We are on UN’s red code to Save the World and 30 years of saltwater welling in my eyes since I first heard Julian Lennon’s song, Rainy Days and Songdays now hails those singers who’ve been addressing the crisis for years.
When will there be?
Harvest for the World (Isley Brothers): Gather every man, gather every woman, Celebrate your life, give thanks for your children, gather everyone, gather altogether, overlookin’ none, hopin’ life gets better for the world.
The sonorous tones of Cincinnati, Ohio’s finest, carry on them a wonderfully stripped-back message we can all take on board.
My own focus on Cincinnati has been honed since sending one of my writers there back in the day.
I’d plan out the travel pieces they came back with early in the week for the weekend publication and was relaxing in the Dylan Hotel, Amsterdam (as you do) having mapped out the early draft.
When said writer texted me in a panic saying I’d misspelt Cincinnati and that this was jeopardising his contacts with them.
Despite it, of course, being an early draft and me being back in the office two days later. Hey ho, between us we gave the Cincinnatians what they wanted a justifiable celebration of their city.
Don’t it always seem to go?
Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell): And the Canadian chanteuse always caught the zeitgeist with her uniquely on-point lyrics.
‘They took all the trees and put ’em in a tree museum and charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em’ refers to the Foster Botanical Garden in downtown Honolulu.
Encroaching tourism is as big, if not bigger, threat than when Joni and the other hippies were trailing a blaze. Go and see it before they ruin it.
Welling in my eye
Saltwater (Julian Lennon): It’s 30 years since John’s boy released this song, a classic in its own right.
And when I hear about the hole in the sky saltwater wells in my eyes.
And alas it’s getting bigger Julian.
The right Cash
Don’t Go Near The Water (Johnny Cash): The King of Country was a lifelong advocate for ecology and the American landscape.
And you can learn more about his passion for Nature at his museum in Nashville.
Johnny. of course, was a man of the land, Arkansas in his case, and he would turn in his grave…
Bob’s the job
The Sun Is Shining (Bob Marley): Marley, of course, loved the land so much he tried to smoke it all.
But joking aside his Rasta songs were inspired by a union with Nature.
Chicago‘s The Rock and Roll Playhouse knew it and held an Earth Day celebration concert featuring tunes by the great master of reggae two years ago.
To the rescue… here I am.
If only… because 30 years of saltwater welling in my eyes something has to be done.
