66 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 34 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
Life Arts   

Odetta Sings Her First Song, from Way Up Above Us

By       (Page 1 of 1 pages)   6 comments
Message John Ervin


(Image by Unknown Owner)   Details   DMCA
 

Odetta Holmes.  Odetta, "Little Ode."  What a sly introduction to a voice that rocked my world in earlier days, and always.  I don't mean "rocked" or "rolled," but literally rocked its foundations, when I first heard her sing.

She sang of migrant workers, "I come with the dust.....and I'm gone with the wind..."  I still can feel, only remembering, the intensity of soul in her delivery of those lines, and the shudder that ran through me.  One, I somehow knew I didn't entirely have the right to call my own.

Somehow, someday, I must make this my own, if I ever hoped to truly belong up there.  Must.  Yes, I felt that very thing, at the very first hum of her voice, like a natality, like something new under the sun of my own life, until I realized that it belonged to a different time, and a much harder truth and place than I myself had then known.

Humbling, but lighting a fire in me, and also under me.

She said last year, when asked where her voice came from, "Slavery."

That was It.  That was what I had heard, at the bottom of that dark well of a voice.

But that is the power and grace and majesty of music - true music, like hers - to give to others, even the least deserving, a grace, and an "ease" of access to higher places.  Like Auden wrote in his great poem, The Composer:

"You alone, alone O imaginary song
Are unable to call an existence wrong.
And pour out your forgiveness like a wine."

Well, I won't say more than that but this: we learn that she had hoped to sing at Obama's Inauguration.  She is, after all, the Muse of American Democracy, in many provable ways like her rendition of "We Shall Overcome" at the March on Washington, 1963.  And the testament of Rosa Parks when asked what songs meant the most to her, "Every song that Odetta sings."

I remember St. Therese of Lisieux's famous promise, as she died at 24: "I will spend my Heaven doing good on Earth."

I do believe Odetta will spend her Heaven still singing all the slaves on their road home to Freedom.

And also I do believe that's all of us, for all those who can hear her still.

And she will be there, she will show at the Inauguration, as her first song heard from that great Ways away. We'll be listening.

That is the deeper meaning I derive, from her ever blazing Song.

Touching 3   Well Said 2   Must Read 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

John Ervin Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

John Ervin is a freelance writer involved for the past ten years with investigations of electronic voting fraud and its derivatives, and on occasion several of the other highly organized corporatic crimes. He has been the radio guest of Jim (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Civil Liberty Alert: Listener-Funded Pacifica Radio Under Siege In N.Y. And D.C.

Odetta Sings Her First Song, from Way Up Above Us

SURE IT'S TOAST, BUT WHEN HASN'T IT BEEN, HUH ?

Any true review of "Recount" at HBO must be subtitled "Look Back in Anger"

My two cents on electronic voting machines

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend