On my birthday, I indulged, had a bit of cake, and spent much of the rest of the evening on the couch trying to stop the world from spinning. In that state, my father decided that I could watch Bill Moyers. On the Journal, Bill had on a man who traveled the world, recording music from different countries and recording songs, old and new:
Although the idea of connecting people and changing the world through music is very much a 1960s, flower-child idea, and although this kind of movement is incredibly and naively idealistic, there is something thought-provoking about the film and the idea that lives can be changed and the world can be bettered by an acknowledgement of interconnectedness that is exemplified by music. Mark Johnson, the film maker, says it well when he said, "We all know the world is changing. And we get to decide if it's changing for the better or if it's changing for the worse." And it is incredibly moving to see "Stand By Me" sung and played by such a wide breadth of people:
What is also wonderful is Johnson's commitment to bettering the communities he visited by building music schools there. Johnson says, " now it's a chance for kids to get together, to have something positive to look forward to. And what we're doing with this foundation is we're going build hundreds of schools around the world. And installing them all with recording equipment and cameras. So that people can log on to the internet and they can watch recitals and concerts in the schools we're building, to kind of break down that whole distance barrier."
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