John Prine, Bernie Sanders

If you or I were to open up our hearts there'd no doubt be at least one good song in there, and maybe more than one, but probably not whole albums of songs, really good songs that made people laugh and cry or just be amused for two or three minutes, the kind of songs other people would want to sing themselves after they heard this guy singing. And even if his voice is nothing special the songs he sings always have that special sound that no one else in the world knows how to make, because it's no one else's voice, it's all his own. Singing from the heart, John Prine could make a happy song sad and a sad song happy--and once his music stops it's all you and I can hear.

And then there's this other kind of singer, one we can't imagine ever really singing but who sings anyway, a political troubadour. He travels the country giving speech after speech after speech about social justice, income inequality, humane health care, climate change, using the same words over and over until he's raspy and hoarse and prone to heart attacks. The children seem to love him though; and others, like us, who listen to him speak know how rare he is, that someone of his character, experience, strength, vision shows up about every century or so. But Bernie's too independent, too old, too much of a loner, too much of a socialist, too unelectable to ever be our president. And so a chance is lost once again, but something of a song is left behind.