Music to Move a Movement

Madonna sang it, so it’s got to be spot-on: “Music makes the people come together.”

Madonna’s Music may be about people coming together to party, but music can move and motivate the masses to take more beneficial actions (not that we don’t need some fun in our lives), such as, for example, working to end mountaintop removal coal mining.

If you still are hem-hawing about whether there’s any sane justification for blowing up mountains, razing forests, burying streams with the mega-rubble from blasted mountains, driving communities to extinction and destroying human health, maybe you need some musical inspiration to help you see the solar-powered light.

Whether you still need persuading that MTR must end, or whether you so know that is right, check out Lissie’s Mountaintop Removal:

Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott’s music video for Keep Your Dirty Lights On uses some of my photos and sends folks to the OVEC website for more information. The song was nominated for the Best American Roots Song at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Also using my photos is Shayar’s I Am The Earth, which addresses the issue of deep shale gas fracking as well as MTR. Okay — true confession — I actually made that obviously amateur video. This song, written especially for OVEC, is deserving of a professionally-made video.

More songs about the need to end the insanity of extreme energy extraction are out there. Hope you find at least one you really like, one that hear in your head when you need a little motivation to act up for change.