Facing History & Ourselves

Singing for Human Rights

Beth Healey

[Bingo Fridays]According to peace educator Arn Chorn Pond, music is "a really basic human right" that gets to "the core of what it means to be human." Arn’s belief is embraced by the Ipswich, Massachusetts-based band Bingo Fridays. Comprised of four teenagers, Jake Pardee, Zach Gorrell, Pete Iannitto, and Aaron Zaroulis, the band believes that musicians have a responsibility to use their music to make the world better. Bingo Fridays’ music encourages listeners to participate in “building up the good in the world.”

The band also uses music as a way to directly benefit particular causes. Through performances, these four musicians have raised thousands of dollars for various charities supporting such causes as breast cancer research, Hurricane Katrina recovery, and aid for survivors of the 2004 tsunami.

Most recently, Bingo Fridays recorded a CD of songs partially inspired by Facing History and Ourselves’ Choosing to Participate exhibit in Boston (ctp.facinghistory.org). The idea for one of the songs came from a famous poem by Pastor Niemoller, "First They Came...." The song encourages people to take positive action. Another song addresses the idea that “Everybody has a story,” while a third looks at the genocide in Darfur.

Bingo Fridays is generously donating proceeds from the sale of the CD to Facing History and Ourselves. Like the title of the exhibit that inspired them, Bingo Fridays is a band that truly chooses to participate in making the world better for all of us.


Interview with Bingo Fridays, June, 2008
Can you tell us some specifics about each of the songs inspired by Choosing to Participate?
When faced with the challenge of creating musical compositions that reflected the values of Facing History and Ourselves, our group immediately found itself in a unique and different situation. Previously we had written songs discussing world issues, but had never written something so specific; songs that encouraged participation directly.

Our first song, “What If” was written by our bassist Pete. The song was unlike any other song we had written before, because there was more singing than usual. Our compositions typically have structures that feature a great deal of improvisation on guitar and saxophone, so having a regular “songwriter” styled song was a new experience.

Pete was inspired to write this song when he visited the Facing History and Ourselves Choosing to Participate exhibit at the Boston Public Library. The exhibit highlighted the repetition of injustice in the world from genocide to genocide. The chorus of the song was inspired by Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem "First they came…" The poem is about Niemöller, a controversial German Pastor prior to World War Two, who sees whole groups of people killed for their beliefs and doesn’t speak out, then finally when he is singled out, no one is left to help him. The main lyric of the chorus of our song is “What if it were you, what if it were me.” This expresses that even if a problem is not in our own lives it could and may eventually be in the future. It is a song of compassion that encourages awareness.

The next song on our CD was called “Face the Facts”. This song was written by out keyboardist Zach. The song features a more traditional “Bingo Fridays” sound. We realized in order to attract a large audience to our music; we needed to write up-lifting, happy songs while still retaining strong, encouraging messages. Zach wrote the lyrics for this song to show that people are people no matter what they look like or where they live and should be treated equally. The chorus to the song goes,

“People come from different places,
People have all different faces.
One thing that you should know
Is there’s a story to be found”

This shows that every person has some sort of incredible story and that most would never know unless they got to know them. This song was written to encourage the listener not to judge a person by their outside but to instead learn about them.
The final song on the CD was written by our guitarist Jake a few years ago. It was the only song that was not written specifically for the CD. The song was written to express the deep pain and frustration many feel about the genocide in Darfur and the concept that after every episode of human destruction the world sees, the world always responds that “Never again” will genocide occur. In the song Jake sings:

“If 'never again' has always meant not until the next time,
Will this world ever make any steps forward?”

In saying this, we are explaining how our promises of “never again” have not been kept and still today we have genocide and injustice in the world. This song is a plea to the world to look at our actions and to carefully make choices that will determine our world’s future.

What about Choosing to Participate motivated you to write some songs?

We have always been involved with raising money for various charities. In our first few years of performing in public, we raised several thousand dollars to benefit the victims of the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and breast cancer. These were all events that we planned, promoted, and performed at several events. Participating in making the world a better place has always been very important to us. We were never the greatest athletes or anything like that when we were young, we just had a deep fascination in music and everything related to making sound. In fact, we’ve never really considered being anything other than musicians.

Choosing music to be our tool in order to encourage participation was not a difficult decision. Our parents grew up in a time when music really was changing the world and having an incredibly significant political impact. We were raised with songs about the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and many other political topics. Because we were raised with this music, participation in world affairs has always been important to us, making it natural for us to want to use our music in order to encourage others to participate.

What musicians or songs have inspired you to think about social injustice and Choosing to Participate?

There are many musicians that have influenced us, many of which have used their music in order to promote participation and bring social injustices to the attention of the world. Artists like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and many more were all significant influences for us in terms of writing politically driven songs.

Bob Marley may have had the most significant political impact on our group, when considering encouraging participation. Marley was a musical genius and managed to write “happy sounding” music that appealed to all, while still writing songs with incredibly strong political messages. American white-collar executives on their yachts were all of a sudden singing along with songs like “Burnin’ and Lootin’” and not even understanding Marley’s political meaning. However, those who were truly listening were getting the message. One song of his in particular has had a very strong impact on our music politically. The song is called “War” and the lyrics are actually from a speech given to the United Nations by the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. The opening lines read:

Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war

Later in the song…

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be pursued, but never attained
Now everywhere is war

Bob Marley’s choice to include these passages of Selassie’s speech has been an inspiration to us. In one of our own songs there is a lyric, “There’s too many people with far too much to say, they say tear it all down, and hope for better days.” There are so many people in the world who are “tear down” people, who simply see a problem and wish to completely destroy it, but all too often we do not see actual solutions for the problems of our world. We want our music to be similar to our influences in the sense that it encourages participation in building up the good in the world rather than simply tearing down the bad.

Why are music and humans rights connected?

Music and human rights are connected because music plays a significant role in our society. Music is used to evoke many different emotions and thoughts. Slaves in Africa and the United States used their songs in order to communicate and to uplift themselves and others throughout their hardship. Music is incredibly popular in our society and therefore famous musicians have access to very large audiences. Many artists choose to take advantage of this by informing the masses of the social injustices throughout the world.

Music festivals like Woodstock in 1969 brought people together in a single location to stand united for their beliefs. Music is not the only art form which has a connection to human rights, however. Visual artists like Pablo Picasso used their abilities and talent to teach others about the social injustices throughout the world, as can be seen in his painting Guernica depicting the German bombing of a Spanish city. Art and human rights are connected because the arts are the sources of inspiration to many.

How can music make a difference?

Music is one of the only art forms that has been and will continue to be universally popular. Although it is unfortunate, many people in the world do not take much time to appreciate and understand visual art and literature. Despite this, music continues to be incredibly popular throughout the world. Many children in our society are infrequently exposed to the various art forms. However, music is inescapable; it is in our cars, elevators, stores, and even in our bathrooms.

It is the responsibility of the artists of the world to use their music in order to promote making our world a better place to live. We feel we are no exception. Every song recorded, book published, or painting painted that encourages participation, brings us one step closer to global unity.