Bacharach Rap

Awoke at 3:30 am in the predictably jet-lagged morning with Burt Bacharach’s What the World Needs Now going through my head. My muse was awake and on the prowl and I knew there was no more sleep for me. I have enough good sense to accept dictation when that voice is awake, knowing that if I’m lazy and said, “Oh, I’ll remember it later” that I will regret it. One definition of an artist is one who obeys his or her Muse and interrupts everything as needed to recognize the moment of inspiration.

So there was a rap circulating in my sleepy head and it’s a weird dynamic, because I don’t really listen to rap and though my respect for the art form has steadily risen, I’m well aware that all my raps are kind of “wannabe” because I don’t have the right accent or rhythm. I keep to the old iambic rhyme pattern of “yada-yada- yada-yada-yada-yada moon, yada-yada- yada-yada-yada-yada June” and speak with some pseudo-rappy accent that is way off the mark. So in my emerging dream rap, I got off of that style and felt like I was tapping into a new dimension and all of it over the Bacharach song. I like it. But the irony is I can’t perform it. And somehow I think it’s hard to impose your rhythmic schemes on another rapper who actually feels the style. But still I’m going to try. A couple of 8^th grade students in mind and then maybe even my son-in-law.

Below is the first draft of my Bacharach rap. Enjoy!

Yes, what the world needs now is love, sweet love and it always has and it always will,

But I’m talkin’ Love with a capital L, can’t build it on no landfill,

Need a solid foundation for our shook-up nation,
Some things like education, meditation, arbitration, mediation,

Tone down the medication if you want rejuvenation,
Dial up the expression, put some truth into confessions,

No lyin' Jeff Sessions who 'can’t recall,' no shopping mall can move aside the pall

Of Sandy Hook and Parkland and Columbine,
and you take care of yours, I’ll take care of mine.
No, we got to do this together, cause the climate change weather

Don’t care who’s black or white, don't care who’s wrong or right, who’s left after the fight 
cause what’s the point if you win the battle for your kin

And lose the war for human kind, just feed your greed and pay no mind to being kind.

Yes, what the world needs now is love, sweet love and it always has and it always will,

for Ahmed, Maria, Tanisha and Bill

So let’s get to work, let’s get to play, let’s bring down the Tea Party and the NRA

Give the schools more funds and take away assault guns, more thinking, stop drinking

the Fox News Kool Aid, have school paid for kids who are happy, forget the test and tryin’ to make the best score, for there’s so much more to life well lived,

More fun, more art and kids and teachers doin’ their part to recognize

that ain’t no social justice if it’s just us, ain’t no America for Americans in this world of interconnection, ain’t no personal protection or evil projection

No more gerrymandered election, no not-funny joke of dark money from the brothers Koch,

More reflection and more detection of truth from lie, more connection between you and I.

Yes, what the world needs now is love, sweet love,

that beautiful thing we can never get enough of,

so let’s bring it, let’s sing it, let’s give it, let’s live it.

Cause what the world needs now is love, sweet love.

Always has and always will.