, With the oneness of everything. Peace is in the dance of trees who stir before the first breath of wind is yet perceived. Trust in the song, becoming one with the dance, and all mysteries can be believed. Like the sorrow of the clouds, whose tears fall caring on the soil undemanding, Lessons of love are given that we might rejoice in the music they bring Of the oneness of everything. From chords that sound of molecules, spinning billions to a cell, the call resounds afar, To the sun who warms the dancing earth, and whose song holds it close on the journey of a star. Songs of lives long past who touch our own are written in the earth forever giving. And now to maintain the harmony gives to us all lives worth living For the oneness of everything. Still, we seek to find a truth that we might understand, and reduce to terms defined, Vast and immeasurable time and space all so overwhelmingly designed. Oh, passing years, just might I know the faith that winters in the heart, to be reborn in Spring. To hear and to feel the pulse of life enters my soul as a song to sing, Of the oneness of everything. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

(This recording captures Jim in a house concert in Wisconsin during his September tour.)Everybody loves the hero’s journey stories (in the end). You know, “It was hard, dangerous, scary, but I made it - to the prize” - winning the race, maybe even finding peace - all those good things, happy endings. But reflections on the journey while in the middle of it all? “Things are hard” – well, that’s just complaining.The destruction of our society, environment, education, equality, is all around us. And I don’t think I need to spend time listing all that. If you’re reading this, you probably know all about it. I heard the most polite description: “a great transition” in the world as we know it. We’re struggling with our response and groping for hope. Where is that positive ending? How long and how far?This is the situation we find ourselves in, a long obstacle course in front of us, just to get back to things old folks like me marched for a half century ago. Shouldn’t it be easier? Morality and compassion to prevail and peace and trust just happen? Apparently peace is partisan. I thought everybody believed it was at least a goal if not the way. Apparently not. This journey is going to be challenging.I’ve been a part of protests and peace marches for so many years, and I’ve often wondered about their effectiveness. Is it just a place to vent and feel better? Does it educate, enlighten? Or is it just divisive, as the other side sees us as nothing but opposition?It makes us feel better to feel heard, certainly, and speaking for the other side, they need to feel heard as well. I don’t mean the criminals in charge. Our neighbors have been lied to, and they are likely to be resistant to hearing that. Tempting as it may be to dismiss them, avoid them, we must engage. We don’t need any more “us and them.” We need teachers, and we need healers.It will take courage, and it takes some preparation. I think it’s time for each of us to do some creative work; take the time to think - to write, if that’s what you do, draw, envision, whatever it is that is your way - about how to get to the healing. My friend David Roth said, “When I respond in kind, I just continue the cycle.”We need to make our story not an argument but a work of art. And the magic of art is that it allows you to see someone else’s perspective – even if you don’t agree with it. We can make an art of our arguments. So, singing the blues can be positive testimony. And singing about the process could be helpful to each other as we go. If you’re not coming up with your own words, you can steal someone else’s; memorizing a quotation is a cultivated thing to do. Of course, if you make it rhyme maybe people will remember it longer.I’m seeing it everywhere I travel, the movement is rising. Just a little while ago, we didn’t imagine we would need to do this, but we do. Let’s acknowledge that times are hard and then take a step to get involved - just one step will do at a time - and no one said it would be easy.See This Through It will make – a good story – later – nothing good about it till it’s done This never works, and it’ll never work - until it does, all’s lost, until it’s won. Turns out to be a steeper hill, a heavy stone, All the best intentions seem to have dropped me here alone. Walls and defenses - that’s nothing new. There’s a light on the horizon, got to see this through. One thing about challenging times, they live up to their name. You find out who your friends are, and who they aren’t, so different, so the same. Asking more of you than ever, comfort and safety lost, Not worth the time, not worth the cost. Not worth the risk, but something inside of you Gets down to nothing left, but to see this through. From that high ground of greater suffering, so much for compassion, human rights. Forgiveness and healing drown in the thrill of the fight. Can this be the way to peace? The process slow and long. Listen to the other side, even when you know they’re wrong. Doubt and hesitation, goes without mention, But the most moral, human gesture is just attention. In a sea of lies, hold tight to what is true, No better time than this, to see this through. You could turn away, but the beacon shines clear and true, There’s a chance, we could see this through © 2/25 Jim Scott Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

For some time, I had been thinking I needed a good gathering song for all the church services I played for, mostly at Unitarian Universalist (we call it UU) churches. The phrase “gather the spirit” was something that had lurked in my head, and it was something I talked about, that this word “spirit” was not something “woo-woo,” but quite down to Earth. It’s how you’re feeling, it’s what’s happening – teen spirit, school spirit, etc. etc. So, “spirit” could either be connected to a deity, or not.I played the song the first time at an interfaith gathering, and the second time at a church of another denomination. My handwritten music was printed as a handout. I started the song, and my new arrangement for the keyboard player just filled things out, everybody was standing, looking down at their papers and chiming in. It suddenly hit me, “Oh my God! I’m a church musician!”I had played at churches for years, a special guest, something unusual. I’d never thought of myself in this way. But this was a hymn, and I could clearly see it just becoming part of church furniture. And in the UU world it did, it had a pretty good run as kind of a hit song for the decade of 90’s.That changed my life, it steered me into being more a part of the whole UU movement. I’ve written a lot of songs now intentionally for church use, and for that matter, been very involved in things beyond music. As co-chair of the UU environmental group the “Seventh Principle Project” I helped create the “Green Sanctuary” program, and that gave me even more of a persona. But that’s another story.In the early 90’s, I had submitted several songs to the new hymnbook committee (not sure of the date). I knew many of the people on it. But each of my songs were rejected for one reason or another. "That one is too syncopated,” “This one modulates” (through several keys) “the double sharp will scare everybody.” I even got a commission, along with several UU songwriters, to write a new song for the book, and I wrote the song “Harmony.” They didn’t take it. “Churches won't have the leadership to do it without you." That’s what I was told.Times change. I think now we have a lot more leaders that can do it than we did 25 years ago. I don’t think of my songs as really that complicated. Many