Are we still brothers (and sisters)?

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a lot of moments that I’ve come to refer to as “snapping points” – moments when I am suddenly, and completely, overwhelmed by a profound intellectual and emotional grief and horror. Today’s snapping point flooded over me as I listened to one of my newly-purchased replacement CDs for old, old albums I haven’t played, sometimes haven’t even owned, for years, because the vinyl was long past its prime condition.

The song was He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, From Neil Diamond’s Taproot Manuscript. And as I listened to the words, and tried to sing along, as is my habit, I found myself crying. And I realised that we don’t live anymore in a world where a song that says the responsibility of human beings toward each other is not a burden but in fact a source of gladness, is going to be heard over the constant noise of hatred, hunger, greed and war, over the soulless popstar narcissism of private lusts and adolescent desires lost and found.

Of course, there’s still music being written that talks about social justice and personal freedom, about peace and universal love and the search for a better tomorrow for everyone, music that witnesses to the wrongs committed around us and speaks in the voice of the poor, the injured, the outraged, the forgotten, the wounded, the outcast. But it’s not music that is speaking to a whole culture any more.

Where are the new songs of peace, of protest, of union solidarity, of people marching in the streets for peace and true freedom and social justice and human dignity?


"He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"

The road is long,
with many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where,
who knows where
But I'm strong,
strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy - he's my brother

So on we go, his welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bear, we'll get there
For I know he would not encumber me
He ain't heavy - he's my brother

If I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart isn't filled with gladness
of love for one another

It's a long, long road
from which there is no return
While we're on our way to there,
why not share
And the load,
it doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy - he's my brother.

by Sidney Russell and Robert Scott, (C)1977 Harrison Music Corp., Jenny Music (ASCAP)