“Sing People Sing”

Pat Humphries and Sandy O. from the band, Emma’s Revolution, come to Nonviolence Radio to talk to Michael and Stephanie about music and its central role in nonviolent activism – and to perform the radio debut of their song, “You Are Not God”. Recognizing that current politics are leading many into a paralyzing sense of powerlessness and despair, Pat and Sandy remind us that singing can infuse us with joy, can bring us into community with others and can remind us that hope is always available. The music of Emma’s Revolution reveals that hope does not necessarily come through words and persuasive argument. Pat and Sandy encourage us to come together to challenge injustice by engaging in creative action, through making art, through singing and dancing together. 

"[Pete Seeger] would always call for harmony and if the audience didn't respond, he would toss out some lines of harmony to teach people how to do that. In doing so, he got us listening to one another and then making our unique contribution that was still harmonious with the larger whole and creating that beautiful metaphor.

It's a big lesson, because that sense of togetherness and that sense of unity, it's part of what drives the hope. And the hope is what drives our ability to move forward."

When we expand our sense of the ways we might try to bring about change, we see that the effort required, however urgent and demanding, can still be infused with beauty and fun.

Transcript

Stephanie: Welcome to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I'm here in the studio with my co-host and news anchor for the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler.

And on today's show, we have a very special folk duo joining us to talk about creativity, activism, music, and the state of the world.

We're so happy to have Emma's Revolution with us. Pat Humphries and Sandy O., welcome to Nonviolence Radio. This is a really scary and challenging time, every single morning for those especially working for human rights, civil rights, environmental protections, peace, and nonviolence in general – to wake up, turn on the news and see more rollbacks of so many policies and values that we hold dear.

So, it's so wonderful to be together in community this morning to talk and to think about these challenges that we're facing.

Pat: That's such an important thing for us to be together in community during this time. I agree, it is. This is Pat. It's a very challenging time, particularly challenging for folks who are immigrants and undocumented, folks who are LGBTQIA. And, you know, it's a difficult time. We need one another, especially during this time.

Michael: Yeah, I just want to put in my big plug, and that is that I am distantly related to Emma Goldman. [Laughter]

Sandy: We want to hear about that, Michael

Michael: Michael. Yeah. Sandy, I'm going to have to ask my sister to run it by me again. It's kind of complicated. It's pretty distant, but I love it.

Sandy: Oh, great. Yeah, I love that you brought that up. Because for folks who don't know the reference in our name, we are named for Emma Goldman, who was a very powerful and passionate speaker and writer and leader who spoke about and acted on all sorts of issues that we care about today – free speech, women's rights, freedom to love who you want to love.

And she was considered, you know, the most dangerous woman of her era. And I think we're all going to need to be the most dangerous version of ourselves that we can. But in terms of, ‘dangerous’ in order to protect what is good, and what is strong, what we know to be right in this world. Because what's going on right now, we can see, is an upheaval of all of that.

And so, we take our name from a saying that was attributed to Emma Goldman. So, she was dancing at a party and somebody said to her, “You know, you're a leader, you're a big thinker. You shouldn't be dancing.” And the words that she said is, “Everyone has the right to free expression, to beautiful, radiant things.” And it got turned into, and remembered in history as, “If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.”

Michael: That’s how I heard it.

Stephanie: So, she so she never actually said it that way, but that's like Gandhi saying, “Be the change.” He actually never said that.

Sandy: Right. Yeah.

Pat: The spirit of her words.

Stephanie: And one thing about Emma Goldman, that we should talk about on Nonviolence Radio before we go any further, is that she was an advocate for violent revolution, violent change.

And I firmly believe that if she were alive today, she would take up nonviolence. It's developed so much since the early 1900s when she was involved in her activism. So, I just want to speak to that as well, that while Emma Goldman did advocate for violence, I think that today she would advocate for nonviolence. 

Pat: I think that's very true. Emma lived in a very violent time, especially around the labor movement. And, you know, I'm not even sure what kind of choices we all might have made if we were dodging bullets, you know? Of course, the whole field of nonviolence developed pretty dramatically in the end of her lifetime and then, you know, between that time, between then and now. 

