If you are wondering whether a political movement is effective, follow the music.
The power of song to literally transform the brain and move people to action has given it a place of privilege in mass political actions. Almost every revolutionary movement in modern history—the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement, and so many more—has had an accompanying singing culture. ...
“It’s really hard to be an activist. It’s hard work every day,” says Savitri D of The Church of Stop Shopping. “When you’re with a group of people united around your values and you sing together, somehow it just makes it all possible.”
Elise Bryant, the founding director of the DC Labor Chorus, goes even further: “We sing because something inside needs to be expressed, something beyond words,” she says. “It has a power that no other human activity has, in that it stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, and it also alters our mood and allows us to go deeper in some ways that just talking won’t do.”
