Before John Mayer was pissing people off with tone-deaf racial pronouncements, he was writing bullshit songs about complacent optimism. To wit, his “People Get Ready”-once-removed album cut of “Waiting on the World to Change,” which appeared on the radio this morning. And I thought, not for the first time, “Yeah, not exactly what Curtis Mayfield had in mind.”
I was slightly less irked an hour later when a media advisory arrived in my inbox. In it, Jack Johnson held forth on generational responsibility. “This generation has an opportunity to be remembered as one that confronted environmental challenges and took responsibility for the future,” Johnson writes. “With that opportunity comes the responsibility to speak out.”
Given the choice between soulful apathy and smooth finger-pickin’ self-importance, I roll eyes and side with Johnson. (Politically, that is. Forced to choose at gunpoint, I’d probably rather listen to Mayer’s music.) So I pass along news that Johnson, as well as DMB and Pearl Jam and Phish and Wilco and the Decemberists and Raphael Saadiq (Saadiq!) and plenty others have donated handpicked songs from their Bonnaroo sets to anyone who writes his or her congressman re: climate change, and the reining-in thereof. Track list, 17 strong, below the jump.
Of course, if you’re lazy, or you’re giving your rep the silent treatment, or you’re a climate-change denier who somehow still enjoys the festival circuit, click on the “Download Without Taking Action on Climate Change” button. We won’t tell anyone. And Mayer would probably approve.
- Bull Black Nova ~ Wilco
- Animal ~ Pearl Jam
- Inaudible Melodies ~ Jack Johnson
- Rapunzel ~ DMB
- Cath… ~ Death Cab for Cutie
- Fuel ~ Ani DiFranco
- Kill Devil Falls ~ Phish
- Banks of the Deep End ~ Gov’t Mule
- Delicate Few ~ O.A.R.
- Not Coming Down ~ moe.
- 100 Yard Dash ~ Raphael Saadiq
- Throwing Stones ~ Bob Weir & Ratdog
- And the Ladies Were the Rest of the Night ~ The Disco Biscuits
- The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid ~ The Decemberists
- Oh! Sweet Nothin’ ~ My Morning Jacket
- Happier ~ Guster
- Box of Rain ~ Phil Lesh & Friends