Music
Letters from the 5th Estate
New album coming soon!
In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the ‘Estate General’. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, ‘Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.’
In a conversation about the power and influence of the media and the reference to the Fourth Estate, I made a casual comment saying, ‘Well, maybe, the arts are the Fifth Estate”.
Now I said this not at all knowing that there ARE various Fifth Estates in use already.
Anyway, this concept wouldn’t go away and as the material for the album began to come together I began to think of the songs as letters - not just melodies with a set of lyrics, but something much more personal and confronting than that.
Hence, ‘Letters from the 5th Estate‘.
Over these months, this title and idea has become more deeply embedded into my mind and spirit and I DO absolutely believe that especially today, the arts and especially music, have a unique capacity to not only inform and entertain, but a responsibility to bring to light moral and humanitarian issues, to advocate on behalf of the voiceless and the invisible and to challenge to action.
This is what the 5th Estate is to me.
This album has 11 ‘letters’ - and this is on 2 levels. Firstly, the letters are from me to the listener. Secondly they are also from child soldiers, refugees, orphans, widows, the dispossessed, the unseen and the unheard.
Posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 12:03 am
We Will Run
we will run
helen mottee
i am not a hero he said
i don’t wanna die
truth is not an option
i’ve stopped asking why
i keep coming back
i keep coming back
there are no human rights violations here
tatmadaw said
just a million people hiding in the jungle
amongst the orphaned and the dead
still under attack
still under attack
we are here to shine a light
we will stand between the army and the people
we will give our life
until the army lays down every gun
we will run with the people as they run
to come back out is hard he said
easier on the field
do all you can
no choice but to believe
down on your knees
down on your knees
we are here to shine a light
we will stand between the army and the people
we will give our life
until the army lays down every gun
we will run with the people as they run
we are here to light a fire
hope and love will burn
our spirit will fly
we will pray that justice comes
but until then
we are here to shine a light
we will stand between the army and the people
we will give our life
until the army lays down every gun
we will run with the people as they run
As we plan and prepare for the recordings of the songs for this new album, this song remains a deeply special one to me. I wrote it shortly after meeting an extraordinary man in extraordinary circumstances in Chiang Mai, Thailand. As we shared a meal, in a small upper room above a printing press on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers opened my eyes and my heart to the realities of ethnic and religious cleansing inside Burma. After three of the most poignant hours I have been privileged to be a part of, he drove my friend Shelley and I back into the city in his huge four wheel drive, loaded down with dozens of large bags of clothes to take up to the refugees on the Thai Burma border. When we arrived back in town, and as we were getting out of the vehicle, this deeply humble and fiercely courageous man hugged us both and said, ” Thank you for encouraging me and for all you are doing to help us”
ALL we are doing??? At that point Shelley and I had done nothing, except meet him, listen to him and, unbeknown to him then, have our lives changed by him. Afterwards, as we ‘debriefed’ in a cafe, I said, “HE thanked us for encouraging HIM!! What did we do?” Shelley simply answered, “We were there - and you know what? We ARE going to do something, we ARE going to tell people about this, and we WILL use our abilities and resources and time to KEEP doing something”.
In the 18 months since that meeting we have both witnessed the opening of doors to people, places and opportunities which have enabled us to keep ‘telling people’ through conversations, paintings and songs.Two weeks ago, I emailed ‘The White Monkey” and shared with him the news about the progress of the new album and said, if need be, I would bring it to him personally at its completion. Several days later I received a very precious email, “…I have your songs out here with me and look forward to the new album…..and if we can work out a trip inside I will. let me know when you might be here. God bless you, D.”
‘We Will Run’ is written for and dedicated to this man who, in his own words, is not a hero and does not want to die, but for whom truth and the stand for justice are not options…..he and his team will continue to run into the war zones, into the land mined jungles and burned down villages, to bring help, hope and love to the people who suffer.
Posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 12:05 am
A new recording of ‘They Told Me This Is Africa’
african sun poured down like rain upon my skin
the door to change kicked open
and i stumbled in
traded in the freeway
and the smell of the salt-sea air
learnt to walk the red-dust road over there
over there
and they told me this is africa
they told me this is africa
and they said that this is how it’s done
limousines and beggars
cries of peace behind the pointed gun
african song flowed down in a river of hope and tears
and the children smiled at me
sheltered by their years
and the people wrote their dreams
in shades of black and white
no berlin wall was made to fall
across the line between day and night
and they told me this is africa
they told me this is africa
and they said that this is how it’s done
limousines and beggars
cries of peace behind the pointed gun
african journey brought me half a universe away
as i stepped into the night in bombay
a thousand fingers clutched my hands
and begged to walk with me
someone threw some pennies down and said
“hey, just let it be’
and they told me this is india
they told me this is india
and they said that this is how it’s done
limousines and beggars
cries of peace behind the pointed gun
african sun came down, bled its colours across the sky
i looked out on the red dust road
and said goodbye
then the silence that held me
was broken like a toy
as a city fell in flames
and the gun reached for the boy
and they told me this is bosnia
they told me this is bosnia
and they said that this is how it’s done
limousines and beggars
cries of peace behind the pointed gun
In the ten years since this song was recorded, tragically nothing has really changed, especially on the continent of Africa. When the words to this song began flowing out one night, not long after I had returned from a year living and working in Zimbabwe, my experiences and memories of that beautiful country were ones of peace and stability.Zimbabwe was a country where wars had taken place, but which were now ‘history’ to be told around the table after dinner or around a camp set up on the banks of the Zambezi River, after a day of fishing and safariing.
A starkly different country it is now, and just in the last month Kenya has seen the outbreak of civil unrest and ethnic cleansing within its borders. One reporter has gone so far as to compare what is happening there now with what took place in Rwanda in the ’90’s.
The journey this song has taken, from the time I first played it to a dear friend on her piano, to now, has surprised and amazed us. I have often said to friends that I could easily write a book about the places it has traveled to and the extraordinary people we have met through it.
This is, in fact, the song that introduced us to Crossroads and eventually brought us as a family to Hong Kong. As we prepare to record a new version of this song, we realise totally that the original recording will always be THE recording and cannot be replaced or, I suspect, bettered. It will remain a testimony to the passion, dedication and skills of our friend Nonda, who engineered and produced the entire album, and of the musicians and singers who gave themselves so unreservedly to its recording.
Posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Recording for new album has begun!
Victor Hugo said that ‘music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.’
I feel this is a very apt summary of why we have begun planning and preparing for the recording of a new album.
In the year my family and I have been here at Crossroads as full time volunteers,
we have had the privilege of not only meeting many extraordinary people from around the world, but also slowly gaining a deeper understanding of what the ‘real’ world is for the majority of this globe’s population.
Refugees, child soldiers, Aids sufferers, those who have experienced the horrors of ethnic and religious cleansing –these are no more statistics on a page or stories in a book. I have been privileged to meet, talk with, share a meal with people who are, or have been, these things, and it is from such experiences and relationships that the new songs have been born.
The vision for this album is that it will be like a collection of musical letters or photographs, and that those who listen to the songs will be not only moved by the message, but inspired, even spurred on, to act in some way themselves.
We hope to record most, if not all, of the album here in Hong Kong, as many of the songs were inspired and written here. Our dream is to involve musicians and singers who, like the community of Crossroads, come from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
It is also our desire that a significant percentage of the sales of this album will go directly to humanitarian relief, especially refugees.
Our deadline for completion is June 1st and the logistics of having everything done by then is daunting.
A very special team of musicians is on standby in Sydney and ready to come to Hong Kong and record if the way is made possible.
We are also amazed at the enthusiasm and willingness of a wonderful man here in Hong Kong who will be involved with the arranging of the music for the album.
There is already a very tangible growing anticipation and excitement for this project and we welcome your partnership with us.
Posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 6:14 am
