Show Notes
Six years ago, seventeen-year-old Finn Rooney killed himself in his home in Walden, Vermont. A couple days later, his community held a bonfire in the parking lot of Hazen Union High school in Hardwick. Hundreds of people came. Tom Gilbert, who organized the bonfire, asked his friend Heidi Wilson to write a song for the occasion. The song was called Hold On. She made sure it was a song everyone could sing. And they did.
Now people are singing this song all over the world. People in Minneapolis have been singing it to ICE agents. They’re singing it for their neighbors who are afraid to leave their houses. They’re singing it in Wales and Australia and Iralend in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis. Peole are singing it all over, to give each other some comfort and some courage. This is a story about where that song came from and where it’s gone.
More from Rumble Strip
When Bill was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he asked his best friend to help him die.
This is the third episode in a periodic series called Life of Kaye, which is about the life of Kaye, but also about what life mostly sounds like and feels like, day after day after day. This episode is called Summertime and dead batteries.
A few days ago we lost a power ballad hero. Bonnie Tyler is gone. She wrote my favorite song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. Years ago I forced people to listen to me sing this song and then I made a show about it and forced MORE people to listen to me sing it, and talk about turning fifty. So I'm playing it again in honor of Bonnie Tyler.