By this date 30 years ago I had already lost a half dozen friends. Others were being diagnosed weekly and struggling to cope with the inevitable.
Sweet Honey in the Rock recorded "Patchwork Quilt" on their "In This Land" CD and it's been my personal tradition to listen to this powerful song every year as I remember my friends and the good times we shared.
I couldn't find a Sweet Honey performance on video, but here is a stylized version by the young people at Goucher College.
More later.
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There is a candlelight procession through town culminating with a service of remembrance and reading of names at a local church. Even if I am unable to attend, I am glad it's happening.
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Although I didn't know this song I can feel something of the emotional pull it has on you. 30 years ago I don't think I'd known anyone who actually had died with AIDS at that point (there was a 'delayed reaction' in Europe anyway) but that was to change, especially over the following ten years.
ReplyDeleteThe song that brings me closest to lost friends, I suppose, is 'Sometimes When We Touch' - and specifically as sung by the New York Gay Men's Choir which visited Cologne when I was living there, including it is their programme. That would have been about 1989 and there was no specific reason to connect it with AIDS losses (as though we needed one!) its being performed at that time was profoundly moving. I have it on an audio-cassette of theirs - and I know that whenever I play it I'm going to be reduced to tears. But it's still so beautiful.
Thanks for sharing this one, though. It's a song that does full justice to the poignant memories of our lost friends.
lovely! thank you!
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