Richie Havens was singing "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" at the end of Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. Punching out the lyrics like his heart was being torn by each syllable. Some...Times..I ..feel ..just like a .. motherless child. And it had been so long since I had sung that song that I'd forgotten the power it had for me when I was an angst ridden teen. That uniquely American thing. We sang that song as part of the "folksong movement" in the sixties as if we could understand the wretched, raw pain of the slave roots that it and other of the songs we sang came from. I had a vague dim unclear idea, so dim as to be non-existent to negligible. Yes, I knew history from textbooks but I had to wait the years to my present maturity to know that I never knew and never could know that pain.
So, why did it hold such an attraction? And with what result? I dunno. But quite possibly we were the most depressed generation ever. I am not saying that songs caused our ennui. What am thinking is that the songs we chose or were exposed to by the popular culture of the folk movement nurtured sustained depressive states to the point of addiction. Kind of glamorized the emotional disconnection sometimes to disorientation. Well I still love that song. It resonates with me and brings me close to tears always. What can I say and what can ya do? Sigh! Go figure....
