Good To Be Alive Today – Michael Franti & Spearhead

Michael Franti has always been at his best when he’s motivated by a cause. The danger with politicising music is that too easily it can become a turn off when you’re forever harping on about what’s wrong with the world. In Franti’s case though his eternal optimism and predilection towards writing music that makes you want to get up and dance have proven to be an infectious formula in getting the message across.

Earlier Spearhead albums saw Franti addressing homelessness, AIDS, marginalisation, disenfranchisement, corporate corruption, world peace and a host of social issues but always with a view to empowerment. These days Michael Franti is still an activist, though his songwriting method has changed somewhat. Previously the songs would be developed with the band from the ground up, but recent Spearhead albums have taken a simpler approach with Franti writing most of his material as complete songs on the acoustic guitar, the results of which have seen him selling more records than ever before.  And while that’s found Michael Franti and his band a wider audience, for long time fans like yours truly that may not be necessarily for the better – certainly in my case I miss the harder edge of his lyrical bent and the funkier grooves of the band’s earlier work.

Michael Franti’s great strength has always been his ability to fill us with the notion that despite the status quo anything is still possible, which brings us to Good To Be Alive Today, from his new album Soulrocker:

“This world’s in crisis/we try to fight it/this changing climate, with scientists and politicians divided by it, so many ways we could solve it, but they will never sign it. This mountain’s crumbling down, but still we try to climb it”.

It’s Franti in familiar territory as he moves on to address gun violence, warfare, Ebola and ISIS but ultimately “everybody knows it’s all about the cash flow”.

Unfortunately though the song loses its impact with the simplistic sentiment of “What if this song was number 1, would it mean that love had won?”

It’s hard enough being a good songwriter, even tougher when you’re trying to find the right timbre on a host of meaty issues without drifting into a tag line that might come across like an advertising slogan. But then maybe that’s the point and maybe that’s what it takes to get a message across in the era of the all encompassing sound bite. It works for politicians, influencers and marketeers – why not songwriters? Whether you believe one song can make a difference or not depends upon your viewpoint, but the video’s final message of “the world needs you” encapsulates Michael Franti’s altruistic vision of unity in a way that so few of our leaders seem capable of doing without succumbing to their own vested interests.