Where Have All the Storytellers Gone?

As today is the anniversary of “the day the music died,” and as the recent winter storm still has most of life’s operations at a standstill, I thought it an appropriate time to jot down what’s been swirling around in my mind for the last few weeks.

I was born in 1967,  amidst a time of great turmoil in our country.  And, since I’m going to be drawing parallels here, I might as well point out the irony that, as I do, I was born after a huge winter storm, rivaling the one we just had.  I don’t remember that storm, or much about the time in which I was born, but I’ve learned, and I’m living now.

While the reasons that led to the turmoil of the 60′s and early 70′s are very different from today, the toll that current events have taken on our national psyche is huge, and much like that of the 60′s.   Now, as then, seemingly unthinkable events have stunned us.  Now, as then, people feel threatened and fearful.  Now, as then, the public has great mistrust in our government.  Now, as then, the actively protesting minority has the loudest voice, the most visibility, and the same potential for disheartening the more silent majority.  Now, as then, people are feeling much less hopeful about their future.

While protest rallies and marches aren’t as common today as they were in the 60′s, they are more common now than they have been at any other time in my life.  The polarization we are experiencing now, personally and publicly, is the most extreme it has been in my memory.  The wars in Iraq and, especially, Afghanistan, feel politically similar to that of Vietnam.  In many ways, history is repeating itself.   Except…

Where have all the storytellers gone?

Where are the singer-songwriters — the Bob Dylans, John Lennons, Joan Baez’s, Leonard Cohens, Arlo Guthries, and Pete Seegers — telling the stories of our time?  I know we have LOTS of great singer-songwriters today, many of whom I love.  But I’m talking about the “protest song” singer-songwriter.  The songwriters focused on the political/cultural climate of now.

Do they not exist at all?  Do they exist in the way ‘cabaret’ songwriters exist; so far outside main stream popular music culture that no one hears their music unless they seek it out?  Am I simply completely out of touch and off the mark here?  Is no one bothering, because all those songs have been written… back in the 60′s?   Have we become so worried about being PC that those who might have ventured into that kind of songwriting are now afraid to do so?  Is today’s public so without accurate knowledge of current events that there’s no audience for such music?  Are those who are truly in touch with current events so overwhelmed that listening to music connected with those events is just too much?

I honestly have no idea.

What I do know is that now, as always, good songs have the ability to make us think, gently open our minds to different points of view, give us release, join us together, and lift us up.  And I’m missing those storytellers now.  I’m wishing for singer-songwriters to emerge from the chaos of our time and be a voice for us… and for their songs to become a record (no pun intended) of our time… so that in another 50 years, our stories can be told by the singers of tomorrow.

**************
Songs of the Day:
Where Have All The Flowers Gone – Bob Dylan
Turn Turn Turn – Pete Seeger

Advertisement