Editor’s Note: Singer/songwriter Laura Repo hears hope for a better world in Joni’s Woodstock and believes that it is still within reach. — JT
Laura Repo
I love what Irving Stowe says to the crowd at the start of the Amchitka concert, his voice reaching forward in time so that we can hear his message again 40 years later:
“Brothers and Sisters in Greenpeace. Greenpeace is beautiful and you are beautiful, because you are here. You came here because you are not on a death trip…”
It was this moment that drew my attention to the power of this amazing CD. I poured over the liner notes, inspired by the small group of activists that dreamed up Greenpeace. Irving Stowe understood that he needed to link the Amchitka action to music and despite the fact that he and his group knew nothing about holding a rock concert they went ahead and 10.000 people showed up. I like that in hearing this recording, I get to show up too and be part of a movement that still won’t be part of a “death trip.”
Then I listen and get lost in Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock – a song I know well, but in the this context I’m hearing it with new ears. I am on the road meeting that “child of god,” watching the story unfold as Joni tells it. This song is visionary and, like Irving Stowe’s words, it comes back to nudge us, to remind us that the dream is as important as the event it chronicles. It is still there for us to pursue.
Joni Mitchell catches the winds of time. She absorbs the moment and spins us poetry to reflect who we are. Woodstock is like that. It is everyone — the butterflies and the bombers. It is “billion year old carbon.” It is hope and despair, but ultimately, a vision that endures and opens our minds to the possibility of peace in the garden.
I listen to Woodstock for the clues. Like following the child of god — maybe children can lead us there? And “billion year old carbon” — our interconnectedness — that even as we stand on opposite sides of the fence, fighting to save the Earth and racing to destroy it, we are like each other and even as the Earth. It is a beautiful image and astonishing from the point of view of songwriting that Joni could fit that line into a song.
My son led me back to the garden. I found myself suddenly compelled to plant things even though I have no apptitude for it, still don’t, though I perservere. I started looking at blossoms when Sami pointed them out to me, age two, and the sky, when he would stop to look at it in awe. The other day he told me (he’s now eight) that he would be prepared to work harder to have an unpolluted Earth, and everyone could have a crop to grow food.
I try out Woodstock as my boy and his young cousins fall asleep and think of Joni’s words as an evocation of what can be, and hope that we can start to conjure up what we dream of instead of what we dread.
Laura Repo lives and plays frequently in Toronto. Reviewers have compared her to Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash and Lucinda Williams and we are fortunate to have her at the Sing for Greenpeace – 40th Anniversary Concert, Wednesday, June 29 where she will sing… Woodstock
Her most recent recording, Get Yourself Home, marks a return to her musical roots – the old-time sound that her father’s kin used to play at large family gatherings throughout their native Ottawa Valley.
She released her first CD, Mountain of Me, in 1999, followed by A Charmed Life in 2004. The second album’s delivery coincided with that of Sami who will be an urban farmer when he grows up.
To find out more about Laura and where she’s playing go to www.laurarepo.ca
A Greenpeace thank you to Laura Repo, a thoughtful, poetic songwriter with a social conscience, an impassioned voice, who deserves her place in the garden.
Next Tuesday: Barbara Stowe, daughter of the late Irving Stowe, co-founder of Greenpeace, takes us inside the making of the Amchitka Concert CD (Part One of Two) from the perspective of what it means to hear the music come ‘round again and the Greenpeace/concert experience she shared with her father back in 1970.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29!! The Sing for Greenpeace - 40th Anniversary Concert, Hugh’s Room, Toronto. Performances by Dan Hill, Royal Wood, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Elizabeth Shepherd, Lori Cullen, Laura Repo, Simone Schmidt (One Hundred Dollars) w/ Will Kidman (Constantines), The Saturday Saints, Charlotte Cornfield. Arlene Bishop (emcee) and special guest, Jesse Cook. Tickets and directions at hughsroom.com or call 416-531-6604. $27.50 advance and $30 at the door. Git yer tickets now! THEY’RE REALLY GOING FAST!
Let’s hear your thoughts on this great Amchitka album available exclusively from Greenpeace on this page. See comment section below.
