#1019  Everything Possible by Fred Small who began his career as a lawyer and later became a Unitarian Universalist minister. His songs often make a political or ethical statement. Among his best-known songs are "Heart of the Appaloosa," "Everything Possible," "Peace Is", and "Cranes Over Hiroshima". He is hailed by Pete Seeger as "one of America's best songwriters".

After graduating from Harvard Divinity School, he became the minister of First Church Unitarian in Littleton, Massachusetts in 1996. On April 20, 2008, he was called as Senior Minister at First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Small resigned in September 2015 to devote his energies to climate advocacy. He is currently Minister for Climate Justice at Arlington Street Church, Boston, and Director of Faith Outreach for Climate XChange, which advocates for carbon pricing legislation in Massachusetts.

#1053  How Could Anyone by Libby Roderick  Written in 1988, this simple song spread like wildfire to quickly become an internationally beloved anthem of hope and healing, deeply touching the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people around the world.  Libby originally recorded this simple anthem on the CD "If You See a Dream" in 1990.  Since then, How Could Anyone has been featured on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, highlighted on a CBS 60 Minutes special on teens at risk, written about in newspapers ranging from the New York Times to the Hindustani Times, translated into many languages, reprinted in numerous books (including Hometown by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder), used in movies, and sung at the UN Conference in Beijing by thousands, among many other uses.  How Could Anyone has been used for every conceivable purpose to bring inspiration and affirmation to people struggling with every imaginable challenge and to celebrate the beauty of human beings everywhere.

 

#169  We Shall Overcome is a tune with deep roots and cross-sections of origin. Reverend Charles Albert Tindley's "I'll Overcome Some Day" (1900) was believed to have influenced the structure for "We Shall Overcome", with both text and melody having undergone a process of alteration. The tune has been changed so that it now echoes the opening and closing melody of "No More Auction Block For Me", also known from its refrain as "Many Thousands Gone". This was number 35 in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's collection of African -American Spirituals that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of June 1867, with a comment by Higginson reflecting on how such songs were composed (i.e., whether the work of a single author or through what used to be called "communal composition"):Coincidentally, Bob Dylan claims that he used the very same melodic motif from "No More Auction Block" for his composition, "Blowin' in the Wind". Thus similarities of melodic and rhythmic patterns imparted cultural and emotional resonance ("the same feeling") to three different, and historically very significant songs.  Music scholars have also pointed out that the first half of "We Shall Overcome" bears a notable resemblance to the famous lay Catholic hymn "O Sanctissima", also known as "The Sicilian Mariners Hymn", first published by a London magazine in 1792 and then by an American magazine in 1794 and widely circulated in American hymnals. The second half of "We Shall Overcome" is essentially the same music as the 19th-century hymn "I'll Be All Right" and bears a close resemblance to the aria Caro Mio Ben, attributed to Neapolitan composer Tommaso Giordani or Giuseppe Giordani; this is another late 18th-century Italian song that became a staple of 19th-century singers. As Victor Bobetsky summarized in his 2015 book on the subject: "'We Shall Overcome' owes its existence to many ancestors and to the constant change and adaptation that is typical of the folk music process."

The modern version of the song was first said to have been sung by tobacco workers led by Lucille Simmons during a 1945 strike in Charleston, South Carolina. The song became associated with the Civil Rights Movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan stepped in with his and Seeger's version as song leader at Highlander, which was then focused on nonviolent civil rights activism. It quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Seeger and other famous folksingers in the early 1960s, such as Joan Baez, sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Since its rise to prominence, the song, and songs based on it, have been used in a variety of protests worldwide.  (adapted from Wikipedia)