great pop tunes, particularly jazz and Broadway songs have similar features. Yet everybody gets to know a song and it becomes no big deal. But I was frustrated at the rejections. At some point I got a message that they were wrapping up the submission process and the deadline was soon.I was going to play for an interfaith Thanksgiving eve service in Eugene OR and I thought I'd write a new song. I also thought, I need to write a song that will go in the hymnbook. So I'm just going to make it quarter notes - “Da-da-da-da” - and put the boogying in the accompaniment. I thought “Gather the spirit, harvest the power…” would be a good Thanksgiving message, couldn't we use another of those? I'm glad no one seems to see it that way, so we can sing it all year long.On that “gathering song” idea, I wrote two that week, wanting to put a little gospel feeling to them. Gather the Spirit – opening song, and Circle of Spirit - a closing song. They both have quarter notes for the melodies, and the hymnbook committee took them both. The songs are titled by their first lines in the hymnbook, so Circle of Spirit became Tradition Held Fast.When Gather the Spirit was first introduced at the UU General Assembly, I was outside the hockey rink stadium of the plenary sessions with no idea what was going to happen (they didn’t bother to tell me). I heard a melody, “That’s my song!” I ran in and heard my friend Lois Allen, music director of OK City UU, telling everyone, "Now this is a bit different - 'Gather in -- peace' (drop of a 7th in the melody) - so this is challenging, but I think you'll be able to get it.'" And then she was warning everyone, “And watch out for this, ‘Gather to celebrate’ (first beat rest) ‘once again.’" (Well, I guess I can't resist throwing in a little something in every song).But music is magical this way, you hear it once and you know it the next time. Gather the Spirit then got sung at 9 of the next 10 General Assemblies. The planning committee folks told me, "Don't sing Gather the Spirit, that's been done every year." And then outgoing President John Buehrens specifically requested it for his retirement celebration, saying it was his favorite hymn.I hear it all kinds of ways when I visit churches or camps, or GA. I love to hear it interpreted differently. A choral version of the song published by Hal Leonard has had a life with high school choruses. The choral arrangement doesn't get used that much by UU choirs. It is in the book after all, and music directors have said why bother doing that complicated harmony version when the congregation is just going to sing along with the whole thing.The phrase "Gather in hope, compassion and strength" became the slogan for the UUA fundraising Capital Campaign a few years ago. (They asked me). The UUA raised 33 million dollars and I got a t-shirt. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

Hard to see it as anything short of evil. It feels as though I’m witnessing what will be the eventual death of Earth, or maybe just humanity. A big, armored case I have, for some electronic equipment, has been padded inside by what’s now 40-year-old foam rubber plastic that used to be solid foam. But it is decaying, dissolving. It’s horrible stuff.A handful of it is at first like angel food cake, but crumbles, more dissolves, in my hands. A fleck of it on the floor creates a smudge that must be scrubbed off, both floor and feet. I scrape up the cake and put it in a bag, but it’s avoiding being collected, spreading everywhere.So, I should mention I’ve written a song. It’s the result of a year of research gathering articles and studies about plastic, and how it’s killing us. Drawn from my imagination putting words together, this pollution I’m rattling on about was somehow just abstract images, in other places. But now here it is, exactly what I’ve been talking about manifested, staring me in the face.I take the project to the back porch and fully scrape and then scrub and then wash it out with the garden hose; I’ve totally corrupted a couple of scrubber sponges (also plastic) and thrown them away already (Away?).I bought a plastic sheet at the hardware store to put under all this, making sure I don’t step on any that falls. I will roll up the sheet and put it in the trash, with ceremonial mourning for the landfill. Do I dump this soup in the back yard? The grass has never seen anything like this. But that’s what we do, here, while in plenty of other places, nature is enduring much worse contamination. In poorer countries, from South America to the South Pacific and Africa, young mountains of decaying plastic are growing, poisoning all earthly elements, and the children who pick them over. And who will deal with it, heal this evil occupation?This is not temporary, transient, this is forever. I know - entropy - everything does break down, dissipates; but “everything” used to be Earth elements going back to rest in the great cycle of life. This is a whole new thing, it breaks down - into microplastics and nanoplastics, even smaller - and it’s everywhere. Plastic is in the water, the air, and in our bodies. But this is something different, alien, it never will go back to the Earth. So, I’m witnessing it now firsthand. Solid to liquid, and I smell it, so it’s in the air. This is not theoretical, here it is. This is haunting my dreams at night.I’ve become a fan of a scientist, Judith Enck. She and her doctoral students at Bennington College are studying plastic and endocrinology, how plastic is poisoning us. It’s discouraging news. There’s been study before, though I don’t think we have paid enough attention. The pace of this alien invasion has accelerated; the amounts of plastic are so staggering we must respond. I didn’t imagine though, until recently, that we’d be going up against the US Government, new policies, usurping, overthrowing, changing laws we worked so hard to put in place. Enough to make you want to quit and just look for a place to hide. Not possible. So, let me distract you with this story.There’s a small lake outside of Toronto that is very deep, Crawford Lake, you might have heard of it. It has become one prime focus of the study of Stratigraphy, reconstructing history from the sediments that fall to the bottom of this serene body of water. Scientists can trace back centuries - 1,000 years of the Holocene dependable temperatures that supported human settlements, agriculture. But in the last couple of centuries, we go from indigenous neighbors leaving evidence of crop pollen and traces of trees to fly ash from the early European factories and other new toxic elements.In recent years we can see that elm trees disappeared, from an epidemic of beetles. But it’s in the 1950’s a huge change is obvious. Radioactivity shows up, fly ash increases 8-fold from factories hundreds of miles away in the Midwest, acid rain changes the PH of the water. Scientists call these momentous changes “golden spikes,” after the celebrations of connected railroads across the continent – everything changed after that point.But then we see that humans responded positively and did some conscious things. We outlawed atmospheric nuclear testing, and the radioactivity dropped. We banned lead in gasoline and the lead content dropped. We banned chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, that caused the hole in the ozone layer. We have at least sometimes acted mercifully toward the Earth and taken care of human life – a little.Now the amount of plastic, and other petroleum toxic things, have just exploded in the current mix. This is our story we leave behind.Writing a song seems like my first step in the healing. I tried to tell that story in this song. It starts with history: in the beginning of the 20th