Mike

Ball

Read Mike's bio and previous columns here

August 18, 2008

Another Chance to Hear Some Lost Voices

The teenaged boy sits in a green resin chair across the stage from me, on the other side of a circle of nine teenaged boys in green resin chairs. The stage lights of the otherwise empty theater bathe us all in a warm glow, here in this maximum-security juvenile detention facility.

His name is “Dallas.” His blue shirt means that he is “transitional,” getting toward the end of his sentence. If all goes well and his judge agrees, he could be out in a few weeks or months, tackling the next challenge in his journey back into our world.

I first met Dallas more than two years ago, in one of the first incarnations of the roots music –writing programs that have come to be known as Lost Voices. We were sitting on this same stage, in these same chairs. He wore a yellow shirt then, signifying among other things that he was going to remain locked up for the foreseeable future.

I don’t know what he did to get here – we never ask or talk about that. I only know that he’s here, and he has a poem to share with us.

I tried to show you what was under my mask

Because I know you have a lot of questions to ask . . .

Josh White, Jr. looks at me and raises his eyebrows. Forty years ago, when I was weaning myself from rock & roll and discovering folk music, I studied this man’s guitar licks. I learned the familiar version of House of the Rising Sun that his father created. Now Josh is my good friend, and one of my partners in translating the thoughts of these young men into song.

“What about something kind of Spanish, in A minor?” I ask.

Josh nods. “Yeah, that sounds good. Go for it.”

A few minutes later, when I sing Dallas’s song for the group, his face lights up in the smile of a young child who has just caught the first tinkling refrain of an ice cream truck coming down the block. The other young men, some in blue shirts, some in yellow, all clap and congratulate Dallas. “Yeah, man!” “Good Job!” “Great song, man!”

It is significant that these guys live in different “pods” within the facility, meaning that they were convicted of different types of crimes, or are at different points in their sentences. In past years it was generally considered a bad idea to mix members of different pods – they just did not get along. That has never seemed to be a problem with our groups. Here, they vigorously support each other’s ideas and work.

One of the other boys, whose poem we sang to the same warm response earlier in the session asks, “Can we do our group song now?”

During the first few sessions of this Lost Voices program, we brainstormed and wrote a song as a team, blending the words and ideas of every group member into a work that we can all hold as our own. Past groups have written songs like Eddie’s Choice, about the decisions incarcerated kids will have to make when they “get out,” and How Many Years, about the world-changing courage of people like the young student who stood in Tiananmen Square and faced down a whole column of Chinese army tanks.

This time the group song is ironically titled Lost Cause. It speaks of the boys’ feelings of frustration as they try to grow through their mistakes and change their lives, while most of the outside world seems intent on writing them off. In another week, the group will be on this stage, performing Lost Cause and all the new individual songs for their peers and the staff of the entire facility. Josh and I grab our guitars, and we all stand to sing. Here is the first verse and the chorus:

They say we’ve proved we’re second rate,

A waste of time and treasure.

We’re locked up for the things we’ve done,

Then back in court we’re measured.

As time here passes, the clock stands still,

But the world is racing by.

Our voices lost in a roaring sea;

I sit in my room and cry.

They’re building more prisons, and tearing down schools.

They’re throwing young people away.

We’re nobody’s angels, but we’re nobody’s fools;

We’re just not who you saw yesterday.

At the end of the song, we repeat last line of the chorus, with one small change:

We’re just not who we were yesterday.

Thanks to the at-risk young men and women I’ve had the privilege of working with for the past few years, neither am I.

On Sunday, August 24, 2008 hundreds of people will attend the second annual Concert for Lost Voices on the shores of  Whitmore Lake, MI, a benefit that will raise money so we can continue our work helping incarcerated and at-risk kids find themselves. You can get more information and donate or purchase tickets at www.lostvoices.org.

Lost Cause, lyrics by the Maxey Boys, music by Josh White, Jr. and Mike Ball, Copyright © 2008, all rights reserved.