And I imagine, though she was a very staunch anarchist, I imagine that she would, just as she did in her lifetime, take in that current information and evolve in her own way her approach to things.

Sandy: And that's our approach. We are performers, we are singers, we are people who want to reach people's hearts. And we know that violence is not the way to do that. And we know that speaking to and singing to people's capacity for compassion and people's understanding of who their neighbor is, is the way to make change.

And also speaking to the needs that people have, really hearing them and really wanting to support people and enjoying and getting to enjoy their lives and getting to live a free life with as much equity and support as we all can for each other. So, that's where we're coming from.

But we did love the spirit of, “If I can't dance and have some joy, then that's not my revolution.” Because we do need to keep ourselves uplifted. And that speaks to right now. I mean, we need to keep ourselves joyful when we can. And supported and showing love and receiving that kind of love and support from people in our world. It’s especially, right now, especially important.

Pat: Our work is dependent on our ability to hope.

Michael: I think we are all in that situation right now. You know, without that upliftment and that ability to hope, what can we contribute? And that's something that I have felt for many, many years.

Pat: Yeah. It's very easy, I think, to slip into cynicism and despair. And I think that is the strategy on the part of the current administration to help people feel overwhelmed and powerless. We are far from powerless.

Stephanie: I certainly identify with that, the feeling of overwhelm, sort of this Naomi Klein shock doctrine that's taking place of just one thing after another. And I know that I'm not alone in that, but you just sort of ask, where to begin? And as I was thinking about our show, who do we want to talk to? And I thought, we need musicians. We need to talk to artists. We need to talk to Emma’s Revolution on our show.

Pat: That’s lovely.

Sandy: That’s very sweet to hear. Thank you.

Stephanie: Yeah, I'm really interested in some of your – who inspired you besides Emma Goldman?

 For example, I just finished reading a memoir, a mid-1980s memoir, from Joan Baez. The power of folk music, in general, to bring a kind of education for nonviolence and to use that platform to speak for peace and nonviolence in a way that is hard to get through media or classes or any other way.

So tell me about some of your influences in this work.

Pat: Well, one of our huge influences was Pete Seeger. And Pete was influenced actually by Rachel Carson. When she started writing about the environment, that really kind of woke Pete up to this sense of the power of words, the power of poetry, really.

Rachel Carson was such an eloquent storyteller that she was able to convey these concepts that would be in government reports and things like that, but not so much something that a broader public could grasp. And he was very impressed by that.

His writing, as well as the songs that he collected and sang, had a huge influence on me growing up – through my whole growing up, pretty much. I mean, from maybe when I became aware of his political views, I was in junior high, high school. And then ended up meeting him at a songwriters’ gathering in 1985. And we became very close friends.

I had just written really my first song as an adult, a song called Keep On Moving Forward. I had just sung it in a circle of people. And just as I finished the song, this hand came around from behind me with a little slip of paper on it with a melody notated. And I don't really read music. I'm very much by ear kind of musician. And I heard this voice from behind me say, “Is this how it goes?” And I had to say, “I don't know. I don’t know how to read this.” I said, “You have to sing it to me.” And he had notated on the fly the melody to Keep On Moving Forward. From then on, we were sort of fast friends. And that started a nearly a 30-year friendship.

Stephanie: Now we have that song with us today. Do you think it's time for us to share that song with our audience?

Pat: Yeah, I think this would be a good time. This song came about because I was at Pete's bedside as he was on his way out, singing to him, like many, many others had done in the days leading up to this. And I couldn't help thinking about all the ways that our lives intersected, you know, both sort of literally and figuratively. He was never satisfied to be a soloist. You know, he always emphasized that strength in numbers kind of thing. So, he was always urging people to sing. So, I started this song the day after he passed and then when Sandy came into town, we finished it. It’s a song called Sing People Sing.

Stephanie: Thank you.

[Sing People Sing]

Stephanie: That was Emma's Revolution, “Sing People Sing.” And we have them here with us today.

That is really a beautiful song. And we're just so enjoying the banjo in particular in that song, but also we hear an accordion. And just can you speak a little bit to some of the work that went into that song, musically?

