Welcome to the PrisonCare Podcast!
I’m Sabrina Justison, founder of PrisonCare.org, equipping compassionate people to support the often-invisible people groups who make up a prison neighborhood - the inmate residents, correctional officers, staff, administration, and the families of all of these folks.
Join me for this week’s episode, and be encouraged to think, care, and respond as we explore the challenges facing prison neighborhoods everywhere.
Let’s support positive prison culture from the outside, because EVERYone on the inside matters.
http://prisoncare.org/community.html
Learn more about PrisonCare, Inc. and donate to our work
Time Markers:
1:52 The Meaning Behind the Song
4:02 Waiting and Breaking
4:59 The Lyrics, so you don’t miss a word
6:45 Anthems of a Moment in History
9:02 If You’d Like to Support PrisonCare Financially
11:40 THE SONG!!!!
14:16 Relevance
Intro/Outro MUSIC CREDIT:
We've Come A Long Way (No Vocal Version)
Exzel Music Publishing (freemusicpublicdomain.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Welcome to the PrisonCare Podcast!
I’m Sabrina Justison, founder of PrisonCare.org, equipping compassionate people to support the often-invisible people groups who make up a prison neighborhood - the inmate residents, correctional officers, staff, administration, and the families of all of these folks.
Join me for this week’s episode, and be encouraged to think, care, and respond as we explore the challenges facing prison neighborhoods everywhere.
Let’s support positive prison culture from the outside, because EVERYone on the inside matters.
Hello, friends. This is Sabrina with a special bonus episode of the prison carrot podcast, so we have something exciting going on.
Today we are about to celebrate our one-year birthday/anniversary. I don't know what you call it when it's an incorporation, but about a year ago we incorporated at PrisonCare, and it has been quite the first year since then!
We are so grateful for all of you who have become friends, or who were already our friends before we began this journey and who have continued to travel with us. Something very exciting, in honor of this special moment, is also happening on March 25th 2023, which is J’s 29th birthday, and today is the release of his original single called, “The Fool."
(1:52) “The Fool," is a really powerful song. Oh, and it was powerful when he first wrote it, and it was about the hopeless romantic. His original thoughts that led him to write this song were looking into his own personality, and his hopeless romanticism, always waiting, waiting for that fairy-tale love, and ending up with a broken heart in the process. And eventually falling in love, and staying in toxic love for so long.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for her to come around, and to love him back, and for it to become a healthy relationship, and his heart not only broke, but so did his mind.
But when we began to discuss the possibility of releasing an original song, and asking people who like what they hear to consider donating to PrisonCare — the song is free, but if you like both the music and the cause behind it, why not make a donation of any amount, even a dollar? — when we started talking about which song, because he's a pretty prolific songwriter, there were lots to choose from. But we decided to go with, “The Fool,” (for a number of reasons that I won't get into, because they're really not all that interesting), and then, as we were in the couple of months leading up to this release, we both began to notice how many layers of meaning there were in these lyrics.
And the song was no longer just about the hopeless romantics among us. The song was also about the literally millions of incarcerated individuals who are waiting and hoping that they're going to be loved, that people on the outside are going to continue to be in relationship with them, or are going to begin a new relationship with them, that they will matter to anybody outside the fence.
{ 4:02 }
The waiting and the breaking were such a picture of what incarceration is for so many people. And then, because we're PrisonCare, and because we think of prisons as neighborhoods, and we recognize the difficulty, and the challenges, and the pain, and the hurt encountered by everyone in that prison neighborhood, no matter which kind of uniform they wear, we began to talk about how much these lyrics also apply to Corrections STAFF, who are the most ignored, and unappreciated, and under-resourced branch of law enforcement in the United States. They keep waiting, and waiting, and hoping that people are going to add a float to the parade that has a float for police officers, and a float for firefighters.
{ 4:59 }
And doesn't really seem to remember that Corrections Officers are putting their lives on the line and are public servants, and are doing it at great cost to themselves. Are they fools who are dreaming of love and acceptance? That's what the lyrics in the song ask: Am I the fool who's dreaming?
In just a moment. I'm going to play the song for you, and I just want to make sure that you catch all the lyrics.
THE FOOL
copyright 2022 by J. Bloom Music.
All rights reserved.
You may share this song anywhere, but please credit J. Bloom as composer, lyricist, and recording artist,
and J. Bloom Music as the holder of the copyright.
Is this me? Am I the fool who’s dreaming of the lie?
You’ll never be mine
Sitting there, I watch your lips lengthen to a smile…
And I’m cold again
But I’ll wait, I’ll wait until you stay
And I’ll wait, I’ll wait until I break
She spoke the words I long to hear each moment I’m awake
But she can’t uphold
Promising “forever” is a joke at which I can’t ever laugh
But I’ll wait, I’ll wait until you stay
And I’ll wait, I’ll wait until I break
You always claim to be over the lies and games
But I am way too sincere for you
I want to be as relevant to you as you are to me
Am I the fool who’s dreaming?
