Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs brought hope and harmony to heal this broken world
Music has the power to heal what politics can’t.
I’m still tingling from all that Grammy Award positive energy.
It wasn’t just an awards ceremony. It was a much needed reminder that music really does have the power to heal us all.
Music makes you feel ageless and timeless.
How could you not cry watching Joni Mitchell sing “Both Sides Now” surrounded by young musicians whose path she paved. The song means more now that she’s 80 and reflecting on that rearview mirror of life.
She won a Grammy for Best Folk Album and sat like the queen she is in a fancy stuffed chair, tapping her cane to the beat with young musicians at her feet as she sang and reflected for us all:
“But now old friends they're acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day”
“I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all”
Music makes you feel less alone.
I loved watching Miley Cyrus, strutting around the stage like the new Cher that she is, all lean legs, long arms and hair. That hair! What an anthem her song “Flowers” is for every heart that has ever been broken. It’s a perfect Valentine’s Day—no, Galentine’s Day -- anthem.
“I can buy myself flowers
Write my name in the sand
Talk to myself for hours, yeah
Say things you don't understand
I can take myself dancing, yeah
I can hold my own hand
Yeah, I can love me better than you can”
Yes, you can love yourself better than anyone can.
Music has the power to unite a country.
Country music star Toby Keith died last week at 62 after fighting stomach cancer for 18 months. He was the voice some Americans needed right after 9/11. Harsh words, for sure, but the man wrote the “Angry American” song when the country needed someone to channel its rage. Keith didn’t plan to release the song, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” to the public, but when he sang it to Pentagon service members, a commander urged him to share the battle song. Once Keith did, he partnered with the USO and sang to more than 250,000 troops in 17 countries.
Music united the country during a surprise Grammy Awards performance by Tracy Chapman.
Harmony isn’t just a music term. It’s what happens to a divided country when you pair Tracy Chapman, a gay, black, female pop artist from Cleveland with Luke Combs, a straight, white, male country music artist from the South.
People are still talking about how they were each other’s gift, through the gift of music.
One of the most tender moments happened when Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. talked about the need to find connection and humanity when he paid tribute to the lives lost in Israel during the music festival on October 7.
“Every one of us, no matter where we are, is united by the shared experience of music,” he said. “It unites us like nothing else and that’s why music must be our safe space. When that’s violated, it strikes at the very core of who we are.”
He mentioned the violence at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, the Manchester Arena in England and the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas.
“On October 7, we felt that again, when we heard the tragic news from the Supernova Music Festival for Love, that over 360 music fans lost their lives and another 40 were kidnapped.”
“We live in a world divided by so much. And maybe music can’t solve everything, but let us all agree, music must remain the common ground upon which we all stand, together in peace and harmony. Because music has always been one of humanity’s greatest connectors.”
The four musicians sharing the stage were a symbol of unity and connection that music makes believable.
“Take this string quartet — as individuals, they sound really good,” he said, “but together they achieve something beautiful they could never do apart. These musicians of Palestinian, Israeli and Arab descent are here, playing together. Now is time for us, for humanity, to play together, to come together, with empathy, and with love.”
Music gives us hope that can still happen.