Pat: Well, Pete, of course, was a huge inspiration for me to pick up the banjo. I think that he was probably the first person I ever heard play the banjo. I hadn't been playing the banjo a whole lot at the time when I drove up from – we were living in the DC area in Maryland at the time when Pete went into the hospital.

And I kind of surprised myself by grabbing the guitar and the banjo when I went up there. I haven't actually written a lot of songs on the banjo. In fact, I had never written a finger-picked song using one, I mostly learned sort of old-time style. I never quite got Pete's style of accompanying songs – he invented this completely different right-hand technique so that he could play different kinds of songs on the banjo. And it's just kind of what flowed out, that I ended up writing that song, and then playing it on the banjo all these years.

I've gotten a little bit better at my right-hand picking technique. But, you know, when I first started, I really just – it was pure inspiration. I just kind of went with it. But I always loved the sound of the banjo and so it felt really fitting, because he brought it into my life that I would do this song on the banjo. 

And I love the interplay, actually, between the banjo and the accordion. It's something just very emotional about that particular kind of musical communication. I think it really emphasizes the mournfulness of the song. It's definitely wrapped in there, because that – you know, I was there right as at his bedside saying goodbye to his last moments and this song is full of that.

Stephanie: And that line, “Hope changes everything.” Talk about that.

Pat: Pete not only taught us how to sing with one another, but he used that as the vehicle to get us all focused and get us together, you know. And by doing so, he had rooms full of people breathing in sync and listening to one another. He was never satisfied with everybody singing in unison. He would always call for harmony and if the audience didn't respond, he would toss out some lines of harmony to teach people how to do that. In doing so, he got us listening to one another and then making our unique contribution that was still harmonious with the larger whole and creating that beautiful metaphor.

It's a big lesson, because that sense of togetherness and that sense of unity, it's part of what drives the hope. And the hope is what drives our ability to move forward.

Stephanie: Pete had some special messages on his banjo that I think would be relevant for right now.

Pat: Absolutely.

Stephanie: Can you talk about those?

Pat: Yeah. You know, Pete was responding to the message that Woody had on his guitar. Woody Guthrie had a message on his guitar that said, “This machine kills fascists.” But like, the difference between Martin Luther King and Emma Goldman in her time, you know, Pete was very committed to nonviolence so his message was, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”

Stephanie: Beautiful.

Pat: Yeah, it is beautiful.

Stephanie: Sandy, what's on your mind?

Sandy: Well, you know, what I was thinking about is that song, when we do it in performance, as Pat said, you know, Pete would teach people a line of harmony. And Pat always teaches folks the chorus to that. And so we sing it all together. And so, coming to our concerts is very much an experience of you're hearing the music, but you're also participating in the music. And it becomes, you know, like a full body sort of experience of bringing you into this concept of hope changes everything.

And I was really happy when you wrote and said that. Michael had a favorite song, and so I thought maybe we could play that one next. It's because – yay – because we have to – as we mentioned with Emma Goldman – we've got to have some fun too.

Sometimes people would say to us when we're talking and singing about all these issues, “Oh, you’re just preaching to the choir.” But as Pat usually says, when she introduces it, you know, sometimes the choir needs a little motivating. And right now, we are here to bring some motivation and some joy. So maybe we'll run that song. “Choir.”

Stephanie: Great. This is “Choir.”

[Choir]

Michael: Thank you so much. We heard you do that live at a CODEPINK recital in San Francisco years ago. And I've been hooked ever since.

Sandy: Nice. That's so sweet. We love CODEPINK. We met them when they first started in DC. And we were at their very first demonstration outside the White House and wrote them a theme song and wrote a number of songs based on their actions because they're so creative and so courageous.

So we love those folks. And then just since then, they're still doing amazing work out there. And they're doing what we need right now, which is being creative and being in community to show up.

You know, I was thinking about – and this is a nice opportunity for us. You know, we were very moved by Bishop Mariann Edger Budde and her prayer during the service the day after the inauguration, and her courage in speaking truth directly to these people who have now assumed power and are wielding it in such inhumane and dangerous ways.

And she really spoke directly to both of them and their families sitting there with gentleness but with strength, and appealing to that sense of compassion that I believe is in everyone. And sometimes we need to remind people. So, we were really inspired by that. And I wrote a song, inspired by her courage.

