Song for the day

Yesterday I did an about turn on my plans for my indoor cycling classes today - Election Day. The class was scheduled to be 'fun', which generally means that we will do something like a simulation of a bike race, or I'll tell a story and ask the participants to create matching sensations and emotions using their bikes. I was originally planning to have them watch a video taken from a cyclist's point of view; they would have been riding through the German countryside on a breezy fall day.

But I couldn't bring myself to do something that inconsequential on a day that matters so much to everyone - all the residents of the world. So I decided that the theme would be 'hope and love'. I asked other instructors to contribute song suggestions and put together a very diverse playlist of genuinely moving songs. There was everything from instrumental Beatles to rap to metal and rock with some pop thrown in. I started the class with the song Hope which was the anthem of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and incorporates Nelson Mandela speaking.

I have already taught two classes today and the concept and music was a big hit. Here's the song we ended with.


The lyrics:

I hope that the world stops raining
Stops turning it’s back on the young
See nobody here is blameless
I hope that we can fix all that we’ve done
I really hope Martin can’t see this
I hope that we still have a dream
I’m hoping that change isn’t hopeless,
I’m hoping to start it with me
I just hope I’m not the only one
Yeah I just hope I’m not the only one

I hope we start seeing forever
Instead of what we can gain in a day
I hope we start seeing each other
Cause don’t we all bleed the same?
I really hope someone can hear me
That a child doesn’t bear the weight of a gun
Hope I find the voice within me to scream at the top of my lungs
I just hope I’m not the only one
Yeah I just hope I’m not the only one

Louder I cannot hear you
How can things be better left unsaid?
Call me, call me a dreamer
But it seems that dreams are all that we’ve got left

I hope we still have a heartbeat
I hope we don’t turn to stone
At night when you turn the lights off
I hope you don’t cry alone
I hope we stop taking for granted
All of the land and all of the sea
I’m taking a chance on loving
I hope that you take it with me

I just hope I’m not the only one
I just hope I’m not the only one
I just hope I’m not the only one