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Help: Have a song yet for Kayla?
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Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? |
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Subject: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Mar 00 - 05:53 PM I spent some time last night with my keyboard, an infrequently-used toy here at our house, and the following popped out while I was thinking of Mudcat's response to the tragic shooting some of us have been *discussing.* It isn't a very good song but it is a prayer, and I wanted the songs on this to start with a prayer. So although I am the least qualified person for the position, I am, fortunately or unfortunately, apparently the only one ready to report for work. Please, if anyone can improve this without having heard the melody in my head for it, please do. (The rhythm of it is reflected well by the falling of accents in the first verse. ) I hope lots of you will add your own songs here or in another thread. I can't pretend it's a song challenge. A song plea, perhaps. A PRAYER FOR THE MADNESS OF LEAP YEAR (A slow waltz dirge or lament? In blues/gospel style?) Sorry, can't notate or ABC yet, I wish you could hear the melody...) CHORDS: Intro: Cm / / / / / Verse: Cm / / / / / Fm / / / / / G7 / / / / / Cm / / / / / Cm / / / / / Fm / / / / / G7 / / / / / Cm / / / / / Fm / / / / / Cm / / / / / Fm / / / / / Cm / / / / / Cm / / / / / Fm / / / / / G7 / / / / / Cm / / / / / People, all over, again, are shocked-- not surprised-- and saddened, and this time, for Kayla. At Buell, a whole classroom of the helpless stood by. Lives forever are riven. Lord... we've fallen again... Lord, where DO we begin? First grade babies! Outrage, despair-- to Your cross by this sadness, I'm driven. The horrible acts of humanity's weakness I lay at your feet, for your cleansing. Your tears flow freely as we carry on, but I fear that we don't see or feel them. Help us... hold fast to the joy, of the wondrous creation you gave. Our children, our lives, our friends and foes, and the children-- unblessed and unshriven. "Geezis", some cry out, do they know your Name, do they know you had come to redeem us? Sweet Jesus, suffering, weeping Christ, how do we achieve your compassion? Some of us praying.... And some are ranting away. No one with answers, but plenty of words, and too much, in our too-human fashion. Others shout out their mourning and grief, and despite knowing most are not listening. These words that we to Your ocean's crests-- are you searching? I pray that you hear us. Lord... we need You. Lord.... can we heed you? Looking only into a mirror, we have only the thorns, and no roses. Once again people are asking why You would allow such an evil to happen. Why aren't they asking, humble and meek, how to love as you love all your children? Blaming in weakness... Desperate to see what they will not see. But I wonder Lord, I just don't understand, why you haven't yet struck us all barren. Women, your sons stand beside a boy who had no one to love or to raise him. Men, you are fathers, your own little girl bleeds on a cold floor, and lays dying. Where were all of us? Why can we only feel this disgust? Where are our hearts when we hear through our walls, that another lost soul lies crying? Lord, I pray that you give us Your strength, for so often, we choose what is evil. Lord, I ask that you hear what we cannot and do not know how to petition. Lord.. I'm trying to praise; but Lord... but my eyes are a-haze. Lord, please send us Your spirit of love to end all our wars of attrition. Stand beside us and lend us Your wisdom, and bind us in Your understanding. Take the love in our grief and despair and remake it in your holy image. I don't understand why, Lord, you died for me. But I know you still suffer upon Calvary. Lord, I lift up my voice to your ear, and I ask you to save our small village. People, all over, again, are shocked-- not surprised-- and saddened, and this time, for Kayla. At Buell, a whole classroom of the helpless stood by. Lives forever are riven. Lord... we've fallen again... Lord, where DO I begin? First grade babies! Outrage, despair-- to Your cross by this sadness, I'm driven. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: katlaughing Date: 04 Mar 00 - 06:08 PM Oh, Praise, I am not Christian, but you have tapped into my heart and the tears flow freely. Just beautiful, darlin', thank you. I also sobbed aloud this morning listening to NPR, Saturday Morning Edition when they told of the dramatic birth of Rosetta, in a tree in Mozambique and the brave paratrooper who communicated as best he could through language barriers to save her brother and sister, come back with a paramedic just in time for her birth then take her and her parents to safety, all of them hoisted up in his arms or beside him, to a hovering helicopter. Perhaps, in our sorrow we can also write songs for the beauty of this life which was given amidst so much death and destruction. Sorry, Praise, I do not mean to diminish. If you would prefer a separate thread for this, that is fine with me. Here are the words to a song I found especially helpful at a local vigil when Mathew Shephard was murdered:
