The nonprofit organization There is Hope Records is coordinating a compilation digital album release entitled “Strength” to fund the relief efforts in Japan. The contributions will go directly to Habitat for Humanity and other organizations via the Music For Relief campaign. Headed up by my friend Nick Katona of Melodic Revolution Records, There is Hope Records has also created releases to benefit the earthquake victims of Haiti and the oil ravaged regions of the gulf coast. (I’ve got a song on the Haiti compilation as well!)

The release will feature artists from all over the world, that have donated their music to try and help in some small way, to rebuild a country that has in many areas, been totally washed away.

I’ve decided to put forth a full promotional effort for the song that I’m contributing by adding it for sale in all of my outlets as a single. Every dollar that I collect from the sale of this single will be sent to the There is Hope organization. Hopefully, this will bring about even more exposure to the project and in turn raise more funds for the relief effort. Please feel free to pass this link along to any friends or colleagues that you think might like to contribute to the effort by purchasing music. Even if you’re not sure whether they may like my music or not, this is an important cause and a truly low risk way to get involved and help to make a difference.

The images we see on the news of this latest tragedy are in my opinion some the most surreal to date and I really wanted to contribute a very special song. This song  for me takes on a fairly profound meaning in the context of this release and I felt it was the right choice to donate it to the cause.

The meaning of the song “Hypnotized” for me refers to the desensitization of our society by various forms of media oversaturation. Anytime the media amplifies a story to such a large degree, they do so to capture our attention and keep us glued to the story so we don’t change the channel. After hours and even days of viewing the same repetitious images over and over, we are stripped of the emotional context into a state of  pure disconnection from what we see. It’s almost as if the images we are witnessing aren’t real. It might as well be fiction out of Hollywood.

The soul of our humanity becomes so entranced by the spectacle, that no matter how devastating the story that’s being engrained into our psyche, it feels only natural to break away for a commercial so we’ll remember that we need to go out and purchase some inane product that in all realities, we probably don’t need at all.

I know mass communications is our only way of disseminating information around the planet and the news organizations are only trying to pay the bills with all of the commercials but it all seems so packaged and commercialized at times that it’s easy to lose the humanity behind these tragedies.

Desensitized or not, all we have to do is pause from our busy lives to remember what has been lost. 

The link to my site containing the single for purchase is http://johnorrfranklin.bandcamp.com/track/hypnotized

The link to purchase the full release from There is Hope Records is
http://thereishoperecords.com/album/strength

Please take the time to add this album or at least the Hypnotized single to your MP3 collection and help out with a good cause. Strength is indeed what we hope to pass along to the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan. We’ll keep you posted on the progress of our fund raising and let you know how things are going  as we pass the contributions along.

Feel free to comment your thoughts about the song, your take on the situation in Japan or anything else that this post brings to mind here on the blog, on Facebook, or wherever, I’d love to start a dialog about any or all. Peace! – John