SONG RIGHTERS

Singer-songwriters (why don't we have a proper name for those people?) tend to trace their vocational lineage to Woody Guthrie, who wrote and sang of his own life experiences at a time when nobody else was doing so. The world was a very different place then too with the Dustbowl and The Depression and all. In many ways he gave voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless, just by doing The Sing Thing.

Today not only are singer-songwriters following Woody's self-expressive lead, billions of not-singer-songwriters are voicing their thoughts and feelings as if they were the first to have ever experienced them. Today's world is all atwitter with self-disclosure, confession and photographs of lunch. I, me, mine.

This is not to denigrate Woody Guthrie - everything is beautiful in its time - but surely the times are calling for a different kind of song. How long must we go on broadcasting our lunch menu and our diary entries, convinced of our own snowflakey uniqueness?

Surely the times call for a rediscovery of the way most people for most of history have lived their lives, indeed how most people live today. Our songs need to help us get there and to give us voice when we arrive. Many of these songs have already been written.