Saving all the Whales in the Sea – by Elizabeth Alexander

My newest choral concoction, a high-spirited, flexibly-voiced farce about some exceedingly like-minded people, has a “whale” of a backstory! The song was inspired by something that happened thirty years ago…and also right now…

In the early 90’s I attended a peace rally in Madison, Wisconsin. As the speeches got underway the air was filled with passionate arguments against militarism, which is pretty much what one expects at a peace rally. But as each new speaker stepped up to the podium the list of protests grew longer and longer. There were calls for affordable housing, clean air, organic farming, organized labor, environmental justice, human rights, and ending just about every conceivable type of discrimination. For the most part I didn’t disagree with what the speakers were saying…but I had shown up in support of just one thing: a peace rally.

As I was mulling this over, I happened to see a friend leaving the rally. She was visibly distressed, and I asked her if she was okay. As it turned out, one of the peripheral issues had cut deeply against her core values, and she couldn’t in good conscience remain at the rally.

I wondered how many other attendees left because they couldn’t get behind what seemed like a whole platform of positions? I couldn’t get that question out of my mind. And what does a composer do when she can’t get something out of her mind? She writes a song of course!

But what kind of song? Well, you know those inspirational songs where more and more individuals gradually join their voices together until they form a mighty chorus? That is not the kind of song I wrote. Instead I wrote Saving all the Whales in the Sea, which is the exact opposite song. You might call it a “song of attrition,” falling apart as the good intentions of a thousand like-minded people spin absurdly out of control.

I may have conceived Saving all the Whales in the Sea 30 years ago, but the theme is (sadly!) more timely than ever. As Senator Chris Murphy recently said to New York Times writer Ben Rhodes: “We ask people to agree with us on 12 things and if you only agree with 11, you’re not invited here — particularly if that extra thing is a cultural issue or an identity politics issue.”

Fortunately my church’s choir director Ahmed Anzaldua agreed about the timeliness of Saving all the Whales in the Sea, so after I updated the lyrics and arranged it for choir he took it on with gusto! The choir delivered a high-octane, no-holds-barred performance…and a little reminder about the folly that well-meaning people (like us) can easily succomb to.

Yours in the messy and the marvelous —

Elizabeth Alexander

Watch my church’s plucky performance of Saving all the Whales in the Sea!