Some pull their weight, while others just wait

The other night I wanted to watch a TV benefit concert for victims of the disastrous storms that ravaged the Midwest and South in late April. Musicians from all over the nation were going to donate their talents to inspire citizens to give freely to help their fellow Americans. It’s the kind of thing that serious musicians have done for generations, for music has the power to move others to courageous and unselfish action.

I tuned in to the channel a few minutes early, and in a supreme example of irony, the last music video that played on that station just before the benefit concert was a performance of John Mayer’s song, “Waiting On The World To Change.”

As a thirty-something musician with abundant musical talent, John Mayer has become something of a voice for his generation. Unfortunately, his musical talent has misled others of his generation to believe that he has something important to say.

He doesn’t.

His song, “Waiting On The World To Change” is considered to be some sort of protest song, but it is nothing more than a whining homage to helplessness. In it, he says:

We just feel like we don’t have the means

To rise above and beat it.

So we keep waiting,

Waiting on the world to change.

Can you imagine Woody Guthrie ever singing a song about social inequality that urges listeners to wait for the world to change?

Can you imagine Pete Seeger ever singing a song about injustice that proposes that the best course of action is to wait for the world to change?

Can you imagine Bob Dylan ever singing a song about the ravages of war by suggesting that we wait for the world to change?

Can you imagine a benefit concert for victims of Earth’s natural disasters in which musicians encourage us to wait for the winds of the world to change?

No, true artists understand that the world is never changed for the better by waiting. Unfortunately, John Mayer is not a true artist. He is simply a performer.

Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” words that Guthrie, Seeger, and Dylan took to heart. They did something—they sang songs that inspired their generations to rise up and change the world, even if change seemed impossible to a singular, powerless heart.

But Guthrie is dead. Seeger is now in his 90’s. Dylan is 70. The torch for the next generation has passed to men like John Mayer, a whining milquetoast with nothing important to say.

The world is filled with problems to sing about—famine, global climate change, religious extremism, and a war that has dragged on longer than any other war in America’s history. But can you think of a single protest song sung about this never-ending war? I can’t. Which may be one reason it is the longest war in America’s history.

Because instead of singing for action, musicians like John Mayer are whining and waiting.

When the last of the great protest singers of earlier generations has died, will younger performers like John Mayer ever realize that they have the power to move hearts and minds to fix the problems of the world?

Well, let’s just wait and see.

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