I regret that I didn’t know the 2002Patti Griffin beautiful song,BE CAREFUL before I recently heard the cover with a new verse written by Joy Oladokun, Madi Diaz, and S.G. Goodman. I’ve played both versions over and over since last night. (New lyrics are highlighted below.)
BE CAREFUL is about women’s circumstances everywhere—in the beauty shops, catching raindrops, working overtime, standin’ all alone, in restaurants, on TV shows, with broken arms and deadly charms.
No one ever really knows what’s happening inside someone else’s personal, professional, or family life, nervous system, head, or heart. How can one answer possibly be the right solution for everyone in every single situation?
All the girls workin’ overtime Tellin’ you everything is fine
I painted this last week while thinking about the erosion of women’s rights, especially the Iowa law outlawing abortion after 6 only weeks. The issue of reproductive freedom is so raw, emotional, personal, tribal, and complex. Our DNA is 99.9% the same, only .01% is what makes us unique, yet America is the most divided I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. Is it even possible to have a rational debate and listen to each other in this political climate?
Sadly, FEAR is far more easily activated and exploited than EMPATHY or CURIOSITY.
All the girls standin’ on their heads All the girls with the broken arms
All the girls that you’ll never see Forever a mystery
BE CAREFUL by Patti Griffin
All the girls in the Paris night All the girls in the pale moonlight All the girls with a shoppin’ bags All the girls with the washin’ rags All the girls on the telephone All the girls standin’ all alone All the girls sittin’ on the wire Who one by one fly into the fire
Be careful how you bend me Be careful where you send me Careful how you end me Be careful with me
All the girls standin’ by your beds All the girls standin’ on their heads All the girls with the broken arms All the girls with the deadly charms All the girls in the restaurants Pretending to be nonchalant Funny girls on the T.V. shows Close your eyes and they’ve turned to snow
Be careful how you bend me Be careful where you send me Careful how you end me Be careful with me
All the girls workin’ overtime Tellin’ you everything is fine All the girls in the beauty shops Girls tongues catchin’ the raindrops All the girls that you’ll never see Forever a mystery All the girls with their secret ways All the girls who have gone astray
Be careful how you bend me Be careful where you send me Careful how you end me Be careful with me
For all the parents who are losing sleep For all the babies that’ll come to be For all the reasons that are ours to know It’s my choice and I’m not alone For every man who’s standing next to me For queer and trans and non-binary For everybody with their own body I will meet you all out in the street, so
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Thank you Patty, S. G., Joy, and Madi for both versions of BE CAREFUL.
I’ve never played a song on repeat as much as Mandolin Orange’s Wildfire—lyrics by Andrew Marlin. This haunting piece weaves in and out of history through our nation’s fight for independence, the civil war, and the lyricist’s own present-day sorrows.
From the ashes grew sweet liberty Like the seeds of the pines when the forest burns They open up to grow and burn again
The harmonies of Andrew Martin and his wife Emily Frantz are truly head & heart-rattling.
This song and these lyrics need to be absorbed…the word my big sister used when she wanted me to lie in the dark and listen to a newly discovered song with her.
Brave men fought with the battle cry Tears filled the eyes of their loved ones and their brothers in arms And so it went, for Joseph Warren It should have been different It could have been easy His rank could have saved him But a country unborn needs bravery And it spread like wildfire
Wildfire starts with the story of Boston physician and Revolutionary War patriot Joseph Warren, who was killed at Bunker Hill after insisting on fighting as a private, rather than serving as Major General, his recently commissioned rank. —Jody Mace, Glide Magazine (interview link below)
Wildfire
From the ashes grew sweet liberty Like the seeds of the pines when the forest burns They open up to grow and burn again It should have been different It could have been easy But too much money rolled in to ever end slavery The cry for war spread like wildfire
Wildfire Wildfire
Civil War came, Civil War went Brother fought the brother, the South was spent But its true demise was hatred passed down through the years It should have been different It could have been easy But pride has a way of holding too firm to history And it burns like wildfire
Wildfire Wildfire
I was a born a southern son In a small southern town where the rebels run wild They beat their chests and they swear we’re going to rise again It should have been different It could have been easy The day that old Warren died hate should have gone with him But here we are caught in the wildfire
Andrew Marlin was born in the small southern town of Warrenton, NC (pop. 862) it was named after Joseph Warren.
It should have been different It could have been easy But too much money rolled in to ever end slavery The cry for war spread like wildfire
Social scientists have long understood race to be a social category invented to justify slavery and evolutionary biologists know the socially constructed racial categories do not align with our biological understanding of genetic variation. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 confirmed humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level and there is no genetic basis for race.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8604262/
NOTE: I created images to represent the way our nation was (or is) stitched together out of vastly different geographies, ideologies, philosophies, and experiences.
