What’s a song that changed your life?

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First, I want to thank Stephanie and Rojie for heeding my request to post a Vote Blue message for the midterms. Please read both of their posts, which are so heartfelt and powerful.

Second, I blogged about my performance of the song “Anthem” from the 1980s Broadway musical Chess at a cabaret night at my church last spring. In the show, it’s sung by a Soviet chess player who is thinking of defecting, but the song became newly meaningful to me in light of rising authoritarianism in my own country. These are the lyrics, with one change that I made:

No man, no madness
Though their sad power may prevail
Can possess, conquer, my country’s heart
They rise to fail

She is eternal
Long before nations’ lines were drawn
When no flags flew, when no armies stood
My land was born

And you ask me why I love her
Through wars, death, and despair
She is the constant, we, who don’t still care
And you wonder will I leave her
But how?

I cross over borders but I’m still there now

How can I leave her?
Where would I start?
Let man’s petty nations tear themselves apart
My land’s only borders lie around my heart

I’m not a professional singer, so I wasn’t gonna post the video, but in support of our imperiled democracy, here it is. I hope you can hear in my somewhat nervous voice how meaningful the song was/is to me:

Finally, please get to the polls and VOTE BLUE tomorrow. Let’s start to take our country back from this lawless administration.

And if you’re in Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Ohio or Kansas please be sure to bring ten friends. Sometimes people just need a ride to the polls. That’s an easy way to make sure they vote.

Vote.org

“This (election) is not a choice between flavors of ice cream. This is a choice between ice cream and poison.” ~Heather Cox Richardson