century - what a great discovery, plastics! - they brought us wonderful things that changed civilization. But then it all takes a turn.I’ve been a little afraid to get this song together, and to sing it; I procrastinated a bit. Will it make us just more discouraged? Make the audience run out screaming. Do I really want to do that? I have sung it in public now (3 times) - and I’ve discovered – it’s just a song. It’s not pepper spray, or firehoses.I didn’t want to make monster movie music, it’s at one point ominous maybe, but another point beautiful, I hope. The chord progression is as challenging as anything I’ve produced - but, it’s a song - so, I’m relieved, and I’m growing into it. I wrote a lot more words in the process, I usually do, and then cut and cut. I have focused it down to AAB-AAB-A form, so. not that unlike many songs. It feels like it would make it too much a pop song to repeat the B, the chorus, again. I think twice is enough. So, it ends with a verse, leaving us, on purpose, a little unresolved there, with a warning.Plasticene From the fossil record, first a fuel, then a saving grace Bakelite, celluloid, and polyethylene. Cellophane, Nylon, Kevlar, Tupperware, Forging hospitals sterile and kitchens so clean. Savior of life, deliverer of wonders. Banished, the virus and bacteria, fungus or mildew. Oh humanity, study the face of your saving grace Your Messiah has come to kill you. Age of the Plasticene - we’re living in the Plastisphere - Micro to nanoparticles, unseen by the human eye, Threatening the spirit of every miracle that lives, Here on our fragile planet, traversing endless sky. Flowing with the ocean, windborne through the air, Marauding the biomes of life with no fear, Sinking through human skin, baked into new rock, Transporting invaders to new frontiers. Lurking in the bloodstream, the placenta, the human heart In a mother’s milk, the brain emerging in the womb For all our hereafter, traces of this fossil record Will be found in our tomb. Age of the Plasticene - we’re living in the Plastisphere - Micro to nanoparticles, unseen by the human eye, Threatening the spirit of every miracle that lives, Here on our fragile planet, traversing endless sky. Mother bird feeds her chicks plastics ’til their bellies are filled. So have we all become plastivores. Nature absorbs our worst mistakes, but never so tested By the hormone disruptor of life forevermore. Jim Scott 8.10.24 revised 1.10.25 Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

This past Wednesday August 6th, in Worcester by Lake Quinsigamond, we held a vigil, commemoration, memorial, expression of remorse - and a resolve to make a more peaceful world. I sang this beautiful and poignant song by Rev. Fred Small. I left out a verse (sorry Fred) but the message is there. The culture of war and its profiteers has been around a long time before some current administration. We are unfortunately the beneficiaries of a world-wide dominance and colonization supported by violence, unspeakable violence sometimes.What do we do about it? Engage. Engage with those who we don’t agree with, and work to educate, inspire, motivate. I just read somewhere the biggest threat to peace is not evil, it’s ignorance. (It said stupidity, but I’m correcting). We need to hold the view that these people (whoever they are, on all fronts) are not the enemy, but folks who just don’t know. Maybe greed and evil intent exists, but I believe “You have to be carefully taught,” to quote a prescient song from South Pacific. Let’s not give up. Nuclear bombs still exist, and so does the culture of war. Humanity can do better. We have more work to do now than I would have ever thought. Let’s find the way.Cranes Over Hiroshima Baby blinks her eyes as sun falls from the sky She feels the stings of a thousand fires as the city around her dies Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl Ten summers fade to autumn, ten winters' snows have passed She's a child of dreams and dances, she's a racer strong and fast But the headaches come ever more often and the dizziness always returns And the word that she hears is leukemia and it burns Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold Flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls I will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand one by one And I'll fly away when I am done Her ancestors knew the legend, if you make a thousand cranes From squares of colored paper, it will take the pain away With loving hands she folds them, 6 hundred 44 Till the morning her stumbling fingers can't fold anymore Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold Flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls I will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand one by one And I'll fly away when I am done Her friends did not forget her, crane after crane they made Until they reached a thousand and laid them upon her grave People from everywhere gathered, together a prayer they said And they wrote the words in granite so none can forget This is our cry, this is our prayer Peace in the world, this is our cry Fred Small ©1985 Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

This song and talk is from the “Good Trouble” rally in Northborough, Massachusetts on July 17 2025.Also a reminder that I will be doing a special live stream concert tonight (Wednesday, July 23) at 8PM EDT in my usual places. The theme is “In Our Hands - Holding Peace in Divided Times”.YouTube Channel Facebook personal page Facebook musician page I am waiting in the silence I am waiting for the dawn I am often found in reverence Though from many sources drawn It is not mine to fight for justice For it will not be won this day I am peace and I am waiting For the lost to find their way. You'll not find me set in judgment Of the vain or of the weak. But I rise to meet the weary With the soulless that they seek. Still I have not fed the hungry Nor strewn wealth among the poor. I am peace and bring but mystery And the patience to endure. I cannot save the suffering From their anger and their pain Only open doors of insight So the healing comes again To the proud I am elusive To the humble I am near May the broken rise and look beyond The trappings of their fears. I am found among the seasons, Autumn's death and spring's rebirth, As relentless their momentum As the turning of the earth. All are welcome in my presence For only love can conquer hate I am peace and for the harvest I have planted and will wait Jim Scott ©2007It's been about 60 years since the first time I marched with a civil rights march in 1965 in Rochester, New York. I've been doing this for a long time. And I was in the Army. Okay, thank you for your service. And I played with the Paul Winter Consort for years. I've been an environmental activist for years, and I'm often out with the marches. And I've got the battery-powered speakers, which is kind of like having a pickup truck. You know, everybody asks you.So here's what I think. It's great to get out here and everybody vent and, you know, what just happened? What a terrible thing! And we're going to vent and show our anger. Yeah, we've got to hold the line. But we have to be careful to not become us and them.There are people driving by, I'll bet, who think we're them already. We're defined by the opposition. And we've got to make sure that doesn't happen.We can be teachers and we can be diplomats. It's not easy at all of course what we got to do in the next 16 months. A little less than 473 days we have to change the Congress. That's our job, I think, right now. And we've got to be teachers. Yes, enrolling new voters, that's one thing. But talking to the person that you didn't want to relate to, you know? That uncle. Okay, we'll still let you live in the attic, but you've got to talk. You know what I mean.This is no fun. It's slow. It seems like you'll never get anywhere, but it works. I heard an actor playing a diplomat on the radio, I mean, in a movie. I'll bet you saw the movie too, I can't remember. And he says, diplomacy, it never works, doesn't work, never works, doesn't work, until it does.That's it. This is possible. You know, we ended slavery. We got the eight-hour day. We stopped the hole in the ozone layer, things like that. These things, this can be done. We've got an onslaught now like we never thought we'd have. We never thought we'd have to do this, but we do. So thanks for listening to that.Here’s a singalong that I led during the rally. We need to be singing and hoping together. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

