Do Not Say We Have Nothing

by Madeleine Thien

Sometimes, I think, you can look at a person and know they are full of words.

It was a time of chaos, of bombs and floods, when love songs streamed from the radios and wept down the streets. Music sustained weddings, births, rituals, work, marching, boredom, confrontation and death; music and stories, even in times like

these, were a refuge, a passport, everywhere.

“Remember what I say: music is the great love of the People. If we sing a beautiful song, if we faithfully remember all the words, the People will never abandon us. Without the musician, all life would be loneliness.”