I came across this tidbit on social media:
The song? Nearer My God to Thee.
If I was an executive at CNN, would I have chosen that song? Probably not. I thought they would have gone with Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. The irony being the world's not very wonderful.
Then I thought, "what would I have chosen?" Young Fred would have easily chosen REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It.
But that song is way too lighthearted. So I texted Ted, Beacon of Speech's YouTube co-host, and asked him what song he would have chosen, he answered me back immediately, like he was waiting for the question, the Beatles' Here Comes the Sun.
That's actually a really good choice. But, for me, the right amount of beauty, but again slightly too optimistic.
So I thought, "darker" and came up with Mushroomhead's Sun Doesn't Rise.
I watched to video with the closed captioned lyrics on, it's the perfect choice for me, but not for the masses. Unfortunately Sun Doesn't Rise is too realistic.
So I took a long break and listened to dozens of songs, looking for the perfect mix of beauty, desolation, and sparseness. I came up with Yob's Marrow.
I was ready to put the article to bed and thought to myself, "if I was Black, would I know who Yob was?" Probably not. So I put my thinking cap back on. Beauty, desolation, and sparseness, from a Black artist. I immediately thought of Funkadelic's Maggot Brain.
Let's jet into the future. 90 Year Old Fred has lived a good life and is feeling retrospective.
I would probably pick this obscure Nine Inch Nails (remix) for posterity.