Listen, listen, listen to my heart song Repeat luvyakat |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: Sandy Paton Date: 04 Mar 00 - 06:15 PM Praise: This is, admittedly, an aside, but I want to tell you how glad I am that you are with us. I have enjoyed all of your postings. Any possibility that you will get to the Old Songs Festival (near Albany) this summer? My wife and I would dearly love to meet you. Sandy |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Mar 00 - 11:26 PM Sandy, You were one of the first to help me fill a need to know more about a song I have long loved, when I first jumpoed into these murky deeps. Every time you post I see a kind and wise soul. Thanks for the warm and fuzzy welcome! Our schedules are pretty stiff but Hardiman and I sometimes do wander. We would love to meet you too. Would you send me info on the festival to my page so I can try to plug it in? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: Sorcha Date: 04 Mar 00 - 11:44 PM Praise, your song for Kayla is beautiful, thank you for saying in words what my heart says in another language. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Mar 00 - 11:45 PM Corrected verse four with missing word inserted: Others shout out their mourning and grief, and despite knowing most are not listening. These words that we fling to Your ocean's crests-- are you searching? I pray that you hear us. Lord... we need You. Lord.... can we heed you? Looking only into a mirror, we have only the thorns, and no roses. I forgot also to say that many of the words came right from the thread, they were so powerful I could not improve them but only try to shoehorn them into the melody I had gotten. If anyone objects to my use or interpretation of what you said, PLEASE tell me. Kittykat, I believe that one of the best ways to bring healing tears is by thnking and feeling the hurting thing while also putting the attention on the good thing that contradicts the hurt. This is an excellent place to put the item you mentioned, and as it comes while you think of Buell, it can be dedicated to that in some way if you think appropriate. Anyway you would have a tough sell if you are asking me to leave praise out of anything!!! Praise may not always be good but praise is always in order!!
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: Sandy Paton Date: 05 Mar 00 - 12:35 AM Praise: For simplicity, here's the Old Songs Festival web site address. I think I'll start a new thread suggesting Mudcatters might gather there again, as many of us did last year. Hope you can join us. OLD SONGS FESTIVAL - (click here) Sandy |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Mar 00 - 12:47 AM !!!!! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: catspaw49 Date: 05 Mar 00 - 01:10 AM Praise, I spent the evening with a group of caseworkers and foster parents reviewing the materials that we've put together for a new training on attachment disorders. Mainly, there was a lot of despair. But I took a copy of your song along and I want you to know it was well received. Beautiful job. Tough night...I'm here for a laugh. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Mar 00 - 02:34 AM Laugh, love, laugh. Laugh. Love. Laugh. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: GUEST,flattop Date: 05 Mar 00 - 09:07 AM (Yes, I know it's not a lyric and it's political but it does express feeling from a closer vantage point.)
Michael Moore Open Letter: Kayla Rowland, Flint, and Us Dear friends, I tried to write this letter to you last night, but the level of sadness in me would not allow me to sit at this keyboard and compose these words. How much more can my hometown take? How much more do the people we love have to suffer? How much? How much?? HOW MUCH! Isn't it enough that tens of thousands of lives in Flint have been wrecked, destroyed by the greed of General Motors? Isn't it enough that my wife and I and tens of thousands of others who love our home – love it more than any of you will ever know -- have had to leave Flint in the past 20 years to find work far from family and friends? Isn't it enough that Flint suffers the highest or near-highest per capita rates of murder, rape and theft in the nation? What else do the people of Flint have to go through while the rest of country mouths the propaganda of the evening news claiming "the economy is the best ever!"? The top 10 percent just get richer and richer and the next 30 percent of you keep the CNBC stock ticker on your screens all day and toss out all sections of the daily paper but the pages that tell you how well your portfolio did yesterday. I thought there was nothing else left for Flint to go through. Like Job, it seemed that every imaginable sorrow had been visited upon its people. I guess I was wrong. I look up at the TV and a helicopter is hovering over a school while the words "Buell Elementary" flash on the screen. Buell? Buell! At the end of "The Big One," when I twisted Nike chairman Phil Knight's arm to match my $10,000 contribution to the kids of Flint -- that $20,000 went to Buell Elementary. Yesterday, a 6-year old boy brought a semi-automatic gun to that very school in Flint and killed a 6-year old girl in their first grade classroom. Six years old. A little girl whose name was Kayla Rolland. That's about the only thing the national media got right about the story. Twenty satellite trucks now ring the school, but with all that technology, they cannot find the way to bring you the truth. Of course, they have been spun and snookered by the local officials in Flint who try to hide from the responsibility they share in Flint's destruction any time a tragedy like this happens. You have probably heard that this school shooting took place out in the "suburbs," in a place called "Mount Morris Township"... "somewhere near Flint." There is no such place. Buell Elementary, where the shooting took place, is in the Flint Beecher school district, the poorest school district in Genesee County, Michigan, and perhaps the poorest in the entire state. Eighty-two percent of its children, according to the federal government, live below the "official" poverty level (meaning the number of kids in total poverty is even higher). Beecher is Flint's dump. It is where you go when you have nothing left to your name. 60 percent black, 40 percent white. No municipality in Genesee County wants to govern Beecher, so it exists as a No Man's Land on the northern