Wake Up!

Wake Up!

John Paul Derryberry

Wake Up! A behavior we all do all the time, yet when it comes to waking up to new knowledge, new cultures, new ways of doing things, we often hit the snooze button for as long as possible. As a result, sometimes we never manage to turn the alarm off and wake up to fantastic new ideas, philosophies, and cultures that we know little about. Waking up was the challenge I faced a couple of weeks ago.

My wife set up a "pick a song a day" based on daily criteria for the month of June. We got to the day for an Asian American artist and I was stumped. I didn't have one off the top of my head like almost every other category on the list. I would have to do some research, some deep diving into music I was unfamiliar with, and frankly, the first thought was, way too much work. It was embarrassing for me, a music lover, not to have an Asian artist in my wheelhouse.

The sting of recent hatred of Asian Americans, stemming from a weird place, prompted me to find the time and enjoy the journey into the unknown. We are mad at Asian Americans or Asian immigrants because of a virus from China that they have zero responsibility for causing. Let alone the fact that lumping every Asian country and ethnicity into a singular group shows the profound lack of knowledge about that part of the globe. I guess that's what we are now, looking for reasons to hate other people—looking for places to lay blame because so many of us are sleepwalking through our alarm clocks.

So I'm down the YouTube rabbit hole exploring different artists from various Asian countries when I stumble onto Run River North and their song, "Wake Up!" An American/Korean indie folk-rock band from Los Angeles, California, produced, recorded, and created a song I couldn't get out of my head. A vinyl record purchase a week later, and Run River North is lighting up my house. I'm humming Wake Up and a couple of their other tunes on my long runs in my head.

A lot is going on in society on both the micro and macro level around not being awake to taking in new information, new people, new music from different cultures. Somehow, the idea of not connecting to another group unless they conform to our rules and customs has become an excellent trait to display. That's the exact opposite of whom we should be. I'm glad I found Run River North, a reminder of how people I've never met and probably will never meet, found a way to write and create music I connect with. So maybe the point for their song "Wake Up" is different than what I took it to mean. It doesn't matter, though; the fact is, I did. I hope others wake up and start to understand the power of connection because disconnecting is killing us.