And the song ended up taking a couple of directions that I didn't quite expect. And that's kind of how songs are. Sometimes the songs lead us into a direction of the story that we didn't know was there. It's called “You Are Not God.” And, you know, obviously, Bishop Budde did not say those words.

But we recently recorded it. And if you want to play it, this would be the radio premiere of that song.

Stephanie: Wow.

Sandy: In fact, like, the premiere. Yeah. But you can hear who I envisioned singing those words.

Stephanie: So this is the radio premiere of “You Are Not God,” by Emma's Revolution.

[You Are Not God]

You didn't like the words she said

how gently she reminded you

that leaders should be merciful

that people's lives are beautiful

You didn't like the truth she told

that immigrants are human too

refugees need safety

trans kids are sacred

love shines like a rainbow

Chorus: You are not God

Let me remind you

You are one among all

no less and no greater

You are not God

And you won't use me

to justify the misery and hatred you sow

You told them that I spared you

to bring you to this moment

a moment you decided

allows you to take everything

and give nothing

You do not know me

my spirit or my teachings

But now you know I have spared you

to be seated before her words

Chorus: You are not God

Let me remind you

You are one among all

no less and no greater

You are not God

And you won't use me

to justify the misery and hatred you sow

Her words have traveled now

the quiet as she spoke them

her vision bringing comfort

her courage bringing hope

Her steadfastness a beacon

even as you threaten

resilience is awakened

in millions more

Chorus: You are not God

Let me remind you

You are one among all

no less and no greater

You are not God

And you won't use me

to justify the misery and hatred you sow

And you won't use me

You are not God

Stephanie: We are so happy to share that premiere – the radio premiere of “You Are Not God” by Emma's Revolution. Thank you so much for sharing that with our audience.

Sandy: Yeah. Thank you. You know, when I was talking about the unexpected turn, I did not expect to be singing in the voice of God, but that is what happened. And for me, that was, as I said – Bishop Budde said a lot of those things that were in that first verse about, you know, being merciful. And all the people who are feeling fear now, trans kids and refugees and immigrants. And for me, it was this song about power. And really needing to remind the people who have just taken power that they are one among all of us, no less and no greater. And that there should be mercy shown.

And not just a minimum, you know, there should be respect. There should be dignity shown. And there should be care, and wanting everyone's lives to be as full and as protected and safe and joyful and with as much flowering of love and life as there can be. And so, yeah, I didn't expect to sing in the voice of God.

Stephanie: You didn't expect it, but that's what happened.

Sandy: It did happen.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that line of, “Your life was spared,” because our current president often speaks of his life being spared from two assassination attempts in order to do this mandate. He feels that he has to deregulate the government and further regulate people's freedoms. And to say that, “You were spared in order to hear Bishop Budde say this to you. To remind you of your participation in this whole of humanity, that you're part of us.” I thought that was really powerful.

Pat: To be reminded, that with great power comes great responsibility.

Sandy: Yeah. And writing that, that twist, was a surprise to me. I didn't know that I was going to write that, that God says, “That's why I spared you.” But I feel like – and so I'm glad that that stood out to you. I feel like there's truth in that.

Stephanie: And also the act of courage of Bishop Budde being a beacon for others to be able to try to do the same. It showed people that you can use your voice. You can speak out. You can act out from where you're at.

Pat: It also gave the Episcopal Church the opportunity to stand up and back her, which also took a lot of courage. But it's good to know that institutions can also act with compassion and with integrity.

Michael: Well, institutions, after all, consist of people. Gandhi had to point that out several times.

Pat: Right.

Michael: Yeah. You know, friends, I wanted to tie in on one little comment that you made about the song taking its own course and following its own path. I'm a child of the New York folk music revival, myself, and went on to become something of a Greek scholar in an earlier incarnation.

And there's a modern Greek expression about folk music, which is [Greek].  Which I think you’ll like it. It means the folk song, or the song, literally, does not have an owner. That once you put it out there, it has a life of its own. And it's the life of the people.

Pat: Yeah. That was something that Pete really believed in too, that we are to some extent a vehicle for these things. We're the midwife of these things that kind of live in the collective unconscious. And we put them out to the world, and then the world takes them in and uses them in the way they need them in the moment.