city limits of Flint. It covers a small portion of two different townships (one of which is where my wife Kathleen is from). But folks, when you hear the word "township" used in the case of Beecher, those of us from Flint mean it in the way the word was used in South Africa. Buell Elementary in the Flint Beecher school district has a Flint address and a Flint phone number, but the black officials from Flint on the news yesterday tried to point out that "this school really isn't in Flint!" It is amazing how deep oppression takes its roots when even black leaders find themselves in bed with General Motors and, like Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, repeatedly deny that people of their own race have anything to do with them. Poor, poor Flint. The media blowhards babble on about how "this is the youngest child to kill another child in a school shooting" and the few anchors who started to look at their own helicopter shots showing the school sitting in the middle of a bombed-out neighborhood commented that "this is actually the first of all these school shootings we've had lately that has taken place in an 'urban' school." Wow. Two records for Flint in one day. When I was a senior in high school, the assistant principal of Beecher High -- the first black man in the area to hold such a position – became despondent over his inability to quell the racial disturbances in the school, so one night he went home, wrote a heartfelt letter to the kids in the district, then put a gun in his mouth and blew his brains out. As my friend, Jeff Gibbs, who went to Beecher, told me last night, it's sad that the only two times that Beecher receives the attention of the nation is because of a gun. I heard from relatives last night that the family of the little boy who killed the girl had been evicted from their home just last week. Evicted, I wonder, by Deputy Fred, who 10 years after "Roger & Me," still spends his day at the behest of Flint's landlords. Homeless and fatherless (his dad is in jail as 30 percent of all black men in America will be at some point in their lives), the boy was staying at his uncle's. In the house were guns, as there are in virtually every home in this devastated and desperate area. The gun, that the boy found and took to school, was not some "junk gun," the kind that Al Gore promises to get rid of. It was a gun with a brand name bought initially at a sporting goods store (I wonder, were the bullets bought at K-Mart, as they were at Columbine?). How do Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush feel this morning? Just seven days prior, John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" bus rolled past Beecher on I-75, but it didn't stop. It rolled on down near Ann Arbor where McCain blasted those who seek gun control, saying that he opposes ANY ban on ANY assault weapon, and opposes ANY waiting period for a background check when one purchases a gun. Mr. Bush never stopped in Flint either. I guess we all feel sorta proud that they both avoid us like the plague. There is not -- and has not for nearly thirty years -- been a single Republican state or federal representative elected from Flint. Another reason, I suppose, for our neglect and punishment. But we're proud of how we've made it almost a crime to support a Republican in Flint, proud of the fact we elected the country's first black mayor in the `60s, proud that we voted for Jesse Jackson 9 to 1 over Michael Dukakis in 1988 (and 4 to 1 for Jesse in Flint's all-white suburbs). So I guess the gun crazy presidential candidates made the right decision to take their hate-filled campaigns elsewhere. And, in the end, I was proud to see that the people of Michigan, like the people in Minnesota, have kept their sense of humor intact as a way to express their sense of outrage. 51 percent of those who showed up to vote in the Republican primary were Democrats and Independents! They took the time to go the polls to plunk down for McCain just to, in good ol'working class fashion, stick it to the Bush with the silver spoon in his mouth. I'll end by repeating what I have said many times before – the handguns have to go. 16,000 gun murders last year in the US and 15,500 were killed by someone they knew (husband, boyfriend, neighbor) or by someone at work. Approximately 500 were killed by a stranger who broke into their home and 300 of those were killed by their OWN gun. Those are the facts. Easy access to guns by a species that often responds irrationally and with intense emotions is a lethal combination. Great Britain, a nation of 60 million people with a violent history of conquering the world at the barrel of a gun and now full of drunks and hotheads who eat up violent American movies and TV shows -- last year they killed a grand total of 12 -- that's TWELVE! -- of their own citizens with handguns. That's because handguns are TOTALLY banned. Let the hunters keep their rifles after a serious background check, but the handguns, whose only purpose is to take a human life, must go. The Brits have done it, the Australians have done it, the Canadians have done it. Even New York City mostly did it -- and the number of murders there has dropped from 2,200 a year to 600. We look like a bunch of idiots. Let's do something about it and about the poverty in which so many of kids still dwell. We have never been in a better place to make it happen than right now. What are we waiting for? Another Kayla Rolland? God help you if you ever have to live in a township that no town will claim and is forgotten by everyone else as soon as the next gun nut enters a McDonald's and a Burger king on the same day. Fried or flame-broiled, it's all our own unique American Hell. On behalf of the six of us from Flint who work on The Awful Truth, Michael Moore MMFlint@aol.com P.S. If you would like to contribute to the Kayla Rolland Memorial Fund please send donations to: Kayla Rolland Memorial Fund c/o Calvary Assembly of God 2518 Delaware Avenue Flint, MI 48506, USA
