When I got to Whale Rock Music Festival the first person I met was a 9-year-old girl who walked right up to me by herself and said, “Are you, Michael Franti?” I said, “Yup, that’s me, who are you?” — “I’m Joselin and I play Ukulele and I know a lot of songs and I play some of yours.” We sat under an old Oak tree and I asked her if she’d play me one and she said she knew ‘Love Will Find A Way’. An excellent choice in these turbulent times.
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She pulled out her Ukulele and we started to sing it together. Her Uke playing was beautiful and her voice was confident. I was moved to hear her sing the words “This is a song for all kinds of people… the synagogue and the mosque and the steeple” and “Nobody’s born hating another person, a mad world puts that poison in us… but if we can learn to hate another person, then we can learn to love a brother or sister another mother or mister”.
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It gives meaning to me when I hear my songs and the ideas in them becoming part of someone’s life so much that they’d take the time, at such a young age, to learn one of them.
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I asked her if she’d like to sing it with me on stage that night – her response was priceless, “Stage? I LOVE STAGE!!!” So we did it as a duet that night in front of 3000 people!
Listen as my friend Joselyn reminds us all that LOVE is winning.
“And when you’re feeling like you can’t go on
Love Will Find a Way
And through the clouds and smoke and guns and bombs
Love Will Find a Way
And when the whole world falls on their knees to pray
That love will win today
Just keep holding on, holding on
‘Cause love will find a way”