When I was young I was always listening to the radio, waiting for the song and the words to be broadcast that would change my life. There was this expectancy that somebody somewhere will put words and music together that would transform me into something better. It has never happened, but I am still waiting, still eager for it to happen.
I ask myself can music influence things in the world, can it affect change in peoples lives. Did John Lennon's "Give peace a chance" stop the war in Viet Nam? Would the war have draged on longer if he had never written that song?
Or what of the "Singing Revolution" in Estonia when over one quarter of a million people meet in the open air to sing songs like "Koit" (Dawn Is Breakin' Through), Laulu Mõju [the Influence of a Song], Laul Põhjamaast [Hymn of the Nordic Lands] Nukurava Nukulaul [the Puppet People's Puppet Song [from the Song Cycl].
Previously in Hungary and Checkoslovakia, any attempt to become independant were brutally crushed by soviet tanks, but in 1988 the Estonians sang their way to freedom.
In the Song Fields of Tallin, night after night, thousands of people turned up to sing in the open air. The singing turned into a political rally, ending with over 300,000 Estonians voicing their demand for self-government through song. The Estonians say "We sang ourselves free."
A good song is no more than the expression of a truth that we hold deep in our hearts. The utterance of the words, the voice releasing the melody, gives birth to hope, and new life.
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