I’ll wait, I’ll wait until you stay
And I’ll wait, I’ll wait until you stay…
I’ll wait, I’ll wait until I break
(6:45) Songs have a way of becoming Anthems for particular causes for particular, moments in history for times. When society as a whole sort of recognizes something together, something important, and rallies around that cause and comes together.
That’s what we're hoping for PrisonCare. We're hoping that more and more of you listening to The PrisonCare Podcast, and having these conversations with other compassionate people on the outside, we're hoping that this is going to lead to a moment in history that we're going to look back on, and we're going to know that people rallied around this cause of prison neighborhoods that need to not be toxic like this anymore, that need to stop hurting all of the people who live inside them, and that the way to bring about that, kind of change can begin with just the compassionate support of someone on the outside, who decides to reach in beyond the razor wire, just through letters, or through the encouragement of prison staff in the many ways that a Compassion Team might decide to take care of its adopted prison.
That's our. Hope. Our hope is that this song, “The Fool,” is going to become kind of the PrisonCare Anthem.
I mean, you remember back in the 80s, right? “That's What Friends Are For,” became the Support for AIDS Victims Anthem, right? Or Elton John’s, “Candle in the Wind,” right? That was another one that was so closely tied to supporting the victims of AIDS.
The women's movement, I mean, who can listen to Aretha Franklin singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T without thinking of how many women have a leaned into that song as they have fought for equal rights and for equal opportunities.
The peace movement, going all the way back to the 60s and 70s. You had John Lennon’s, “Imagine.” You had Bruce Springsteen's, “Born in the U.S.A.,” talking about veterans and their needs and the need for support.
(9:02) So songs have a way of pulling us together, and our hope is that the longing that you hear, when you listen to, “The Fool,” is going to help you connect that much more to the cause at PrisonCare, Inc.
The song is a gift to you. You can download the MP3 for free via PrisonCare.org.
You can listen to the song as many times as you would like on PrisonCare’s YouTube channel.
We are not selling this music. J wants you to have it as a gift.
But we are letting you know that it takes money to run a non-profit, to educate university students who will be the policymakers in the next decade, to get the kind of exposure that we need to really begin connecting with professionals in the Corrections industry, as well as the advocates for people who are incarcerated. Helping people come together and to support positive prison culture in a prison neighborhood, improving conditions for everyone who lives there.
So, if you would like to make a donation, you can use PayPal, you can use Venmo, you can use CashApp. You can write a check if you’re old school! And you can find all of that information on the PrisonCare.org website.
Okay, that's enough set up. Are you ready to hear this song? Here you go, friends. “The Fool,” by J. Bloom.
{ 11:40 }
SONG
{ 14:16 }
They want to be as relevant to us as we are to them. They want purpose. They want to be understood. They need purpose, they need to be understood. No matter what uniform, they're wearing.
People outside the fence need to learn how to support positive prison culture on the inside.
I hope you liked what you heard. There will be opportunities in the future to hear more of J's songs. Like I said, he's written a lot of them! But, “The Fool," is really special, and I hope that you will share it with others, tell them the story behind the song.
Don't let it just be, “That's What Friends Are For," let it be, “That’s What Friends Are For,” as the anthem of compassionate people who begin to care for victims of AIDS.
Don't let it just be, “The Fool,” the story of a hopeless romantic. Tell people the story of people who are often forgotten behind the walls of a prison neighborhood.
Thank you for caring, friends. Thank you for considering financially supporting our work. Remember that we are a 100% compassionate person supported 501(c)(3), nonprofit corporation in the United States, and you can get a tax write-off if you choose to give us a gift. We will make very, very good use of your money, putting it toward education and toward connections that will help bring all of the diverse and wonderful organizations together, the organizations that are out there already doing great things: advocating for incarcerated individuals, or lobbying for legislative change in our criminal justice system and our prison system, or bringing to light the tremendous suffering that has gone ignored forever in the lives of Correctional staff.
Those kinds of organizations are out there. They're doing great work and each of them is in its own lane. And PrisonCare is hoping to bring some of those together. To link arms so that we can accomplish even more.
Thank you for being a friend of PrisonCare. Thank you for being a friend of J’s, and thank you as always for caring about people inside prison neighborhoods.
+++++++++++++++++++
Thanks for listening to The PrisonCare Podcast. Be sure to visit us at prisoncare.org.
PrisonCare: equipping compassionate people to support positive prison culture from the outside, because everyone on the inside matters.
http://prisoncare.org/community.html
Learn more about PrisonCare, Inc. and donate to our work
Time Markers:
1:52 The Meaning Behind the Song
4:02 Waiting and Breaking
4:59 The Lyrics, so you don’t miss a word
6:45 Anthems of a Moment in History
9:02 If You’d Like to Support PrisonCare Financially
11:40 THE SONG!!!!
14:16 Relevance
Intro/Outro MUSIC CREDIT:
We've Come A Long Way (No Vocal Version)
Exzel Music Publishing (freemusicpublicdomain.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/