Being Heard

Put a little love...right there

“I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warning
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazing
I heard ten-thousand whispering and nobody listening
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing
I heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley”

— Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

I wish I heard what Bob Dylan hears.

It goes without saying that the man is a wordsmith of the first order. He runs neck and neck…and neck…with Smokey Robinson and the Holland-Dozier-Holland trio as the poet laureate of American rock music. With the possible (and notable) exception of Carole King, there is no second tier. It’s those five guys and everyone else.

If there is no Dylan, there is no Springsteen and The Band stays relegated to backup band status under their original name, The Hawks. No Mellencamp, no Tracy Chapman, no punk rock scene. The Beatles have no counterweight, meaning the Stones have no foil. No Smokey Robinson – half of Motown is never heard from; Atlantic and Stax Records have no audience to help bring “Black music” to the masses. No Smokey? No Marvin. No Jimmy Ruffin; the Temptations and Four Tops struggle for recognition; David Ruffin doesn’t turn into an ego-centric woman-beater, leaving Tami Terrell to live a happy life…

…okay, I may be extrapolating a little bit.

American pop culture is a sliver of what it is now.

And my Substack has no north star.

As vacuous as a lot of pop music is. a lot of it does not pretend to be the axis on which the world spins – that area is pretty well traveled by the Springsteen/U2/Sting triumvirate. It wants to be that escape from the drudgeries of modern life, and, depending on who you listen to, that goal is rightfully earned.

“I heard ten-thousand whispering and nobody listening
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing
I heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter”

My job is an interesting one for a variety of reasons, one of which is no one else in my peer group went after “nonprofit fundraising” as a career choice. Of course, neither did I. I stumbled into it. When I tell people I grew up or went to school with what I do for a living, there is a pause (maybe because they think I am going to ask them for money) and actual, genuine interest, “Wow…what’s that like?” Believe me, in my more self-important moments, my job is “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in an office setting. Granted, this is without an audience throwing garbage at me, calling me “Judas,” and “Garbage,” so I do not have to worry about my personal safety. Although, it would be cool to have a backing band…maybe in the next fiscal year’s budget, I can find space for it.

In my less self-important moments…I concentrate on my Substack and tell me to get over myself.

“Now if there’s a smile on my face
It’s only there tryin’ to fool the public
But when it comes down to foolin’ you
Now, honey, that’s quite a different subject
But don’t let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression

Now there’s some sad things known to man
But ain’t too much sadder than
The tears of a clown
When there’s no one around”

— Smokey Robinson and the Miracles “Tears of a Clown”

Anyone who has had my kind of job who denies thinking, “I bet they could have given more,” at least once in his/her/their lives, is lying (very likely) or brimming with a kind of self-confidence that I am unfamiliar with (also, exceedingly likely). There are also the very few who are a smash-up of both, cocky liars who are, to paraphrase a friend, “evil but convinced they’re not.” They exist out there. I have worked with a couple of them.

It’s a cliché, but every donation IS treasured. Questioning a person’s philanthropic hierarchy is just human nature. I have thought many times that someone could have given much more than they did. I was a jerk for thinking that then, feel badly about it now, and hopefully, I learned not to do it so easily again.

Insofar as my job being the equivalent of a Dylan song, that is sort of silly. But…a huge chunk of my job description falls under “communication” and the ability to put into words what is painfully visible to anyone’s eyes is high up on the “job qualifications” list.

And that is why I wish I could hear like Dylan. I could get my point across faster, easier and more dynamically if I heard things like he hears things. There is no plexiglass shield between the alley in Dylan’s songs and the pen he uses to put onto paper those things he hears. It is unvarnished, kinda bleak, and compelling…

…compelling being the word that spurred me to write tonight. My boss and I gave another person a tour of our facility today. My boss is the narrator; the “star” of the show. I am there to fill in some blanks while looking semi-professional in a blazer. I find these tours always interesting based on the visitors’ reactions. Today’s guest thanked us before she left and mentioned how “compelling” the stories of our families are. After she left, I said to my boss, “That might be the single best compliment I have ever heard a person give to a place I worked.”

“Take a good look around
And if you’re looking down
Put a little love in your heart
I hope when you decide
Kindness will be your guide
Put a little love in your heart”

— Jackie DeShannon, “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”

— Covered by Al Green and Annie Lennox

I dismissed “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” as mindless treacle for a long time. It was originally written and sung as a counter-anthem to the Dylan-era protest songs while also working the angles along the sides, in a flower-power kind of way. It also gives voice(s) to some of the ideas I am telling people in our community about my employer and how they can be involved and make a difference in a family’s life, namely making sure they have a roof over their heads.

Not to proselytize much. As Dylan said himself, “They’re songs; not sermons.”

I learned about the song from the movie, “Scrooged,” starring Bill Murray. This is reportedly a movie Murray hated after it was finished, even though I think it is one of his better performances. Alfre Woodard also stars and it is a modern (1988) version of “A Christmas Carol.” The movie version with Al Green and Annie Lennox is much cooler because…it’s Al Green and Annie Lennox. And if their video of the song does not make you smile, then…I’ll probably never question if you could have given more.