This is a post July 4th 2025 message. There’s a lot of them out there, and I’m going to try not to repeat what all the pundits are saying. We need to stand up to the theft of democracy, equality, justice. And we need to stand up to the criminal, that we all know is a criminal, and to the men in the shadows. This is taking us apart, division, confusion, adrenaline of anger, cynicism, fatalism.The passage of this bill is going to be a seismic destructive force. History will be measured as before and after. How do I deal with my own feelings of loss and maintain a decency in the face of such a disaster? Some self-care – everything from simply taking deep breaths to remembering gratitude for my privilege to be alive and thinking helps. But I don’t need to share what works for me, you can Google a multitude of advice givers. Take care of yourself, good idea.Creativity is called for. There’s a lot of work to do, legally, socially, globally, interpersonally, and compassionately, to save this world. Anger may have its place, and perhaps now is a time for some, but as they say, taking poison and expecting someone else to die has been proven not to work.We need to practice a language of peace, to find words that are not divisive. Does that work? At some point, I’m going to admit, maybe it doesn’t. Not to the liars with criminal intent who have been at this for their careers, but to the good folks who have been fooled by the lies, addicted to some immediate gratification, frightened into defense and denial, it may just work.I found myself in a conversation on July 4th with a small Asian lady, English definitely her second language, in the process of returning something at a big store. She’s happy enough to take my case and asks the question I get all the time, “How tall are you?”I sometimes say, “Oh, this is the first time I’ve been on this subject today.” But before I can ask “In inches or meters,” she makes a guess, “Six foot five?” Well, that’s right. “And a half,” I add. I find myself saying under 6 foot 6 and I was draft worthy and in the Army. That brings us to her son is a Marine, and tall, but not as tall as I still am.“Still big for my age” I say. She laughs at my well used joke. “I’m so small” she says, I’m ready with, “But your aura is big, and your spirit is indominable.” I think she knows that word, she smiles anyway. So, she voted for Trump but is afraid he’s going to send her son to fight a war. I say that I hope he doesn’t send him to capture immigrants off the streets. She nods, well good. I add, “So, today Trump is celebrating that his big bill passed in Congress. She looks confused, “What bill?”She doesn’t know - she doesn’t know! She just voted probably for the one candidate she’d heard of and is she not even aware what he’s done. “Well, the bill is taking away health care from millions of people and giving money to millionaires” I say. She kind of shrugs, “The one percent.” Well, she knows that phrase. I add that I’m a real environment activist and he’s doing things that will be very bad for the environment. “Oh,” she says, “We have to take care of nature.”Well, a little common ground. I say we need laws to protect the Earth, and I have to let it go, for her to get on to another customer, before I can ask her how could she vote for such a criminal, who rapes women, lies about everything, doesn’t pay his debts, and avoided the military draft at the same time it came for guys like me? But I’m working on my responses, I’ll be more prepared for that situation next time, with a smile.My point is, I think I made her feel better, we were smiling, and just maybe she heard some words from a person she found decent and trustworthy. If we dare, we can be ready to defend the truth wherever we can – and make some peace. Here’s a song for all that. (The song starts at the 5 minute mark in the video. And sheet music is available to paid subscribers in the Library)There's a Way I would just as soon let some days go by without worryin' 'bout the things I haven't done. And I would just as soon let some time go by without worryin' about battles never won. I would just as soon let a woman or a man live in peace on the land, and before we would judge the way they live their lives, we'd be prepared to lend a hand. There's a way and there's an ease to the life we lead, There's a dream of peace not so far away. There's a force and there's a flow to the life we lead, If we will just release and let it it be that way. I would just as soon let all wounds heal in time without worrying about who deserves the blame. And I would just as soon there'd be no heroes in war. Though you win, you lose, it all turns out the same. I would prefer we'd find a compromise, so nobody dies in a senseless fight, over how to divide the earth or seas, or skies. There’s a way and there’s an ease to the life we lead, There’s a dream of peace not so far away. There’s a force and there’s a flow to the life we lead, If we will just release and let it it be that way. I would just as soon passing fashions delight without binding us to all in life that's vain. And I would just as soon that passions be of love, and not dominance and war for selfish gain. It would be enough for me, the fleeting beauty of the wild, that I might be beguiled, without boundaries without lies, that I could see with the eyes and the wisdom of a child. There’s a way and there’s an ease to the life we lead, There’s a dream of peace not so far away. There’s a force and there’s a flow to the life we lead, If we will just release and let it it be that way. Jim Scott ©1985 Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

(Sheet music in various formats is available for paid subscribers, and can be found here.)With the Paul Winter Consort I was a part of creating a big choral work called the Missa Gaia/Earth Mass. James Lovelock had recently written his book the “Gaia Hypothesis” He used this Greek goddess Gaia, kind of a Mother Earth figure, to personify for us the idea that the Earth is one living thing. There’s this one living organism, and we are all a part of that one body of life. The semantics of this has been debated by scientists but I think we accept it now as more than poetry.There are now three times as many people on the earth as when I was born, and a quarter of the insects, some say 40% of the nature we had. Coinciding with my lifetime has been a war on the Earth unprecedented in all of history. Who could think that we could go on this way? We’re in what scientists are calling the “6th Great Extinction” Yeah, the asteroid took out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago (the 5th), but there’s been no species that poisoned themselves and the Earth before.I read that when we were kids (I’m so old) people bought between 5 and 10 articles of clothing a year - cotton, wool, leather shoes - now with what is called “Fast Fashion” young people buy between 50 and 100 articles of clothing a year, and it’s mostly plastic. Wool, cotton, leather even, will degrade and finally go back to the earth. Plastic does degrade too, but it never goes back to earth.