After a weekend of interrupted music (thanks PSafe) and a rather jargon-filled Monday night lecture titled “Does Music Translate Anything?” I stumbled into the Memorial Chapel on Tuesday with low expectations for Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, creator of “Sweet Honey in the Rock.” To be honest, I had never heard of her before.

If you failed to remove your sore gluteus maximus from your throne of a swivel chair as I almost did, you will probably not understand what I am about to tell you. For you did not personally hear the 200 breaths in unison and you did not see the reflected light in Reagon’s glasses, sending out rays of burning energy much as I imagine a ghost’s eyes to do. These 750 words fall lifeless in the wake of a melody.

“Is that your last picture?” Reagon asked before opening her mouth to sing.

When the flash went off three words into the song she cut off abruptly.

“Now, I asked you if that was your last picture,” she reprimanded. “This is an oral presentation.”

I need not tell you, there were no subsequent flashes.

“When I die,” she sang, “lay me down; let my ashes grow a tree, when I die.”

I remember these words, but more so I remember the emotion—gut wrenching melodies bursting like a tree blossoming into color, squeezing out its last bit of energy into that final leaf which eventually floats away in the crisp winter wind. It was, to say the least, a song of life.

And what were the other words said?

Class.

Privilege.

Race.

Infertility?

They chatter about my mind like conversations on a train. The noise of the train is there as well—the rustling of the jackets, the clearing of the throats, the low hum of the projector. Of course, there are the certain sentences one happens to hear because they include such words as “thigh” or “Felonious Monk.”

For example, the one unforgettable sentence by Andrea DePetris ’10: “My grandmother taught me to walk tough.”

Or what was that one about Viagra and global warming? Wait, was it actually about global warming? You see, the rumble of the train interferes. The moments of song, though, stick out like the announcer’s voice over the speaker—jolting the crowd from our caffeine-deprived coma.

Have you ever heard a song that makes you feel guilty? I can’t recall one. Perhaps straightforward emotions are the power of music: jubilation, despair, absolute anger… But have you ever heard the “I’m a queer ally” song? (Well, there’s Dar Williams, but Wesleyan confuses even the best.) Or how about the “I’m a white man aware of my privilege, let me sing to make you feel better about yourself” song?

Never.

And why not? Because music is a selfish act (think of the beginning violinist). At times skill transcends the individual singer creating some objective truth. At these times music appears be a self-less act, but don’t be fooled. It is primarily selfish. So why then, did the Wesleyan higher-ups invite a musician to be the keynote speaker at the MLK celebration?

Okay—they’re both black. They’re both old(er) and fought for equality, desegregation, and a more just society. Yet while MLK was proudly offering his just words to the ITS-looking Wesleyan students of yore and shaking their hands, Reagon was…raising her voice in song?

Yet, it is the singing I remember. When Reagon sang about hopelessness and change I heard and I understood and I remembered.

5,000 people in jail? 5,000?

Perhaps irrationality, emotionality, the “feminine” argument—call it what you may—is the argument of the future. Of course there is a place for rational penmanship and scientific endeavors (i.e. Judd Hall … check out the basement, it’s creepy). But it was the trembling tones of Bernice Johnson Reagon that taught me about the language of music, and not Daniel Albright of the “Does Music Translate Anything?” lecture.

During this week of climate change awareness, when the walls of the science tower are plastered with double-sided posters and my inbox is bombarded with e-mails, my tranquil state of mind has remained untouched. My emotional pond will not be rippled until we collectively (and literally) belt out the woes of the carbon cycle. Thank you, Bernice Reagon, for making this clear.

When I die, let my infertile children sing a song; let them sing in four-part harmony coloring the world with momentary bliss.