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We ask God’s blessings for food we eat;
those who toil to grow it deserve our prayers too.
In 1985, Farm Aid musicians took their beat,
rocking in donations for those who grew
in debt, not just crops, as mortgages came due.

Mellencamp cried out, “97 families lost 97 farms!”
Just the local tally of the Reagan years' unprecedented foreclosures
that threatened the nation’s bread baskets, sending out alarms.
Farmers’ financial disclosures
were bloodied by high-risk exposures.

We ate the fruit, but cursed the price.
Bounty still filled the market’s produce section,
even as running a farm became a roll of the dice.
A Kansas tornado would have had less convection
than growers who were denied debt protection.

Bailout money was tossed to the auto maker,
where corporate jet vacations sparked ire.
But farmer suicides climbed, blood on each acre.
A national famine might have transpired
if to save farmers, rock musicians had not conspired.



Inspired by John Mellencamp’s Farm Aid song “Rain on the Scarecrow.”  An Indiana farm boy, Mellencamp recruited Neil Young and Willie Nelson to organize the first Farm Aid concert in 1985, raising awareness about the loss of family farms.  The Farm Aid concerts have remained an annual event over the past 29 years, and as of 2014, the organization has raised over $45 million to help farmers.  I chose this song because it demonstrates the social consciousness of rock musicians.

Song is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNzRzZhR2Y

*Poem written November 8, 2014 for Kelly's "I Love Rock and Roll Contest.

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