Heaven Help Us All

You know those moments when a single song just seems to grab your ears and demand that you keep playing it non-stop for a week or more? It may be that the song fits your mood to a tee, or that you first heard it in the midst of an epic night with your closest friends and just want to relive that moment over and over while the memory is still fresh. Or perhaps it’s a song that you’ve heard before and never really noticed until suddenly, for no obvious reason, the song causes you to take note. And then take note again.

When these moments come, you may hesitate to play the song for the fifteenth time--too much of a good thing and all that. But, my friend, resistance is futile. You might as well ride out this wave while it’s here—no need to bail out. Sure, after a week or two you may stop listening to the song and stay away for months, or years, but I guarantee you that, at some point in the future, the song will bring you pleasure again.

I’m solidly in the midst of one such moment right now. The culprit: “Heaven Help Us All” by Stevie Wonder. From its majestic opening, the song builds, egged on by Stevie’s voice, to a full gospel outburst in the chorus. The lyrics are potently simple, presenting opposing images, from “the black man who struggles one more day” to “the white man who turns his back away,” and then unifying these images through insistent repetition of the title phrase, “heaven help us all!” Indeed, the song achieves a sort of transcendence as the song's prayer is so clearly answered by the unrestrained jubilance of the music.

And so I wonder, why has this song grabbed me so? Perhaps because its genuine hope and joy provide an antidote to the constant news of oil spills, bomb plots, and general political idiocy. This mean old world we're living in can indeed be depressing, as the bad news grinds on you day after day. And so I thank heaven for Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke; for the Beatles and for Biggie; for Beethoven, Bach, and Bartok; James Taylor and Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk and Dylan, and on and on, and on. For music.

Heaven help the roses, if the bombs begin to fall
Heaven help us all

Stevie Wonder – Heaven Help Us All (YSI) (filesavr)