Everybody Just Wants To Be Free

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(Henderson student musicians with artist educators, Laura Barron and Liesa Norman)

Most art starts with a concept.  A single moment that moves an artist to action.  Then, slowly, given the necessary space and time to create, ample resources, willing participants and a receptive audience, that spark only very rarely has the great fortune to ignite into something beautiful – something bigger than the artists themselves – something greater than perhaps the artists could have ever imagined at the start.  The multi-school songwriting project, Voice to Voice, led by Instruments of Change facilitating artists, Laura Barron, Dave Thompson and Liesa Norman in collaboration with 120 Grade 4-7 students from four diverse Vancouver primary schools (Henderson, Mt Pleasant, AR Lord, and York House) resulted in just that kind of surprise.

This project began with a series of arts-infused dialogues between these imaginative students and the facilitating artists.  The inquiry activities were aligned with the current Canadian federal election, allowing students the opportunity to consider issues related to values, preferences, and liberties.  Rather than to politicize the discussion, artists asked the students to self-select into small groups connected to their own prioritized values (Sports, Arts and Community, Education, and Environment).

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(Theme words brainstormed by Mt Pleasant students)

Subsequently, students had fun exploring a variety of musical exercises that primed them to become performers and lyricists for their own original song and rap.  These included body percussion games, beat-boxing, imitating instruments with their voices (as in the popular video game Singing Monsters), inventing lyrics about animals to go along with a Moose Juice rap, and building Rhyme Banks around theme words related to their project concept, which they ultimately collectively agreed was about “freedom.”

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(A “Freedom” poster painted by Henderson students)

With their new values-based small groups and their budding musical talents, these students then collaborated to write lyrics for an original song that they ultimately entitled, Everybody Just Wants To Be Free.   And based on a variety of exploratory exercises designed to determine the students’ musical preferences, they agreed that they would co-create a funk-rap pop song.  

IMG_1498(Mt Pleasant students working on their lyrics with their teacher, Jug Sidhu)

To inform the lyric-writing process, students were asked the question, “If you were to run for Prime Minister, what would you pledge to include in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?”.  The students collectively agreed on a set of principles that each freedom needed to follow: to be Kind, Respectful, Safe, and Fair (which eventually became the lyrics for the bridge of their song). Then, finally, each group of approximately 6-8 students (4 groups per class) wrote 2, 4-beat rhyming lines representing their unique responses to this inquiry.  These original lyrics all contributed to the final 4-verse song, with accompanying intro, chorus, bridge and break.  And the sentiments expressed in their lyrics ran the gamut from profound to hilarious, as one might expect from 9-12 year olds.  A small sample of their verses are included here:

If we’re free to go to space, it won’t be a disgrace,
we can all be a part of the big space race!

We should be able to play sports inside and out
Cuz if we do we’ll have a very good time and we will shout!

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We should all be free to stay up late and have parties,
so that we can eat a lot of salty chips and Smarties!

We need the right to have a bath in the kitchen sink,
especially when we think that we really do stink.

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As Voice to Voice is about bringing unlikely communities together in artistic collaboration, Instruments of Change sought to find a way in which students from geographically, culturally, and socio-economically diverse areas of Vancouver could work together on a creative project, without having the opportunity to be in the same place at the same time.    So, to effectively achieve this goal, Instruments of Change decided to produce a multi-school, collaborative song and music video recording, with the help of digital technology.  Over a three-month period, the artists led individual sessions with each of the four schools (which covered all of the inquiry, songwriting, audio and video recording activities).   Then, masterful producer, Dave Thompson, skillfully edited all of the footage to equally represent the entire group of youth performers in the final product.  Here are a few shots from the recording sessions, where these students got to work with state-of-the art equipment, in their own school environment, using Dave’s mobile recording studio.

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AR Lord, Dave with Henderson, Laura with Mt Pleasant, Henderson, and York House students in recording)

Additionally, the youth contributed all of the storyboard, costume and set ideas for the music video, to capture the essence of all of the meaningful lyrics that they created, which resulted in some exquisite images and ideas.

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(Mt Pleasant students expressing the rights that they wish all children could enjoy).

Ultimately, Voice to Voice gave these youth, some of them for the first time ever, a chance to collectively share their voices, their critical thoughts, and their passions in a truly professional artistic product that they are eager to spread to a wider audience.  So, please enjoy watching and listening to Everybody Just Wants To Be Free, below.  And forward it to everyone that you know who wants to be free too!

Full lyrics:

RAP VERSE:
Everybody’s room should be an arcade
cuz they can go there to drink lemonade!
We should all be free to eat popcorn as a treat,
whenever we want, cuz it can’t be beat!
In our world we can all live in a manor for a house,
with really big windows and a very big mouse!
If we’re free to go to space, it won’t be a disgrace,
we can all be a part of the big space race!

CHORUS:
Everybody just wants to be free.
If kids ruled the world, imagine how free we would be.

RAP VERSE:
We all want WiFi, everywhere we go,
but we surely don’t want it when it’s really super slow.
Animals should all have the right to be,
so we should all protect them and let them be free!
We should be able to play sports inside and out
Cuz if we do we’ll have a very good time and we will shout!
We’re from different cultures but we can wear anything we like,
Torn socks, green hair, or funky glasses for our bike.

CHORUS:
Everybody just wants to be free.
If kids ruled the world, imagine how free we would be.

BRIDGE:
Be Kind
Respect
Be Safe
Be Fair

RAP VERSE:
Snakes are pets and dogs are too,
we should all have a lot of them, isn’t it true?!
We need big green trees to supply our air,
so we all should work together and give them care!
Yeah, in our world, everybody gets a chance,
so each of us can do our own amazing dance!
We should all be free to stay up late and have parties,
so that we can eat a lot of salty chips and Smarties!

CHORUS:
Everybody just wants to be free.
If kids ruled the world, imagine how free we would be.

RAP VERSE:
We should all be free to sleep anytime,
and it should be fine to sleep like a mime.
We need the right to have a bath in the kitchen sink,
especially when we think that we really do stink.
We should all plant a tree in the middle of our house,
cuz it’s not like your gonna be jousting a louse.
It would be cool to have a water slide right down the stairs,
as long as we remember not to ride the slide in pairs.

CHORUS:
Everybody just wants to be free.
If kids ruled the world, imagine how free we would be.