Activism
I’m honored to serve as Judge of Elections in my local precinct, and I encourage you to vote in every local election. You can register to vote here.
Protest Music
The Power of Music to Create Social Change
HERE ARE SOME PROTEST SONGS AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE...
Scroll down for lyrics, sheet music, and demo to Enough Is Enough and lyrics to The Kids Go Marching
After the Parkland shootings, an activist friend of mine got in touch with me for help with music for the March For Our Lives. (You can see the sheet music to This America by Judy Young and listen to a demo of This America by Judy Young). That got me thinking about the Women's March, and how important music had been to my experience there. I was on the mall, far from the speakers, standing for hours before finally, slowly shuffling along the march route. Everyone in my group was getting cold and tired and thirsty and hungry, and everyone had to pee. Then we got within earshot of some drums and brass instruments, and it was electric: everyone's energy brightened, in a wide radius around us. I realized then that, in that moment, we needed music more than we needed food, more than we needed shelter, more than we needed water, more than we needed rest, and more than we needed a bathroom. Now, in March 2018, I was inspired by the words from the student walkout, and I couldn't get the refrain "Enough Is Enough" out of my head. So I tried to come up with a song that would be easy and fun to learn to sing on a bus or on the ground at a rally.
You can listen to a demo of Enough is Enough (love and thanks to my young choir friends, especially Ana for singing the lead and Rick for beatboxing) I wrote this song for the March For Our Lives, with words from the student walkout in March 2018. All are welcome to sing it, and to make up additional verses and harmonies. You are welcome to download the sheet music of Enough Is Enough for free
You might also enjoy singing these lyrics to The Kids Go Marching, to the tune of The Ants Go Marching
1.Listen to the young---Enough is Enough
Protect kids not guns--Enough is Enough
We will not be silenced--Enough is Enough
End gun violence--Enough is Enough
We will go and vote
Like no generation in history
We’re just getting started and
We won’t stop!
2. We want to read
Books not elegies
It’s a school zone
Not a war zone
We will go and vote
Like no generation in history
We’re just getting started and
We won’t stop!
3. We demand that children’s lives
Be prioritized
One child is worth
All the guns on the earth
We will go and vote
Like no generation in history
We’re just getting started and
We won’t stop!
4. Kids miss feeling safe at school
More than you will miss your guns
Seventeen, how many more
Will I be next on the floor?
We will go and vote
Like no generation in history
We’re just getting started and
We won’t stop!
5. This isn’t right or left
This is life or death
Politicians
Our blood, your hands
We will go and vote
Like no generation in history
We’re just getting started and
We won’t stop!
6. This is a movement
Not a moment
We have lived in fear too long
From walkouts we march on
We will go and vote
Like no generation has in history
We’re just getting started and
We won’t stop!