A Time to Break Silence

Описание: A song I wrote with my comrade, Martin Luther King Jr, for his birthday. I got the idea from John Coltrane, who put MLK's eulogy of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing to music, in his song "Alabama":

As I have walked / among the desperate / rejected / and angry young men
I have told them / that Molotov cocktails / and rifles would not solve / their problems.
I have tried to offer them / my deepest compassion / while maintaining / my conviction
that social change / comes most meaningfully / through nonviolent / action.
But they ask / and rightly so / what about / Vietnam?
They ask if our own nation / wasn't using / massive doses / of violence
to solve its problems / to bring about / the changes / it wanted.
Their questions hit home / and I knew that I / could never again / raise my voice against
the violence of the oppressed / in the ghettos / without having first / spoken clearly
to the greatest / purveyor / of violence / in the world today
my own / government / my own / government

A nation that continues / year after year / to spend more money / on military defense
than on programs / of social uplift / is approaching / spiritual death.