Eclectic set of songs to further discussion on themes of Inside/Outside and Haste/Lingering, as well as related Shabbat Hagadol themes.

"Sweet honey in the rock. Oh, it tastes just like honey in the rock"

-- Sweet Honey in the Rock, from 1976 (Rounder Records).

Gospel tune, see also Deut 32:13, discussed in Charoset and Apple-Trees

Bring near the day

that is neither day nor night.

Exalted One,

proclaim that Yours is day,

also yours is night.

Set watchmen over Your city

all day and all night.

Brighten as day the dark of night.

Kumi Ensemble with soloist, Daphna Mor.

And, speaking of watchmen...

Playing For Change link with more info on the musicians.

Lyrics to this song, related texts, and much more at Song Every Day

This group of women intentionally gather to sing hasidic tunes together. Raza wrote about how important it is to them to sing these tunes and why -- see Ayin Press. Does their experience make this music more accessible to others? Who is still outside?

Here's another project full of lovely music, collected as "Undzer Tish" [Yiddish for "Our Table."] Love the music; not entirely sure whose table "ours" is, and I am never quite sure if Yiddish is, or should be, my language.

Merry Clayton singing Neil Young's "Southern Man" live --

Clayton recorded the song in 1971. Lyrics here.

She was later asked to sing back up for Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" (a response to "Southern Man"). Here, from "20 Feet from Stardom," she discusses her decision to do that. Who is "outside" in this narrative? who or what is "inside"?

These are the Freedom Singers outside and inside. First, at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. and then at the White House in 2011. From left to right at the WH: Toshi Reagon (website), Bernice Johnson Reagon (SNCC bio), Charles Neblett (SNCC bio), Rutha Mae Harris (SNCC bio). (Cordell Reagon, died in 1996). Who was "inside" and "outside" in each setting?

WARNING: Be prepared for familiar "inside Washington" faces.

"There's a War Going On," a 1994 creation of Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) --

Partial Lyrics (couldn't find existing set, so transcribed by V. Spatz; fuller set here)

You don't have to believe me.

All you need to do is ask yourself

How in the world do they know?

Yeah, I hear it on the radio

You don't have to believe.

All you need to do is ask yourself

How in the world do they know

They don't know nothing about my brother

This don't look nothing like my brother

They don't know nothing about my brother

They didn't say he was a soldier

They didn't say there's a war going on

How could they not notice there's a war going on

-- Gil Scott-Heron, 1994 (fuller set of lyrics); all rights remain with his estate

Lyrics to "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" -- Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, 1965 -- at Genius.com.

Merry Clayton, with Darlene Love, telling Queen Latifah what she brought to singing back up for the song, "Gimme Shelter."