“Oh, I give my old clothes to charity,” you say. Salvation Army, Goodwill only keep a small part of that. The rest gets bailed up and gets sent around the world to poor places that are being poisoned by our excess. Want to imagine where all the plastic running shoes are? – mountains of them, decaying? Plastic decays into microscopic, tiny shreds micro plastics, nano plastics. They become more a cloud - in the entire ocean, now in the air, in everything - yes in everything. It’s a new ingredient in the mix, that keeps adding up and scientists are calling this the “Plasticene Era.” (More eras, they keep coming). Of course, we have an administration that hasn’t even accepted that we’re in the “Anthropocene Era” – the “human caused” era.We know now, we’re related to everything and we poetic people love to say how everything is connected. All this stuff we’ve created has made its way into us too: Strontium 90, DDT, PCBs, BPA (Bisphenol), PBDEs (Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers), Perfluorinated Chemicals, Teflon. Then – good old Formaldehyde, Asbestos, Heavy metals, and lately PFAS - polyfluoroalkyl substances. Now in all of us, in our water, air, and our food.The human race has evolved into something new in the last century. We were getting bigger, living longer, healthier, but we’re so smart now we made all this stuff that is killing us - more danger to us than terrorists or invading armies.There’s only one solution, “Stop what we’re doing.”This is hard for me, because: I know what’s good for me, what will make me live longer, happier, but I don’t necessarily do it. Why not?I must be an addict. - I must be wounded, alienated, torn from the very interconnectedness that would heal me, filling the emptiness with any kind of diversion and immediate gratification while the spirit of life on Earth is dying.Well, that would be a discouraging place to stop. Where is the healing, for the planet, and for me?Here’s what keeps me going, reminds me of what to get up for every day. Everything that is me, our Mother Earth modeled a long time ago.* The circulatory system, the water cycle of the Earth.* The breathing system, the lungs of the Earth are the green things flowers and trees, they breathe out and we breathe in.* The digestion of the Earth, the soil – I know, Entropy, everything breaks up everywhere, but let’s say figuratively things go back to the Earth.* The heart of the Earth – Not just because I’m romantic about trees, but I am, the jungles and the rainforests, are the pump that sends the water back to the clouds.Mother Earth has had all this going for millions of years before us. By the time we took our jangled masses of protoplasm and left the ocean and began to think we were separate, we had this model, and from whom? From our mother. We are made of her and we’re constantly changing places with her.If there’s a brain of the Earth, maybe we could be it. We’ve been able to learn, develop language, save wisdom in traditions, books, computer software. There’s hope for us.Then, the conscience of this Earth? We’d better be that too. This healing will require a spiritual backbone of some sort. Gratitude and responsibility for something larger than ourselves, for all that feeds us, for another day to be together.I never got it about the bearded old man in the sky. Much closer to home, I do get it about this very round woman in the sky. And I’m comfortable with her having a feminine aspect, for she is our Mother. And we are made in her image. A little less spherical, perhaps. But that’s the idea. Is she a deity, a goddess? That’s beautiful imagery but I’m more of a realist, she’s our ancestor.So everything I do in my life better be to build and maintain this sustainable living Gaia, Mother Earth, Mother Nature or, I’m in the way. There’s no description for what our job is now, short of “healing.” Our job and our children’s children’s job, the whole future of humanity’s job – is to heal the Earth, and each other.I wrote this song in an effort to say that everything is connected, we’re all one. And it’s big.The Oneness of EverythingFar beyond the grasp of hands, or light to meet the eye,past the reaches of the mindThere find the key to nature's harmonyin an architecture so entwined.Like the birds, whose patterns grace the skyand carry all who join in love expanding,The message of peace will rise in flighttaking the weight of the world upon its wings,With the oneness of everything.Peace is in the dance of trees who stir beforethe first breath of wind is yet perceivedTrust in the song, becoming one with the dance,and all mysteries can be believed.Like the sorrow of the clouds, whose tearsfall caring on the soil undemanding,Lessons of love are giv'n that wemight rejoice in the music they bring,Of the oneness of everything.From the chords that sound of molecules,spinning billions to a cell, the call resounds afar,To the sun who warms the dancing earth, and whose songholds it close on the journey of a star.Songs of lives long past who touch our ownare written in the earth forever giving.And now to maintain the harmonygives to us all lives worth living,For the oneness of everything.Still we seek to find a truth that we might understandand reduce to terms defined,Vast and immeasurable time and spaceall so overwhelmingly designed.Oh passing years, just might I know the faiththat winters in the heart to be reborn in Spring.To hear and to feel the pulse of lifeenters my soul as a song to sing,Of the oneness of everything. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

I live on Federal Highway 20, more or less, and I’ve lived near it before. It goes from Boston across America to Newport OR. I’ve experienced pretty much the full extent of it in my traveling years. If you look it up, Wikipedia will tell the story West to East, through Oregon, Idaho, Montana. But the real history is, coming from the East, it stopped at Yellowstone Park in Wyoming and only years later added the Western extent. The highway number stops through the park, but we all know.It's the longest highway in America, I’m told. From Newport OR, if you turn East you see this sign, “3365 miles to Boston.” I lived near that end, in Eugene, for some years. Now from my home in MA going West, along with other impatient travelers, I would choose to take Interstate 90 - Mass Turnpike, New York Throughway - and follow those big fast roads. You only need to get off a little to find Rt 20 somewhere nearby. Pennsylvania into Ohio, we go by Oberlin College, where I taught Winter Terms for years, Toledo and Sylvania, where my good friends Steve and Lynn live. There’s Gary and South Bend IN, and through the South side of Chicago and Rockford (hi to Dave Stocker). Then Dubuque to Sioux City IA, but that’s enough, you get the idea.Music for Earth and Spirit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.These Federal Highways preceded the Interstates by some decades. In the 1920s, when we first felt the liberation of the automobile, so much more capable of conquering the world (that had belonged to someone else) than the covered wagons. This system of numbered highways gave one the impression you could just start, and you’d get there.Federal highways started with low numbers in the North and East, odd numbers North and South, Rt. 1 Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida. And the even numbers are for East West - Rt. 2 in Houlton Maine West over to Everett WA, jumping over the great lakes from New York to Michigan. Rt. 101, for some reason exceeding the