What Wakes Me Up/Moccasin Tracks

What Wakes Me Up 14 Summer Music NOON WEDNESDAY

Wed, Aug 27, 2025

This Summer Music episode is all about the music that has been brought to me by guests who have graced our airwaves to tell us What Wakes Them Up! There’s a song in Spanish and one in Arabic, and those in English come from various places including Australia, Texas, Scotland, Jamaica, Alberta, Alabama, Ohio, Sweden, The Bronx, Panama and Virginia.

Annotated play list:

Journey in Satchanindana by Alice Coltrane

Beds Are Burning Midnight Oil and Patty Smith. Written by the Australian Band, Midnight Oil, it has become a cry for so many peoples whose lives have been altered and even wrenched away by capitalism and imperialism. Patty Smith’s powerful vocals on this version will rivet your attention to the lyric.

The War is Yours. Throne “We do the job you won’t. We make your food. We take it to you. We clean your house. The work is ours, but the money is yours. We’re the ones who fight. We’re the ones who die but the war is yours.”

Times They Are a Changin— Tracey Chapman, another great take on a classic. I just realized that I’ve included several covers, and maybe more.

Eddie Kendricks. My People Hold On, a lament coupled with a song of hope.

I Breathe Freedom Julia Butrous was a gift from Ali Jawhar, a native of Palestine who came to tell about the state of affairs there. The Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality hosted him at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, along with a film and two interpretative dance pieces.

Fig Tree, written and sung by Bob Marley’s step brother, Bunny Wailer is included just because it’s fig plucking season. Melissa Vaughan, my colleague here at WRIR, loves figs and I need to get some to her in the next week or so. In the Book of Micah in the Hebrew Bible, there’s a passage you have heard where the people are to turn their swords and weapons of war into plowshares and other garden tools, and study war no more. Then we will all have time to sit under our fig trees and prosper.

When It All Burns Down Ghost –speaking of Melissa Vaughan, she gave me this song when we made an episode about the history of our dear radio. For more on that subject, visit WRIR.ORG and look in the show archives for “Means of Production.” It’s a well done deep dive into Richmond Independent Radio from before we opened the doors up until now, when we are raising serious money to build our dream in our own building at 1806 East Main Street. It’ll be fully ADA compliant and modern and have a parking lot and plenty of space so we can have community gatherings! Visit https://www.wrircampaign.org/ support this major venture!

Please visit WRIRCampaign.org for all the details! Share this with your friends!

Water Is Life from the SunSing Collective. Laney Sullivan and Jameson Price, who are Holy River, are long time water protectors and instruments in the group Richmond Springs Collective. Find all those in your social media.

Joni Mitchell and Willie Nelson cover Cool Clear Water, written in 1936 by Bob Nolan, founder of the Sons of the Pioneers. He recorded it in 1941, followed by a Eddy Arnold, Tex Ritter and the Dinning Sisters, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Hank Williams, Hank Snow and the Sons of San Joaquin. This song certainly has the longest perogree of any song on this Summer Music episode of What Wakes me Up, first broadcast on WRIR, your Richmond Community Radio Station.

Plastico Willie Colon and Ruben Blades brought to me by Fern, an activist who spoke up for the LatinX community in Richmond along with the Defenders.

I dug up a diamond, Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler Just because diamonds aren’t as valuable as human lives.

Watching the Wheels Go Round Willie Nelson with Lucas and Michael Nelson.

Playlist