I am getting close to be done with the rework of Book 1, Star Horizon. It’s been a slog.
Getting close to the end, Kor, a protagonist, faces his Darkest Hour. He loses a friend.
Below is an excerpt of the rewritten text:
A poignant Earth tune called. Without thinking, he let the words of “Imagine” tumble forth.
The Chair approached, and his skin tone shifting into thoughtful green grays. “What does this poem mean?”
“I hear a cry for togetherness. Beauty and death, wonder and grief, abound in this place, enough to shatter the purest heart. I sing for Noi. I sing for the human race you plan to kill.”
Originally, I had used “Strange Fruit” as the song.
An odd Earth tune called. Without thinking, he let the words of “Strange Fruit” tumble forth.
The Chair approached, shifting into thoughtful green grays. “What does this poem mean?”
“Not my place to say, but I hear unnecessary loss—brutality by genteel people. Beauty and death, wonder and grief, abound in this place, enough to shatter the purest heart. I sing for Noi. I sing for the human race you plan to kill.”
I was referencing a Billie Holiday song that I’ve heard a couple of times. I wept. The song was powerful in its emotional tone and in its restraint. It’s so powerful, I have not listened to it for a long time. But I remember it. I carry it around. And I wanted to honor the song by including it in the novel. Did it need my honoring? No. It was for me about showing respect to a song that impacted me at such a deep emotional level that I cannot bear to hear it again lest I break into weeping.
I can’t use much of the song under the Fair Use rules…I’ve included the first couple of lines. I recommend to anyone to give it at least 1 listen:
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
My intention above was to link the lynching of black men, sometimes even boys, to the way humans are treated by the Commonweal (alien alliance) in the novel. It was a way for me to honor our shared humanness and to do that through the song. I might have switched out “odd” for “poignant”. I used “odd” in the original text because to Kor it is an odd song that he does not fully understand…which I wanted to be clear that I was not in any way trying to claim a kind of ownership of it.
But I was using a song about black men and boys getting murdered in a Billie Holiday song.
So I checked in with the editor.
If I offend, I want it to be intentional. And here, my intention was quite the opposite.
But I don’t always know the rules. People these days get offended and triggered by all sorts of things.
Language has in many ways become weaponized and Orwellian-ized.
Egos are fragile. Many people want to make others responsible for how they feel (very much a losing strategy).
There is a “gotha” culture with a horde of empty people waiting to pounce on others with shame-attacks.
It’s because they hate who they are. They want others to hate themselves.
It is the world we live in and there are situations where I will push against that.
But not here.
The editor recommended against using “Strange Fruit”.
There is a sadness for me. Hence this blog.
I’m following the editor’s advice because such things are for me uncertain ground. My intent is to honor, and if that’s not how it would be received, indeed, perhaps the opposite, then using the song would not align to its meaning.
And it’s a song that rises to the level of sacred.
It’s possible “Imagine” will not make the final cut. I’ve got 1 more file to work through, then an overall check, and a proof so it could get changed during that time—Lennon’s song is about the pain of disharmony (what I get from it) whereas Holiday’s song is about unnecessary loss (among other things)—so there are a couple of different ways I could go.
I did choose “Imagine” with an intention—because of its irony, because we will never be one, we as humans are separated by many things, our identities are more important than our souls.
So I chose it because “Imagine” became a kind of lie that I could not use the song that most called to me.
Love and Peace
Breath to Fire
