Earth Doctor / Climate Troubadour

Never Going Home

NEVER GOING HOME                D-F#dim A G D

Out on a moonlit evening,                            Dmaj7  Em Asus
You’d swear you feel her breathing,         F#dim B7 Em Asus
Feels like you’re never going home.         G- Asus4-     D-F#dim A G D
Rain on a rooftop falling,
You hear the angels calling.
Feels like you’re never going home.

Sometimes you can’t help crying,
The world you know is dying.
Feels like you’re never going home.
I know your heart is broken,
And words are just a token,
Feels like you’re never going home.

BRIDGE
Hard times are coming, baby,                   G  A
Hard weather too.                                      D G
But put your hands together and            Bm Bm7
Gonna see you through.                           Em Asus4     

Come sister and come brother,
Take shelter in one another other,
Like you are never going home.

                                                             ©Doug Hendren 2016

What’s it about?  Back when this song was written, there was no discussion of what I was thinking of as “climate grief.” I first came across the idea in Mary Pipher’s lovely little book “The Green Boat,” wherein she refers to an increasingly common problem for her clients, which she called “mid-traumatic stress.”

Now the theme of “eco-grief” from watching the natural world slip through our grasp is showing up everywhere, and particularly in young people. One colleague recently captured this well as a simultaneous sense of grief and “lack of agency” – that we see the world unraveling but feel powerless to stop it.

Part of Mary Pipher’s book describes the citizens of Lincoln, Nebraska banding together to oppose the infamous Keystone XL pipeline, which I describe in my song “The Heart of Nebraska.” Elsewhere, she describes the therapeutic value of people joint hands to work together even against such a formidable problem as global climate disruption.

My wife Nancy and I heard Bill McKibben speak a few years ago in New Haven, Connecticut. In a small voice, one young woman in the audience asked, “what can I do alone?” Bill’s response was worth repeating: “The best thing you can do,” he said, “is don’t do anything alone. Do everything together, as part of a group. This is a collective problem, and will only be solved by collective action.”

In the meantime, we all need to look out for each other.

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