Before the invention of crime reporting there were the murder ballad. These songs described violent crimes and fearful retributions, and the listener was often moved to compassion for the murderer as much as the victim.
Keep playing and injustice will pass you by. The ‘collective and democratic music’ experiment turns 40. El Sistema, one of the world’s most extraordinary democratic educational projects, is almost 40 years old.
If God is on our side, why are we in such a mess? One of Bob Dylan’s best quotes runs as follows: “They said I was a prophet and I’d reply I wasn’t. They used to be convinced I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer and they’d say, ‘Bob Dylan’s no prophet.’
