Save The World by Daddy Don't Go

When I was in foster care in the 1980s, my housemother Stella Okalue, who truly was momma for me, gave me the firm directive to write - not just to write, but to tell our story. Our group home of teens, who were wards of the state and had no place else to live, were facing the constant threat of eviction by neighbors. Stella understood the power of storytelling, its potential to persuade people to change the way they think. By the early '90s I'd left NYC for a fresh start in SF and hopefully to start a band. Although I was not a great singer, I had been writing songs and craved the collaboration of a band as opposed to the isolation of writing. Stella urged me to go back to school and write. You can change the world, she'd say, not joking. She believed in "her girls," all of us who had a thick file that followed us through various placements and institutionalizations. But to Stella we were the ones who could make an impact because of all that we'd experienced, along with the healing and training we'd received - to tell stories that invited people to care about what they might not have considered before.
The group home I was in eventually was shut. We lost. It was heartbreaking. But Stella would always say, "They have to know what happened, who we are!" It took me too long to be able to write these stories in my own voice, as I have done now that I'm completing my memoir.
But back in my twenties, when I was writing the stories which would become The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, I wrote this song, Save the World, about my hope of finding another way to make an impact. I don't really believe a story or a song can save the world. But I do know if one person connects, feels less alone, is empowered, then we are all stronger.
Lyrics
Once you been so cleft in two
You know a thing about the frailty of a life or two
I see a torrent leak where you barely see a tear
I put myself in the way of harm and work my way out of there…
And now I’m gonna save the world
I said I’m gonna change the world
My momma left me when I was way too young
And now I’m gonna fix the world
I said I’m gonna change the world
A wound aint clean until it’s bled its last
And some pain was made to stick around to the last
I’ve got powers to rise sly fears to your eyes.
I need to heal the world from what haunts me inside
And now I’m gonna save the world
I said I’m gonna change the world
My momma left me when I was way too young
And now I’m gonna fix the world
I said I’m gonna change the world
And now I’m gonna save the world
I said I’m gonna change the world
Credits
Laura Albert vocals
Geoff Knoop guitar/vocals/bass/production
Joey Kramer drums
Recorded: 1991

[@vickikeyak5824]

Good job, Laura Albert.Took Guts. Songs can change the world with baby steps!!!! Thank you, Vicki