Photo Credit: Jtgphoto
On March 2, 2018, folk music icon and activist Joan Baez released her first album in ten years, Whistle Down The Wind. She also announced that it will be her last album and the tour in connection with the album would be her farewell tour. Baez skillfully interprets tunes penned by such artists as Tom Waits, Josh Ritter, Anohni, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Joe Henry (who also produced).
“The Great Correction” is a reworking of a Eliza Gilkyson tune, which originally appeared on Gilkyson’s 2008 album, Beautiful World. The song includes the following verse:
“People ’round here don’t know what it means
To suffer at the hands of our American dreams
They turn their backs on the grisly scenes
Traced to the privileged sons
They got their god they got their guns
Got their armies and the chosen ones
But we’ll all be burning in the same big sun
When the great correction comes”
The following highlights how a segment of the American population tries to justify certain atrocities as the price of freedom and as long as their supposed rights are protected they don’t care who suffers. An example of this is the current gun control debates. There are certain people that are OK with schools being turned into high security prisons along as their supposed rights are not infringed upon. The verse can also apply to those that are vocal about football players taking a knee to peacefully protest police violence because they don’t want their “freedom” to enjoy a sporting event being ruined by politics. They claim a false pretense of disrespecting the flag and military to avoid addressing serious issues of systemic racism and abuse of power.
The last verse of the tune holds out hope:
“Down to the wire running out of time
Still got hope in this heart of mine
But the future waits on the horizon line
For our daughters and our sons
I don’t know where this train’s bound
Whole lotta people trying to turn it around
Gonna shout til the walls come tumbling down
And the great correction comes”
The increase of youth activism gives hope that a great correction may finally take place. The walls (both literal and metaphorical) will collapse if enough people take a stand against oppressive ideologies.