I posted the following to Facebook last month—I think it’s a good fit for this blog as well.

I recently listened to Devon Gilfillian’s excellent 2020 re-recording of Marvin Gaye’s legendary 1971 album What’s Going On. It’s one reminder of how much we still live in the United States of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Political texts from that era like MLK’s Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? remain cutting edge in their prescriptions for society’s problems. The political and social upheavals of that time were very much an unfinished revolution.

From What’s Going On, I was particularly moved by the track “Save The Children” with its simple and straightforward message that includes the lines, “Who really cares, who’s willing to try/To save a world that’s destined to die.” Considering today’s ecological crises, this bleak sentiment seems truer than ever. But I think Gaye intends “destined” to be read as hyperbole. What’s Going On strikes me as more hopeful than grim.

Most of us care about the planet and about each other. The world can be rescued and we ought to try.