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: GUEST,flattop Date: 05 Mar 00 - 09:11 AM That should have read (but Mudcat deletes spaces.) Michael Moore Open Letter: Kayla Rowland, Flint, and Us Dear friends, I tried to write this letter to you last night, but the level of sadness in me would not allow me to sit at this keyboard and compose these words. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: katlaughing Date: 05 Mar 00 - 09:40 AM Flattop, are you THE Micahel Moore, or did you paste that in from somewhere? Wow, thank you. Out of respect for Praise & the original intent of this thread, I won't say any more here, but that is very powerful and I hope it helps. kat |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: GUEST,flattop Date: 05 Mar 00 - 11:04 AM No, kat. Michael Moore is the Michael Moore of the movie Roger and me - the one with the sign, 'Rabbits for food or pets' - and Michael Moore of the TV program and the book Downsize This. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: GUEST,flattop Date: 05 Mar 00 - 11:08 AM I believe that there are many sad lyrics in Flint. We just have to find them. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: GUEST,flattop Date: 05 Mar 00 - 11:54 AM I realized that wrote two e-mails without answering the question clearly, kat. You didn't send me a virus did you? This letter was posted to the Cape Breton politics listserver last yesterday or this morning by Kevin, a union type guy. My experiences in Flint are limited. I had to go to area several times in the late 80s when computer users in sales/engineering offices of a German/Japanese owned auto parts manufacturer in Auburn Heights. Auburn Heights was close to Flint but a world away. I drove by run down factories on the way the offices on the way to hotels where I stayed. The hotels were always name brand. The rooms and my stay as dull as you would expect from any franchise operation. Well, one time I was surprised to find different colour pubic hairs in the bathtub when I got to the room but people do slip up and I'm not afraid to rinse out a tub. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: catspaw49 Date: 05 Mar 00 - 12:34 PM Excellent piece by Michael Moore. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: katlaughing Date: 05 Mar 00 - 12:55 PM Thanks, Flattop, I knew who Micahel Moore is, I was wondering if we had snagged him as a member incognito. Wish we could, I greatly admire him. Thank you very much...no viruses that I know of. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: GUEST,flattop Date: 05 Mar 00 - 02:52 PM You're welcome kat. Sorry, I'm just disappointing me. Now you have his e-mail address, if you want to write to him. (MMFlint@aol.com) I have a typo virus today - just looking for someone to blame.
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Mar 00 - 02:56 PM I believe the answer to the question that titles this thread is, No. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: The Shambles Date: 06 Mar 00 - 09:32 AM This was not easy and I would not have chosen to attempt it but I am glad, now that I did. I would urge others to attempt it too. For whatever the merits of the end product, the quiet process of close examination of this truly terrible event does, enable some kind of personal accommodation to be arrived at. It does not however provide much comfort for those who are directly involved in this particular case but, they are in my thoughts. I was just trying to avoid thinking too much about it before, for she could have been my daughter and he could be my son..
Tears And Winter Rain
The slightest glimpse of springtime
Things will now be different?
This life was not your choosing
The slightest glimpse of springtime
Surely things will now be different? Roger Gall 2000 |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 06 Mar 00 - 10:02 AM Ahh, there's a song for you. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 06 Mar 00 - 02:56 PM For Kayla, and all the Mudcat friends I grew closer to in the last week, and you all know who you are!
I have a new concept today coming out in the start of a song. I was up on the sunny glory mountain all weekend, and here's Monday with a valley full of work. So I did some work, then went back up to check out the mountains and clouds.. and came back to work. The tune and chorus popped into my head, the rest of the words are from how it's been all the last week with those I love. I'm doing it in church first chance I get. Anyone is welcome to add verses, you know how spirituals can be as long as an allday car trip among friends. Just respect the basic concepts in it please or they won't make in into my word processor! |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: Áine Date: 06 Mar 00 - 05:01 PM Dear Praise, May I please place your two wonderful songs in the Mudcat Songbook? I would feel honored if you'd give your permission for me to put it in along with Roger's song. -- Áine |
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Subject: RE: Help: Have a song yet for Kayla? From: wysiwyg Date: 06 Mar 00 - 07:59 PM Aine-- I'd be honored. (Please remove the word [again] from line one and use the corrected verse posted above.] I don't really know how we are supposed to submit, but anytime you see anything I've done, and want it, you go girl. I am working on getting the tune to the first one on paper to send. I can't get it out of my head. It's loud!! Can't you HEAR it and just put it in??? Maybe a thread for newbies on the submission process when not for a song challenge would be helpful, or a blue clickie if it's all been said. |
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