rule of numbers under 100, loops around the Olympic Peninsula in WA then takes you down the West coast through the Redwoods and to Los Angeles. Why not San Diego? I don’t know. Rt. 99, which you would think should be the highest, has been largely “decommissioned” (that’s what they call it) and replaced by Interstate 5.The Interstate Highways follow the opposite system, with the low numbers in the West and South, and we have no Interstates in the 50s and 60s to avoid confusion in the middle. No Interstate 1, for that matter. Perhaps they’re saving it to replace the 101. In the West folks say “the 101, or “take the 405.” In the East no one would use “the” before “95.” And no one in Massachusetts or New York says, “take the 90,” it’s “the Turnpike,” or “the Throughway.”Unlike the interstates, built anew, the Federal Highways were roads that already existed from town to town, some with their own names. The cow paths, Native American trails, routes of commerce and community evolving now with bypasses - a lot of thought went into all that. But it seems to me, something happens when you gather all these lanes, pikes, avenues and thoroughfares into one numbered artery; what were once destinations in themselves, now become on the way to somewhere else.I’m driving at nearly the East end of Rt 20 in the suburban Boston town of Wayland, and with a big truck right my tail I pass a dark being on the side of the road. I manage to turn around as soon as I can and go back, putting on the car flashers, to meet a giant snapping turtle. Neck extended to judge the relative size of the steel beasts roaring by, he hesitates, maybe gets it that he’s out of his league. But usually the biggest and nastiest around, he’s over the white line into the road. I have only my windshield ice scraper brush to try to turn him around. He is ferociously mad at me, glaring and snapping. I have pulled one by the tail before, though I know animal lovers say not to.A woman pulls up, and as I probably should have done, says we should call the police. She does. She has gloves and intends to pick him up. I warn her his back claws can still get her, one attempt and she gives up. Soon a young officer arrives, and I haven’t gotten this turtle to go far. The policeman has a tool, a long stick with a noose that can tighten. It’s probably more efficient with stray dogs, but with it around the shell he manages to get the turtle a few feet off the road before the thing comes off.There’s no reasoning with him (the turtle) that this side is where the wetlands are and the other side is a toxic landfill. But now he’s over in the grass. They leave and so do I. After my human errand at the bank, on the way back I look for him, and he’s gone.All this local excitement, in the context of a June 14 military parade for the Occupant, and hundreds of “No Kings” Rallies held all across our country - I don’t want to talk about that.But this all too familiar power differential in human politics again has distracted us, me anyway, from the long inequality with our fellow beings in this river town. My son Lou pointed out to me the other night, a pedestrian beaver crossing at the intersection of Routes 20 and 27 by the Unitarian Church. We’ve colonized their world. They appear not to have noticed and go on.Leaving the supermarket, I see a little bird caught in something, trying to get off the ground. (I don’t know what kind of bird, I probably should, but it’s brown). I see it’s caught by a string somehow stuck in the dirt and fluttering small frantic loops as far as this tether will allow. I of course will rescue it, but my ego has my first thought being to take a picture. My phone dies.I realize it’s dental floss, waxed. It’s wound around a wing and around the little thing’s neck. I lift it up, floss comes unstuck from the ground. I hold the bird in my cupped hand and try to figure out how it has gotten so tangled, it’s struggled for some time to get this way. I get the first part out, talking to the bird. It doesn’t try to peck or claw me. It has surrendered to my big hand and looks at me asking “Should I die of a heart attack before you eat me?” I touch its head with what I think is a gesture of compassion.This is a relatively new shopping center, built where a farm and maybe wetlands had been, now the intersections of several Disneyland streets, restaurants, exercise studios, pet store, hardware store and of course, dentist office.A guy shows up, asks “What was that?” I show him the situation, he says “I think I have some scissors,” heads for his car. I’m wondering what I have in mine. I sit down in my driver’s seat, door open, I first plug in my phone. (I know, I know). I pull out a bit from around its neck and many little feathers come too. I can only see that it’s really buried. The guy comes back with nail clippers, “I can cut it with this.”I want to argue that loosing what little there is to hold on to could make it impossible to get the rest from the neck. He cuts it. And that was all that was holding the bird. The rest still tight on its neck it twists, flutters and flies out the door into the sky. It will either survive or die and become food for some other wild thing.My phone has come on, I didn’t get a picture. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

Okay, you can see I got my “weapon of melodic dissertation” here. Now - so it was April 6th, (I got my notes).Reverend Shuttlesworth and 45 people kneel at City Hall, they're arrested. April 7th, 1963, 65 people led by A.D. King, Martin Luther King's brother, get arrested. April 8th, 85 people arrested. April 9th, 130 people arrested.Soon there's a thousand people in jail, and the business owners are saying, “let's just calm everything down. Of course, they're doing no business. On Good Friday, Martin Luther King met with the businessmen and clergy and the movement leaders. And he listens to them, and he walks out. And he comes back later and says, “I don't know what to do. I don't think we can raise enough money to get people out of jail. But I can go to jail with them.”So he does. He walks out and he goes to the church and he gets arrested and goes to jail. May 2nd, the children are arrested. May 7th, Bull Connor's jails are full of 4,000 people. So that's when America woke up to all of this, and leaders all over. I say there was not a famous leader there were certainly leaders, powerful leaders at this point A Philip Randolph, now that's NALC, the National American Negro American (we used that word then) The Negro American Labor Council.And Bayard Rustin organized the March on Washington. He was not so affiliated with one of the Big Six because he was gay, and he'd kind of been outed for that. And so he worked in the shadows for all this. And there's a movie about it. Check it out.So there was the Big Six, NALC, James Farmer and CORE, (that's the Congress of Racial Equality), and Martin Luther King is with the Southern Christian Leadership Council. John Lewis, SNCC, Roy Wilkins, NAACP, and Whitney Young, the National Urban League. These were groups working for justice and equality that had been going a long time.And there's something we should mention, the Highlander School, now called the Highlander Center. Everybody went to the Highlander Center. Rosa Parks went to the Highlander Center. There were other people that had been arrested, a teenager (Claudette Colvin) arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus. But it was an orchestrated thing that Rosa Parks, a well-trained, NAACP I believe, activist, was ready to do this. She knew the bus driver. And the world... woke up to this. So then this Martin Luther King's famous speech, “I Have a Dream” speech at the August March on Washington. And it's not always, it's