SongInvention

by Kristi McGarity
lyrics by Carolyn Pinet

Virtual Studio package

This song is a commission dedicated to Carolyn Pinet, poet and retired adjunct professor of Spanish at Montana State University. Dr. Pinet wrote the poem for her granddaughter Naomi Rose, born in the summer of 2011.

I love this poem’s economy of language, how only 66 words are packed with meaning. "Wars without end, children in the streets” brings to mind generations of suffering: poverty, racism, genocide, exploitation, environmental destruction, and violence of all kinds.

First I thought about the word “dare”; it’s a playground taunt. (“Bet you’re too scared to do this dangerous thing!”) Even if it really is too scary and too dangerous, you can’t say no without looking like a wimp.

Then I thought about the poet writing from Montana, where the water is still clean enough to drink from mountain streams, and the clear “blue of the open sky” is the first thing you see. Yet present-day Montana is built on land taken by force from American Indians; too many of us forget that dirty history of starvation, disease, and outright butchery.

Newborns, of course, know nothing of history or politics. Who could argue that one baby deserves to be born in the sunny mountains, while another deserves to start life on a war-torn city street? The innocence of a new baby challenges us to repair the damage we’ve done, even when it’s too scary to face.

Because if we don’t face it, she has to. Our hearts tear a little just telling children about other children who die every day, all over the world. We gloss over the details, convincing ourselves they can’t understand yet. But I suspect children understand plenty, and we just can’t stand making them sad.

A child would say “wait, so kids my age don’t have HOMES? Why not?” and what answer can you give that doesn’t sound like an absurd rationalization? And yet we rarely address the systemic injustices we leave for our children to solve. The “wildest, best hope” is that maybe they can.

Fans of the Battlestar Galactica television series (2003-2009) will recognize the musical reference on the line “wars without end.” While the drum sounds were originally sampled from African instruments, the drums are more a reference to TV composer Bear McCreary than to a particular world music. When I first played the chord progression I knew immediately where I’d heard it before. But I kept it, because the Battlestar story captures the same central theme as Pinet’s poem – the highs and lows of human nature, the way a new baby calls us to build her a better world – as accurately as any fiction writing I’ve seen.

Do you have a poem you have always wanted to set to music? Why not schedule a consultation today?

(Wind in willows sample courtesy of dobroide at freesound.org, aspen tree sample courtesy of juskiddink at freesound.org, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.)

The Dare