Sad Tomorrows: How The Music of Yesterday Relates to Today

So…I wasn’t even planning to write this week. With six entries already posted, and this week being an extremely busy work week for me(with several meetings scheduled for today alone), it was not on the agenda, at least not for today. However, the news of yet another senseless, unnecessary, unjust, needless murder of an innocent Black man at the hands of a white police officer has prompted me to write about something that I have unfortunately talked about so much over the last few years; the fact that some music of the past seemed to prophesize what is happening in the world today. I remember when Trayvon Martin was murdered, I turned to a song entitled “Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away” by Stevie Wonder in which he sings about his being Black making others perceive him as lesser than(I also reference the song here). I remember turning to another Stevie song, aptly titled “Evil”, after the Charleston church shooting. While these two examples are not of deaths at the hands of police officers, they showcase the overwhelmingly obvious injustice that Black people experience in this country on a daily basis. Our lives are clearly of very little value when we can be killed by law enforcement officers and civilians of other races so easily. Our lives are clearly of little value when we are killed during routine traffic stops, while others can storm state capitals while armed and behaving in a hostile manner without enduring any attacks. I, like many others, am TIRED of it all: I am tired of making hashtags for the deceased. I am tired of trying to explain to others why our lives matter. I am tired of having to worry about my Black brother, cousins, friends, and loved ones. I am tired of reading and hearing the obtuse ramblings of ignorant individuals who think that Black people just need to “get over it”. There is only so much that we can take. All of this being said, my work from home soundtrack for today will consist of music that eerily and sadly resonates for our current society, despite being written and recorded decades ago.

Sad Prophecies

Each song that I have listed here is at least 25 years old; the most recent being Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us”, which was on his 1995 album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1. I am pointing this out because it underscores my main point here, which is that yesterday’s socially conscious music still resonates today. The oldest songs included here are from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, which was released in 1971. I always come back to that fact whenever I’m listening to that album. It is almost 50 years old, yet extremely relevant today. That says a great deal about the prophetic aspect of it, and also speaks to the sad state of our world that we have made such little progress in almost 50 years. If anything, we seem to be regressing, which Marvin cautioned about throughout the What’s Going On album. On that note, the final song on the later edition of the album that I have is entitled “Sad Tomorrows”, hence the title of this entry. We are living in a sad tomorrow, indeed.