not replayed, every year like Martin Luther King's speech, but Bayard Rustin got to read “The Demands” and check that out, hear the crowd at that point. So we go on from there.Events more than 60 years ago that sound an awful lot like what's going on now. This is some songs that would have been sung in there.And many of them are in this book.Come and go with me to that land, Come and go with me to that land.Come and go with me to that land, where I’m bound…Over my head, I hear music in the air, (Music in the air)Over my head, I hear music in the air, (music in the air)Over my head, I hear music in the air, (music in the air)There must be a heaven somewhere.Over my head, I hear trouble in the air…. (etc.)Someone’s cryin’ Lord. come by here, Someone’s cryin’ Lord. come by here,Someone’s cryin’ Lord. come by here, Oh, Lord, come by here.Someone's praying, Lord, come by here. Someone's praying, Lord, come by here.Someone's praying, Lord, come by here. Oh, Lord, come by here.This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.And everywhere. All around the world now.And it would have sung these, you know, “All around Birmingham…” and things like that. I'm going to let it shine.All around the world. I'm going to let it shine…. Sing it like you did in church now.This little light, this little light, of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, oh my.This little light. I'm gonna let it shine - this little light.’This little light, of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. - I'm gonna let it shine.(O well, so much for the blues lick.)Well, thank you for listening. Tune in. We'll have more to talk about. Thanks for visiting my Substack. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

Given the events going on now and our feelings of disempowerment, maybe now turning to motivation, I recall a period and place in America where a similar “law of the land” denied people’s very humanity. Where power and violence were used to keep people oppressed, there came a breaking point, and it woke up the country, including me.In the spring of ’63 Rev Fred Shuttleworth perhaps started it all, and then the “Big 6” including the NAACP, Martin Luther King and the SCLC, (look this stuff up) created a movement that the corrupt law and order of racist segregation could not stop.This is framed by the Cuban Missile Crisis the fall before, and then in Birmingham the progression of demonstrations and particularly the “Children’s Crusade” that brought about at least some desegregation. Then later that summer, the March of Washington for Jobs and Justice, and MLK’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Then the bombing of the Birmingham church, a few weeks later the assassination of President Kennedy, and a few weeks later the arrival of the Beatles.The popularity of Motown and Black musicians singing their own songs and getting as famous as white artists that “covered” them gave way to the “British Invasion.” And there was also the emergence of the young Bob Dylan. But that will have to be another post. I focus on Birmingham here. I hope you find it relevant. Roll video…Hi Friends!This is my first post on Substack. Not what I intended to do, but as the occupier of the White House has sent National Guard and Marines, - I'm not going to talk about that. I'm old enough to remember some parallel events, more than 60 years ago. This is not my primary area of expertise, and there are certainly other subjects I could be on these days, but I want to read you a bit from this great book by Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser, with some reflections added and a little music before we're done.Maybe to set it up, let me say, in 1963, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth leads a movement in Birmingham, Alabama against racism - segregation. He's arrested trying to register his children at a white school; he's done a lot of other things, too. His house was bombed all the way back in 1956. So, this is nothing new.There's not a movement with a famous leader yet, as is recalled in this book, in fact. It isn't like MLK, Stokely Carmichael, Fannie Lou Hamer just call for a demonstration, a march, an uprising, and it happens. The people whose names we remember are rising up, just keeping up with everybody else in this leaderless, growing, exploding, consciousness of morality and equality.Black people boycotted the businesses of Birmingham. And the business owners were ready to take down the “Whites-Only” signs. But the KKK and a tyrant who would sound familiar - his character would sound familiar these days - Bull Connor, stops them. So I want to read from here now.(From the book, “Everybody Says Freedom” by Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser)The temperature hit 90 degrees. Everyone was sweating. “Freedom, freedom” a roar rose up from the church. Outside, officers unleashed clubs from their belts. The faces of those I could see, white men, had turned crimson.Jeremiah X, a Muslim minister standing near me, commented, “At any moment they expect 300 years of hate to spew forth from this church.” Well, that's not what happened. Sixty demonstrators were on their way, marching two abreast. Dick Gregory, the nightclub comedian, was leading the group. At a signal, forty policemen converged, sticks in hand.“Do you have a permit to parade?” asked the police captain.“No,' replied Gregory. 'No what?” asked the captain, in what seemed to be a reminder to Gregory he had not used the word, “Sir.”“No, a thousand times no.” Gregory replied. The captain said, “I hereby place you under arrest.” For the next two hours, the scene was repeated over and over as one group of students strutted out of the church to the cheers of the spectators, the freedom chants of those being carried away a cacophony of freedom.One thousand students went to jail that day. Day after day. Now this is April 3rd, I believe, something like that. 1,000 students went to jail that day. So the march continued. More people got arrested, and more people got arrested, and more people got arrested, day after day,So this doesn't have the whole history of it here, but there were something like 45 people the first day. There were 65 the next day. There were 85 the next day. 130 the next day. The jail's got 1,000 people in it. And the march continued. But then the children got arrested. This is sometimes known as the Children's March (“Children’s Crusade.”)Connor and his men ran about the streets grabbing 11 and 12 year old demonstrators. The children were even using decoy tactics, a small group leading the police astray while the main column of marchers went down another street to the downtown. A policeman ran up to an eight year old child walking with her mother and screamed, “What do you want?” The little girl looked at the policeman. “Freedom,” she said. An unidentified police captain said, “10 - 15 years from now, we'll look back on this and say, “How stupid could we have been?” Within days, Bull Connor's prisons were full of children. By Tuesday, May 7th, before 10 a.m., police lines and fire hoses went into place. The students set up pickets in front of eight department stores, what students were still out of jail.Len holt says, “I was standing near a police motorcycle, i could hear the pandemonium at police headquarters over the police radio. I heard Bull Connor's voice, he was mad. He'd been betrayed never before had the students demonstrated before 1 p.m. Nearly four thousand persons returned to the church from their victory march, while they joyously sang inside preparations were being made outside. Cars with dogs drove up, three hundred police officers surrounded the church and park area, fire hoses were set up. As soon as the people emerged from the church, they found themselves surrounded by Connor's police. Squad cars pulled up in front of the church, blocking any chance to retreat to safety.