"San Diego Evening Tribune." The speaker is a woman. "A simpler question than Gary's: Can songs change the world?"
Too much like hard work for me, thinks Dean, looking at Elf, who looks at Griff, who says, "Hey I just drum along."
"Songs do not change the world", declares Jasper. "People do. People pass laws, riot, hear God, and act accordingly. People invent, kill, make babies, start wars." Jasper lights a Marlboro. "Which raises a question. 'Who or what influences the minds of the people who change the world?' My answer is 'Ideas and Feelings.' Which begs a question. 'Where do ideas and feelings originate?' My answer is, 'Others. One's heart and mind. The press. The arts. Stories. Last, but not least, songs.' Songs. Songs, like dandelion seeds, billowing across space and time. Who knows where they'll land? Or what they'll bring?" Jasper leans into the mic and, without a wisp of self-consciousness, sings a miscellany of single lines from nine or ten songs. Dean recognizes "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," "Strange Fruit", and "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine." Others, Dean can't identify, but the hardboiled press pack look on. Nobody laughs, nobody scoffs. Cameras click. "Where will these song-seeds land? It's the Parable of the Sower. Often, usually, they land on barren soil and don't take root. But sometimes, they land in a mind that is ready. Is fertile. What happens then? Feelings and ideas happen. Joy, solace, sympathy. Assurance. Cathartic sorrow. The idea that life could be, should be, better than this. An invitation to slip into somebody else's skin for a little while. If a song plants an idea or a feeling in a mind, it has already changed the world."
Bloody hell, thinks Dean. I live with this guy.
"Why's everyone gone quiet?" Slightly alarmed, Jasper asks the band. "What that weird? Did I go too far?"
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