Toppling Statues

Sometimes the headlines write the songs. I had a good time writing this. Now if I could just get it out of my head…. Sing it to the tune of "On Top Of Old Smoky"

We're toppling statues

of confederate schmoes

i'd rather see Larry, Curly and Moe

Let’s have Ella and Billie, Sir Duke or Roy Haynes

or Dizzy Gillespie, Rahsaan or Coltrane

Or maybe Aretha or Sojourner Truth

Audre Lord or John Lewis or ol Langston Hughes

We're toppling statues

of old men with no souls

to replace them with heroes like Sun Ra or Nat Cole

Elizabeth Cotten, Charles Mingus or Prince

Barry White, Crispus Attucks or Atticus Finch

Big Mama Thornton, Ruby Dee or Odetta,

Mahalia Jackson or Sister Rosetta

Or Zora Neale Hurston or Nina Simone

Bessie Smith or Slim Gaillard, Monk or Sly Stone

We're toppling statues

those old men must go

To celebrate people

with big hearts and souls

Those thieves they have robbed us

of solace and sleep

They’ve never been heroes –

they just made the world weep

(The Nina Simone statue is in her hometown of Tryon, NC. Sculpted by Zenos Frudakis, it contains some of her ashes in a bronze heart built into the chest.)