“Let them have it!” cried Connor. With TV cameras and newsmen watching, the firemen turned on their hoses. Columns of water crashed into children and adults, knocking them down, ripping their clothes, smashing them into the sides of buildings. From the other side of the park, Connor unmuzzled the German shepherds, dogs lunged into the ranks, biting, running children.Len Holt says, “On one side, students were confronted by clubs, on the other, by powerful streams of water. The firemen used hoses to knock down the students. As the streams hit the trees, the bark was ripped off, bricks were torn loose from the walls the streams of water slammed Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth against the church causing him internal injuries. Mrs Colea Lafayette, 25 year old SNCC (Snick - the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Field Secretary from Selma, was knocked down. Two hoses brought to bear on her to pushed her along the sidewalk. At that moment where Commissioner Connor laughed, “Look at them _ (N-word) run!”A.G. Gaston, a black businessman who had been among some of those who opposed the demonstrations, looked from his window. “My God!” he cried to the person on the other end of his phone, “They've turned the fire hoses on a black girl. They're rolling that little girl right down the middle of the street! I can't talk to you now.” The black community was now one.Glenn Evans, Birmingham police officer, said, “I was standing there by the fire hose when they put the hose right on Shuttlesworth. His feet were knocked out from under him. I had the thought at the time, “What's the purpose of this? What does it accomplish? What do we hope to do by doing these things?”The nation woke up at this moment. Dorothy Cotton said, “If it hadn't been for television, nobody would have ever believed they turned the dogs on us, turned the fire hoses on our children.” Danny Lyon said, “That's when the press discovered the movement. Until then, maybe you'd get one story a year about civil rights. A burning bus in alabama on the cover of life magazine then nothing for a year. Martin Luther King and hundreds thousands of people getting arrested in Albany and then nothing. Nobody covered the movement, but now the press was really excited, decided fire hoses and dogs made good newsreels, they realized this was good material>”May 10th, with 3,000 people in jail and with what King called “The boil of segregation, opened to the air and light,” black citizens of Birmingham and the white Businessmen's Association reached an accord, to make the end of the demonstrations and boycott. The merchants agreed to take down the whites only signs to desegregate the lunch counters and hire blacks for clerical and sales positions.But the drama was not over. Late Saturday night, May 12th, bombs exploded at SCLC, (Southern Christian Leadership Council) headquarters, and at the home of Reverend A.D. King, Martin Luther King's brother. The black citizens who had not been goaded to anger by police dogs and fire hoses so far, were finally driven too far. They milled about downtown, there was some throwing of bricks, 2,500 people. A taxicab was set on fire.Movement leaders circulated through a mob urging restraint, and the crowds began to quiet. Suddenly, Colonel Al Lingo and his state troopers arrived. Despite pleas by the Birmingham police to let the situation alone, the troopers began to clear the streets with shotguns, rifles, and clubs. Hundreds were jailed, including Guy and Candy Carawan, (who I'd like to speak about later - great musician and gatherer of peace songs) who were arrested for trying to join a mass meeting at a black church.Guy said, “The jails were really crowded by now. Fairgrounds (a jail) were full of youngsters. They put Candy upstairs and me downstairs. They told me that upstairs the prisoners were beating up Candy, and they told Candy that downstairs the prisoners were roughing me up. Nobody got hit. We were all squeezed into one cell, drunks and pickpockets and me. I slept on a plain spring that night. I tried to sleep, but more and more people kept getting shoved into the cell. I remember hearing one drunk come in swearing, “Looking for that damn freedom rider.”Really late, I heard this remarkable sound from outside the jail window. I could hear hundreds and hundreds of voices singing freedom songs. People had marched over from the mass meeting to the jailhouse to let all those in jail know that everyone was thinking of them.” (End of reading from the book.)Then, let me jump to, in August, is the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” and Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream speech.”But in September 15th, 1963, the last and most horrible act in opposition to the Birmingham movement. It was Sunday, at the 16th Street Baptist Church, Sunday school was just over. Four little girls stood in the back of the church putting on their choir robes. A stick of dynamite exploded. Debris, plaster, glass, wood flew about, with the tattered remains of the children's Bible lessons. Sixteen others were injured. The four girls were killed.(From the book): Awaiting what they were sure would be the most horrible black retribution, the town called in troops and marshals. Pat Waters said, “Police and press alike in the strange quiet of the afternoon as grief-stricken people walked numbly about what was called the ‘Negro Section’ expected God knows what kind of retributive horror that night.” As the hot afternoon wore on, violence like a mad dog loose continued - White violence. White youth shot to death a Negro boy on a bicycle. Police shot a black youth to death, claiming that he ran when ordered to halt. But the black retribution, the black uprising, never happened. Did not come.Still America waited. The expectation of violence hung like a still unfulfilled prophecy over the whites, especially in the South. The drama was done. At terrible cost, the movement had breached Birmingham, segregation's fortress.The rest of the South lay ahead. (end of the book reading). That is not attributed to either, but Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser wrote this book, and together, they write these stories, recollections. A lot of it is, no doubt, Pete Seeger recalling these things. So, at this point, we should remember the... movement that rose up through the summer, and I'm going to speak a little bit more about that. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe

Hello, friends. I'm enjoying my new house, still a bit disorganized, here in Wayland, Massachusetts. Welcome as well to my new communications on Substack. I guess I'll sit in front of this bookcase, one of three that have mostly music, classical, jazz, folk, popular music that I love.I hope to share with you though, primarily the music I've made. And there's poetry and stories that are not necessarily attached to music. You can find my bio here somewhere, but let me say, it's become my thing to make music for Earth and peace and justice. And I would say that's my “spiritual response,” to borrow a phrase from Nelson Mandela, and maybe others. I hope that you'll feel the spiritual component in all this that I offer. I think we're in need of moral and spiritual spiritual leadership. And I'm just the guy who wrote the songs. I don't want to pretend to be a guru or with all the answers, but maybe to be the guy with interesting questions.I hope to be entertaining - inspiring? - that's up to you. Get full access to Music for Earth and Spirit at jimscott.substack.com/subscribe