By Steve Harnish

Music, when boiled down to its essence, is about relationships; mostly, the performer’s relationship with the outside world. Love songs, protest songs, ballads, even genres as diverse as experimental jazz and children’s songs are all ultimately about relationships. Some on a grand scale; think of Woody Guthrie’s guitar painted with the words- “this machine kills fascists” or on a very small scale; a mother singing a lullaby to her child.

How music and community mix has always intrigued me. There are many ways a song can connect a community. Recently, our neighborhood had the tragic Peterborough St. fires which left a once vital, thriving block a shell of its former self. Some students at the William McKinley Preparatory High School across the street were effected strongly enough that they decided to turn their feelings into music.

The students were strongly affected because the block was so much a part of their daily lives. They knew the workers and business owners, if not by name, by face. They were people that were part of their daily lives, part of their community. Whether it was stopping by to get a soda after school or a run by a teacher to get burritos or Thai food for a special treat for the students, the block thrived because of these restaurants. One student I met even was evacuated from a nearby building the night of the fire, so to her it hit particularly close to home. The school was closed the following day, to help shelter those displaced from the fire.

“The students needed a way to process this and wanted to show the community they cared,” said Janet Lynch, the art teacher for the school. So they decided to write a song and make a video to reach out to the community.

Daniel Rocha, music director, laid down some beats and several of the students got busy writing ideas for a song. One student in particular, a sophomore (name withheld by request), did the majority of the lyrics and sang the rap on the song. They then used some staff photos and received permission from the Boston Globe to use some of their photos and put the piece over the series of photos. The effect is very moving. The refrain:

“Hard when you lose something that you established/You work so hard and you bend over backwards/ To see it burn down right in front of your face”

The video was shown at a community meeting about the fire in February, sponsored by the Fenway Community Development Corporation, and was so well received that plans are to have the students perform the piece at the group’s annual meeting this spring. It’s since been posted on You Tube if you want to watch for yourself. Search You Tube “Fire Song 0209”. Contact Janet Lynch or Catherine Clark at the McKinley School if you are interested in purchasing a CD—all proceeds will be going to the uninsured victims of the fire.

Ms. Lynch took me down into the basement to get a CD and show me the space where they made the CD. If you listen to the very professional quality of the song, you would be shocked if you saw the raw space where they cut the track. No sound booth, no fancy equipment, just a basement in local high school. Maybe someday the community can return the favor and help the school get some better equipment.

Furthermore, the Fenway CDC is applying for a grant to have the students work on a mural and a time lapse photo project of the restoration of the block over the summer. The mural would beautify the faceless plywood that now sits there as a daily reminder of the tragedy.

Turning something tragic into art; expressing their feelings through words and music and making the community richer for it is one of the higher ideals of music and these students captured that ideal perfectly.