Sometimes an audience's silence says more than the loudest most thunderous applause...
Attended Our Lady J's Gospel Brunch at Joe's Pub this afternoon. For the uninitiated, Our Lady J is an immensely gifted pianist and singer/songwriter. During her set, she performed a song she had written, which is adapted from a military fight song she learned from one of her two younger soldier brothers.
The song is one of those typical military call-and-response type numbers, a la, "Left! Left! Left, right Left! My knees are shakin', my back is tight, my balls are breakin', and that ain't right! Left! Left! Left, right Left!" But this one called on us to respond with "We kill 'em all." and "Let's tear this motherfucker down!" or something along those lines.(apologies, if I mangled the lyric, but you get the gist.)
Well, the song started and we did our part enthusiastically until after the first verse as the intense darkness of the lyric took hold of the room and an incredible thing happened. Suddenly, as the poignancy of Lady J's musical/poetic statement about military violence began to penetrate, we simply stopped singing. We just couldn't sing. We couldn't hold up our part in the call-and-response song she'd set up.We dropped the ball and, in so doing, proved just how powerfully arresting her message and its musical arrangement was.
It's rare when silence from an audience signals a successful performance, but this was clearly one of those rare instances. Bravo, Lady J! You took us there. And as you opened our eyes to the horror of war and the war machine, you closed our mouths and opened our hearts.
On January 4, Our Lady J presents the 3rd Annual "Gospel of Dolly," an
evening of Dolly Parton's most beloved gospel music. Along with the
Train-To-Kill Gospel Choir, Our Lady J and guests shed new meaning and
light on Ms. Parton's greatest hits, as well as her lesser known spirit
songs in this annual celebration of the Queen of Country. Click here for details.