Michael: You know, I had the honor of hosting Pete when I was an undergraduate at Cornell University. My friend Joel Handler and I had a radio program, and we had him up there, and we met him. Of course, I was starstruck, but I also learned something from him – and I'm not referring to banjo technique because that was one of my weakest instruments.

But he said that creativity is not just in art, but people who start community organizations, who pass regulations to liberate the human spirit, that those are acts of creativity. And I was such an art snob at that time that I dared to disagree with him. But I was very young and a couple of years on I realized, boy, was he right.

You know, creativity, when it helps and protects anything, it helps us bring us closer to our fellow human beings, is the central creativity. And music certainly is one dimension of that.

Pat: Yeah, it's tapping into the life force. And you can do that in lots of different ways.

Sandy: I love that Pete said that. And I love that you countered it at the time and then thought about it. There are times in our lives when we can't hear things from somebody else. And sometimes there are times in our lives where we have something to teach somebody who hasn't heard it yet, right? So, it's a very mutual thing.

And for us, creativity is also something that we are very ardent about supporting in the people who listen to our music and who participate. We teach songwriting. We teach harmony singing. And we teach all of those coming from the starting point that people have been listening to music their whole lives. They have sounds in their ears. They know what they love. They know what sounds great to them. And we just tap that. 

We just work to support them so that that creativity comes back out. Because if you are with children – and this is often something Pat says, if you're hanging around with young kids, they are singing all the time. They sing about whatever's going on, you know, the toys in front of them, what they would really like to eat next, whatever it is. And there's so much music that comes through. And sometimes as adults that kind of gets forced out of us. But you can bring it back. There's creativity within all of us.

We encourage the singing along. Not just in your shower, not just in your car, and being the writer or the painter or the dancer that you want to be, or the person who creates an organization, or an invention that really the world needs.

Stephanie: It's really hard not to sing along with your songs, that you really – that invitation to sing is deeply embedded in them.

Pat: Pete really decentralized and demystified creativity. You know, I think he awakened creativity in people and reminded people that we all have a connection to the life force, whatever that is, however we define that. And that keeping that alive is what keeps us alive. It keeps us engaged. It keeps us inspired. It makes for more of an enlivened and more inspired world.

Stephanie: So, I'm wondering, would you like to share maybe one or two more songs before we close our interview today? I'd love to share some more. And if so, which song would you like to share?

Sandy: One of the things we thought we'd share is one of the things that's kind of a hallmark of Emma's Revolution, is that our songs have a whole variety of sounds and genres. Kind of like I was saying, we've all heard so many different kinds of music.

So, this song we wanted to share next is a little bit more on the rock side of the world. And it was inspired by the words of Greta Thunberg, who's the young Swedish climate activist, who a number of years ago sat down outside the Swedish parliament with a sign that said, “I'm on strike from school. Why should I go to school when there's so much danger around climate?” And she really sparked an awareness of all of the young people who've been taking action and saying, “We need you, people older than us, to do the work of protecting this one and only world that we share.”

We were going to sing at a demonstration outside the White House that was called by Jane Fonda back in the fall of 2019. And we wanted to – we always like to come with a song for the issue.

Greta Thunberg spoke at the UN and said to people of our age, “I need you to act like your house is on fire, because it is.” So, this song has a part that people can sing along, “Put out the fire.”

And being in California, of course, we've just seen those intense wildfires in LA. and this song extends to that and also to the other wildfires of the world that need to be put out – racism, poverty, sexism, homophobia.

So, we recorded this song with three wonderful musicians from the Bay Area, Vicki Randle on bass, Shelley Doty on electric guitar, and Kofy Brown on drums. It's called “Our House is on Fire.”

[Our House is on Fire]

Stephanie: Whoa, that is such a great song. That is so wonderful. And I love how each of your songs has a bit of a different vibe, a different musical influence in some ways. And a very deep message for social justice. Thank you.

Sandy: Thank you. It’s nice to hear that. Thank you so much.

Stephanie: Now what advice would you give to someone who wants to use music for social change, like you're doing? Big question, yeah.

