This evening, I heard segments from today's funeral for Corretta Scott King. The eulogies were very powerful or interesting, depending on who was talking. Then, at some point, a choir started singing the song "Ain't Got Time to Die."
And I was taken back to high school, to my freshman year, the one year I was in New York. I had been in the Concert Choir, Baldwin oddly enough having one of the best high school choirs in all of Long Island. (This is a good point to give a shout out to Melinda Edwards -- Doc Ed -- who taught me everything I know about singing, especially to love it.) When the song came on the radio, I remembered that I had sung this -- or had to have learned it back then, because the only part I remembered was the tenor part (and I haven't been a tenor for years. I now heard the song in a completely different context and thought, Wow, what a great song to praise Mrs. King.
And yes, only then did I actually tear up a little.
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1 comment:
aw, man. i remember growing up in church hearing my mom and the "grown-people's choir" sing that song (the children's choir didn't do spirituals). it's amazing how, back then, i never realized spirituals were written in "dialect", since that's how we all spoke anyway.
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