A recent episode of This American Life featured a song written by Sara Bareilles and sung by Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr. imagining what President Barak Obama might be thinking about Donald Trump and the current election.
Now, there’s a video to accompany it.
The four minute visual shows Odom Jr. in the studio with a band, delivering and impassioned performance as the lyrics roll out at the bottom of the screen.
In the song, Odom Jr. sings, Bareilles’ poetic verse,
“One man rewriting the book on bad behavior/ Maybe cheats the neighbors/ Feels they get what they pay for/ We can’t pat him on the back and send him on through/ No man’s ignorance will ever be his virtue/ Is this the best we can be?
This American Life, Sara Bareilles, and Leslie Odom, Jr.
~~Published on Oct 28, 2016~~
This American Life asked Sara Bareilles (Broadway’s “Waitress”) to imagine what President Obama might be thinking about the current election and Donald Trump, but can’t say publicly. Leslie Odom, Jr., performs the song.
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”
I’ve had enough, why we cannot get on with each other I’ve never known times so rough, Where ‘o’ where has all the love gone Why show the hate with a roadside bomb, Freedom riots crushed with tanks, Write about flowers and beautiful nature?
No thanks Stop the World I Want to Get Off! Countries with no one to kill rape the earth Destroying forests so fast leaving nothing but dearth, Then boffins who can’t make a car that can go slow That so many road victims so early to heaven must go. To top the hate cake 911 shook the world As the news and horror unfurled, Stop the World I Want to Get Off! I’ve booked a flight on the first shuttle leaving soon To live with that loving man who lives on the moon, I know those with love who are left will win in the end, but I must leave now or I’ll go round the bend.
A book is pages, pictures and words
A book is animals, people and birds
A book is stories of queens and kings
Poems and songs-so many things!
Curled in a corner where I can hide
With a book I can journey far and wide
Though it’s only paper from end to end
A book is a very special friend.
I don’t know you, you don’t know me
We don’t know each other
Yet we do, somehow,
Some way, We are all connected.
We are connected to this life by many threads
Which we only notice when they are broken
Whether family, friends, work or welfare, all
Pull us apart in different dimensions in time.
You are connected to me by small pleasures
Which we only notice when we stop giving
Whether interest, intent, wish or wisdom, all
Pull us apart in different dimensions in space.
We are connected to each other for ever now
Which we only notice when we are apart again
Whether travel, trust, freedom or failure, all
Pull us apart in different dimensions in love.
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears a Human soul.
I remember the first time someone explained to me what the word gay meant.
We were in middle school
Playing on the swing set behind Stoy Elementary
“He’s so gay,” she said
Bitter disgust poured out of her mouth with every syllable
I could not think as to why being happy could be such a horrible thing
And so I asked
My exact words being “What’s so wrong with being happy?”
Now both my friends looked at me weird
“Don’t you know what gay means?” “Doesn’t it mean to be happy?”
“You’re such a little kid, gay does not mean happy.
Gay is a boy who likes another boy”
I stood there wondering why it mattered so much that a boy liked another boy;
why it was such a distasteful thing.
And why it meant gay couldn’t still mean happy.
There is nothing to be afraid of,
it is only the wind
changing to the east, it is only
your father the thunder
your mother the rain
In this country of water
with its beige moon damp as a mushroom,
its drowned stumps and long birds
that swim, where the moss grows
on all sides of the trees
and your shadow is not your shadow
but your reflection,
your true parents disappear
when the curtain covers your door.
We are the others,
the ones from under the lake
who stand silently beside your bed
with our heads of darkness.
We have come to cover you
with red wool,
with our tears and distant whispers.
You rock in the rain’s arms
the chilly ark of your sleep,
while we wait, your night
father and mother
with our cold hands and dead flashlight,
knowing we are only
the wavering shadows thrown
by one candle, in this echo
you will hear twenty years later.
It Is What It Is 