Pat: Our friend, Cathy Fink, would say, keep your day job. Pete said many times that the McCarthy era never ended. And I think to a great extent, actually, that's true. And there is risk involved in singing this sort of thing.

But when you are in communities of people who are most affected by horrendous policies like we're seeing being rolled out – seemingly on an hourly basis lately – when you're in those communities, when you partner with folks who are marginalized, I think, for one, you meet some of the best people in the world, with some of the most incredible power and compassion in the world.

And once you experience that, you kind of can't unexperience that. You can't unsee the power of that work. And that's certainly what happened to me. I saw it sort of at a distance through songs, and then I got to know folks who were struggling around different issues in various places.

And so, to some extent, it felt like that this work picked me. And I will never regret doing this kind of work. I think it's incredibly powerful. It's a choice where you have to be aware that you might not have the same kind of access and the same kind of support from places you expect to find support.

But for me, you know, I've always gotten the support back from the people that really mattered most. And that's what has always kept me in it. So, I would say, do it anyway. Because, you know, in many respects, the world depends on it.

Stephanie: Well, I find another thing that I appreciate about Emma's Revolution is how generous you are.

I remember over 15 years ago being in graduate school and I went to a peace conference, I think it was for the Department of Peace, and you were giving a workshop on songwriting.

And then, you know, later when I'm in California, you're giving concerts at Lawrence Livermore Labs. I think you were part of a protest that was taking place there, where some of our friends were going to do some protest and get arrested. And as you were saying, you're playing in front of the White House, and we've seen you at CODEPINK events. So, you're just really building this, you're giving yourself to the grassroots in a way that I don't see that as much. And it's just such a generous offering of your passion for the peace movement.

Pat: It's how we get inspired. It's how we stay inspired. It's really important to be there.

Sandy: And it's very fulfilling for us. I mean, because we care about the same things that you're mentioning from all of these different demonstrations. And what I do in my own life, if I cared about that so much, the way I choose to care about it and act on it is through music.

And so, we get to be there with the people who are coordinating the conference, or the people who are going to be going and lying down and getting arrested, or something like that. It feels like what I want to do, and it's my way to care about the world and the people who also care about it the way I do.

Pat: Yeah. We got to meet Daniel Ellsberg, actually, at that Livermore demonstration. And, you know, got to be inspired by his work and know that we're in that chain of folks that are carrying on.

Sandy: Yeah. And we didn't know we had a history with you, Stephanie. And it's lovely. But it's kind of wonderful because here you are doing this radio series based on nonviolence and bringing in people, different influences. I was listening to a recent podcast of yours with a teacher who's, you know, in maybe middle school or something like that, teaching nonviolence.

And to know that we all can be connected through your radio program is exactly the kind of thing that keeps us inspired. And your commitment to it is similar to our commitment to it through music. So it's very mutual. We love being in the network, in the woven fabric with you.

[We Are One]

Stephanie: Hi again everybody. You’ve been here at Nonviolence Radio. I’m Stephanie Van Hook. My co-host is Michael Nagler. We’re from the Metta Center for Nonviolence. And we’ve been speaking with Emma’s Revolution. They even premiered their new song “You Are Not God” on our show today, so we’ve been very honored. Find their stuff at EmmasRevolution.com as well as social media, YouTube, BlueSky, streaming services – and if you go to their website you can find their songs, their merch, their touring dates, and they’ll be over the country this year, so do check that out.

This show is produced for independent community radio. So, we want to give a shout out to our mother stations KWMR Point Reyes Station, KPCA Petaluma. Community radio rocks. We want to thank all of the Pacifica stations as well that help to syndicate and share the show as well as platforms like Waging Nonviolence who partner with us to bring this show to a wider audience. Thank you.

To the team, Matt and Robin Watrous who provide transcripts and editing, thanks to Sophia Pechaty, Annie Hewitt, and everybody who plays a role in the show, thank you so much again. To you all of our listeners, if you want to learn more about nonviolence and Nonviolence Radio, visit NonviolenceRadio.org. You can also go to MettaCenter.org for books, courses, resources, workshops, and on and on. This is the time for nonviolence, so we have a lot to talk about. We’ll be back in two weeks. And until the next time, please take care of one another.