Music Vs. Silence Of The Dead
I watched the Grammy’s Award Show. I am an “old guy” so I knew in advance most of the show content would be barely understood. Music is the voice of a generation. Several generations and more have come into being since mine was up and coming. The Boomer generation was the one born right after the end of WWII. Given the horrors of that war was it was assumed that my generation would learn from our fathers, to build a better world. Now it is clear that our effort has produced anything but unambiguous peace and prosperity for everyone.
Entertained by the visual effects of the Grammy show, I appreciated the sharp wit of host, Trevor Noah. I confess being baffled by many of the samples of award winning music that were offered. I wondered to myself if there was intentional content, or if a piece was conceived to produce an emotional effect, not unlike a Salvador Dali painting. As I said I represent an older generation. I relate directly, immediately to Unchained Melody, by the Righteous Brothers. And so it goes, as Vonnegut often said.
Amid the Las Vegas glitz, the silly hyperbole permeating the show, this sobering video was offered from the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. The video was taped a few hours earlier in the bunker war room where Zelensky supervises the command center for his people resisting the Russian army. His words, to the point, were an incursion of “reality” into the fantasy of the awards event.
Following the Zelensky appeal, John Legend offered a moving performance of a new song, entitled, Free. Unfortunately I cannot find a clean, unencumbered video of the song to offer to you. Surely this has something to do with profit. Yea capitalism…
According to Billboard Mag report, [Legend] was joined on stage by two Ukrainian artists. The first was Denver-based musician Siuzanna Iglidan, originally from Odessa, Ukraine, who appeared backing up the star while playing the bandura, a traditional Ukrainian folk instrument. The pair were then joined by Mika Newton, a Ukrainian singer who sang a verse in Ukrainian.
Finally, they were joined by Lyuba Yakimchuk — a Ukrainian poet who fled Ukraine “just days ago,” according to the broadcast — who offered a prayer-like stanza to close the performance. “Forgive us our destroyed cities, even though we do not forgive for them our enemies,” she said. “Shield and protect my husband, my parents, my child and my motherland.”
Zelensky articulated the dividing line between “the human” and servitude. You either support music, or you support the silence of death.
For the prayer/poem offered by Lyuba Yakimchuk CLICK HERE.
