is he right?
I just finished listening to John Mayer on NPR's Morning Edition and something he said bothered me. John Inskeep asked Mayer why he didn't make the song action based, like the '60s anti-war songs. Mayer said that it wouldn't sound right and that this generation is not okay with people telling them what to do. John Mayer has spent 33 weeks on the music charts with what sounds like an anti-war song.Now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their doorBut for the 29-year-old singer, "Waiting on the World to Change" (listen) turns into more of an explanation for why his generation seems so apathetic.
It's not that we don't care,
We just know that the fight ain't fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to changeRather than urging people to change the world, he seems to say, there's nothing we can do.
Nothing we can do? Is he for real? He can't possibly be taping into the human's inate strength of laziness and apathy. I mean it doesn't make any sense why we would wait for the world change when thousands of people are dying in Darfur, hundreds more each week in Iraq, and god only knows the atrocities occuring in North Korea (click on press release). Let's not even begin with the United States where our own people still don't have homes that were devastated from a hurricane and human failure over a year ago (she's a great NO blogger).
It's because we live in America, where we are sheltered and believe whole heartedly in the media, that we are sheltered from our own atrocities, as well as those across our borders.
No, Mayer, we can't WAIT. We must begin to ACT.
posted by Chai at
7:56 AM
2 comment(s):
hey - i've actually seen a few interviews with mayer regarding that song. from what i gather, he's not saying we should just sit and be idle and literally wait for the world to change...i've heard him say that a lot of people don't know where to start, because the problems that exist these days are so huge that a lot of people don't know what they (one person) can do to make a difference. which i can relate to to some degree. i'm all about giving back, but writing out a cheque to XYZ charity doesn't always cut it for me. i want to be able to see the changes my effots make, and to do that is difficult. i've started doing small things in my community to give back hoping that it makes a difference...
so back to the mayer song - i don't know if it can be taken too literally...i know he's pretty active when it comes to charities, i think the song is more about being frustrated with where to start and what to do to make a difference we can see & feel.
thats just my take on it anyways...
By
confused, single and brown, at
2:38 PM
oh boy, what did I say or do? I'm shocked and surprised at your and chickpea's comments. Please tell her to reach me as sxk334 at yahoo if she needs to settle any scores with me. Take care.
By
Sendil, at
8:18 PM
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