Put a little love in your heart

SOUL FOOD

Late in the afternoon on Aug. 20, 1964, I sat in a balcony seat at

the Las Vegas Convention Center and listened, nothing short of

transfixed, to Jackie DeShannon sing “What the world needs now is

love, sweet love.”

She was young and blond, pretty in a mostly white sheath dress

with huge black polka dots. She sang into a church-like hush until

she belted out the line, “Oh listen Lord, if you want to know,” and

then the refrain, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. Not

just for some, but for every, every, everyone.”

The crowd got to its feet. We clapped and we sang. We drummed the

beat with our feet. Many of us cried.

That probably sounds pretty sappy. But DeShannon brought the house

down. No small feat for an opening act to the Beatles on their first

U.S. tour.

I suspect a good part of it was timing. I know I had just lost the

first of my friends, the brother of a classmate, to the war in

Vietnam. I’m sure, in that convention center crowd, I was hardly

alone in that. We were all there to see the Beatles, yes, a

phenomenon in themselves, to be sure. But the spirit of that time

followed us like our shadows everywhere we went.

It was a time when our nation was tried and torn by acute

shortcomings in our civil rights, by the ever-present threat of

nuclear war and holocaust and by a more conventional war that was

exacting the lives of countless brothers and sons, fathers and

husbands, fiances and friends, a war that refused to be won or end.

During that summer of 1964 and for many years after it, I would go

to sleep listening to my transistor radio under my pillow, thinking

of our soldiers far away who dared not sleep. I would come home from

school and think of all the boys -- someone’s boys -- who would never

come home.

We wore the strain of those times like we wore our skin. We pined

for the good old days, the safe, secure old days. We longed for them

to come back to us.

We were ripe for answers, ready for solutions that held more

optimism than the prevailing doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction,

known in plain English as, “whoever shoots first dies second.”

For a few short minutes, if in pop-song simplicity, DeShannon

delivered.

It’s been a long time now since I’ve heard that song written by

Burt Bacharach. I never saw the movie “Forrest Gump,” which I’m told

featured the song in its soundtrack.

I haven’t heard DeShannon’s other song, “Put A Little Love In Your

Heart,” for a long time, either. But, over the last couple of weeks,

I’ve caught myself humming it, even more -- much to my surprise --

than Christmas carols.

Maybe it’s the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults and the

specter of war, not only with terrorism, but now, quite possibly in

Iraq, that has dredged those songs up from bottom of my memory. Once

again, I feel like I’m living in a nation that wears its anxiety like

a second skin.

It’s been quiet over these holidays, thank God. God willing, when

you read this, we will have made it through New Year’s Day without a

single plane hijacked or a bridge blown up.

At this point, it’s been so quiet I’ve caught myself waiting for

the other shoe to drop. And in these days of war drums beating, I’m

hardly alone in that -- not alone when I wonder if this is a calm

before the storm or wonder what will happen here if we do go to war

with Iraq.

This last week has been a kind of holiday blow out. Seven of the

12 days of Christmas, which are from Dec. 25 through Jan. 5,

overlapped the seven days of Kwanzaa from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1,

with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day thrown in for good measure.

Each holiday has its own way of taking stock of what lies behind

us, as do Ramadan and Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, which come not

long before them. Each has its way of looking into the heart of

humanity for ways to improve our lot. Each, in its own way, speaks of

love as the answer.

DeShannon wrote “Put A Little Love In Your Heart,” in 1969. She

says it’s “the closest to my being and how I really see things.”

“Think of your fellow man, lend him a helping hand, if you want

the world to know we won’t let hatred grow -- you decide -- kindness

will be your guide. Put a little love in your heart and the world

will be a better place,” the song goes.

St. Paul penned a similar message, though not to a catchy tune,

nearly two centuries ago:

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander,

along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one

another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

(Ephesians 4:31)

Love. Sweet love. What the world needed then is what the world

needs now.

God knows.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].