We need a brother of the blues; come blow your horn, light a fuse beneath the tinder of our fickle lie-down-and-take-it, ever-so-humble, bowing, scraping days. We need Sister Rosetta to rasp and wake us better, shake our crumbling foundations, hold us up to a mirror, come deliver us from ourselves. We need to relearn to sing, find our voices again til our harmonies ring as discords loosen the cement of the walls that hold us in. We need an old preacher man clad in rags and frays, come bearing brush and pan, help clear up the mess we’ve made, pick up the sisters and brothers who tumbled to the gutter while we looked the other way. We need a singer from the choir, with a voice of sand and honey, carrying the truth like a torchsong until like children we sing along: We are each other! We are each other!
Harry Gallagher
