Sing Me a Song (Peace that Lasts)
2024 EnPAx Arts Fellow Austin Willacy is a co-founder of Raise Your Voice Labs. RYVL applies methods of musical peacebuilding, facilitated dialogue, and circle singing to help groups find their common ground, share concerns, and voice their collective identity through musical co-creation. Echoing a major tenet in environmental justice, the process is as important as the product: being heard and actively engaging in decision-making is crucial to community empowerment and just outcomes.
On Tuesday, 18 June, Austin and singer-songwriter Jesse Matas (doctoral researcher at the University of Manitoba) facilitated a workshop on “Composing Peace: Music as a Tool for Environmental Peacebuilding”. During the session, participants creatively shared hopes and insights about their work in environmental peacebuilding. “Sing Me a Song” is one of the results of that collaborative work.
We are preparing a high-quality recording of the song, and we’d love to feature you!
- Listen: to our starting backing track and read the main lyrics.
- Record: yourself adding a layer to the track. We want as many singers as possible: everyone can sing! It’s about sharing as a community, not singing professionally. 🙂
Examples of what you might do:- sing the bridge:
- listen to Austin’s instructions about the best mic on your phone
- sing along while you play this file in your ears with headphones, so we hear only you
- record the ‘nose video’ using the back camera mic that Austin asks for
- play an instrument: you can add to the melody lines, create a harmony, or improv a riff over the main musical lines
- translate the lyrics: we would love to hear additional languages!
- sing the bridge:
- Email: your contributions to enpaxart@gmail.com. Please submit any additions to the track by Friday, 28 June. Austin will edit our voices together and share our EnPAx conference song with the wider community!
Backing Track:
lyrics to the bridge (sing along from timestamps 3:37-4:20):
We are the agents of our own destiny
We make the world that we all want to see
We’ll come together and we’ll sing a different song
With every note we build a world where all belong
click here to read the full lyrics
Sing me a song of the sky
Sing me a song of the Earth
Sing me a song of the hatred
That once spurred this conflict to birth
Sing me a song of the mother
Waiting for sons to return
Sing me a song of the father
Watching his home as it burns
Sing me a song of the soldier
Recruited before she was taught
Sing me a song of the warrior
At war without knowing for what
Refrain
I know I need this peace to last
We need this peace to last
Bridge
We are the agents of our own destiny
We make the world that we all want to see
We’ll come together and we’ll sing a different song
With every note we build a world where all belong
So
Sing me a song of the sky
Sing me a song of the Earth
Sing me a song of tomorrow
Show me what justice is worth
Sing me a song of the child
One who has never known war
Sing me a song of that child
And maybe we’ll raise them once more
Refrain
I know I need this peace to last
Let’s build a peace that lasts
Spoken word (over refrain)
Let me tell you a story about a group of people who came together with full hearts to face a terrible foe. The foe wasn’t a dragon that could be slayed or an evil witch who could be disappeared. The foe was darkness, doubt, drought – it was the costs of inaction and the weight of responsibility. It felt oppressive, more to some than others, and all-consuming. It felt like the world might end. How can you slay a feeling? How can you disappear a dynamic of reality? You don’t. Instead, you build. You create a new world. You bring into being something beautiful that never existed before. This group of people who came together with full hearts didn’t need to dismantle society; they needed to create it. They saw that the world they wanted was based on kindness, on humanity, on joy. On friendship, trust, and laughter. So they put those things into the world. And someone noticed. Then they joined. And so did another. And on. Pretty soon, half the planet cared more about kindness than much else, and on one beautiful, perfectly normal Wednesday in April, everything shifted. Well. Nothing changed. It’s just that more and more people believe that a peaceful world could exist. And then it did.
Bridge
We are the agents of our own destiny
We make the world that we all want to see
We’ll come together and we’ll sing a different song
With every note we build a world where all belong
Refrain
I know I need this peace to last
Let’s build a peace that lasts
Need inspiration? Here’s an impromptu group sing from Thursday evening at the Third Conference!
