Song Title: Home to Freedom
Songwriter: Judy Klass
Brooklyn, New York
Source of Inspiration: Kindred
Author: Octavia Butler
How to reach Judy: judykwrites@aol.com
Judy's URL: www.judyklass.com
Quote from the songwriter:
This book captures how the sickness of slavery is part of
our inheritance and still affects and damages people today.
A lot of Civil Rights Era music drew on spirituals and slave
songs used to guide people north. I returned to that music to
show Dana’s disorientation, trapped between two eras.
The bridge is more in her modern voice; I could hear a keyboard
there. If the rest had a little more going on but was still
kept spare, with a steady beat, it could help show kids how
most modern forms of music have African American roots.
Lyrics to the song:
I’ve traveled so far, I can’t explain
I’ve got to get back to the future again
I’m going home to freedom
There is no star can lead me home
No drinking gourd that points to where I’m going
I’m going home to freedom
I’ve learned so much about what I’m made of
I’ve seen some parts of me I’m so afraid of
But I’m going home to freedom
We’re only made of flesh and bone
You’re flesh of my flesh, we all are so alone
I’m going home to freedom
No one here can really see me
Or know the heart of me
Can I make a clean escape
Will I have to leave behind a part of me?
The roots of this land, the child in my soul
The cradle must rock, the river must roll
I’m going home to freedom
And when I’m home, I can’t explain
My aching loss, this phantom pain
But I’m going home to freedom
Yes, I’m going home – to freedom
© Judy Klass
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