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Commentary
‘Chasing joy’ with Maggie Rogers and 400 strangers
On a perfect early spring day in Brooklyn, I emerged from the L train and psyched myself up one last time. Rounding the corner, I joined a queue and made my way into a nondescript warehouse. The energy inside the cavernous room was electric, and the bathroom line was already long. Apparently, I was not the only one nervous to spend the next three hours singing with strangers.
I nearly talked myself out of getting on the train that morning. I’d just returned from 10 days on the road and wanted nothing more than to snuggle my dog. But a few weeks earlier, I’d signed up for Gaia Music Collective’s One Day Choir.
I’m what you’d call a singing enthusiast. I was talented enough to get a solo in my high school production of "Annie" in 1995, but not quite good enough to make the cut for the co-ed a capella group at my small liberal arts college. Still, nothing makes me happier than belting in the shower, in the car, in a karaoke bar. When someone else joins in? Even better. And so there I was, in a warehouse in Brooklyn.
Music directors Matt and Kenter seemed to realize that nearly all 400 of us kindred spirits had shown up alone. After a call-and-response vocal warmup, they focused on hot-wiring connections between strangers with a game of rose, thorn and bud (something positive, negative or hopeful that’s on your mind). There were shouts about springtime and falling in love, whispers about anxiety, depression and mourning, and the universal bud that we had all showed up today, ready to sing.
And sing we did.
Eyes dancing between the directors and our sheet music, we broke into a beautiful and complicated arrangement of the emotional rollercoaster that is Maggie Rogers’ “Light On”.
This song is a favorite of mine. The chorus — “If you keep reaching out then I’ll keep coming back / But if you’re gone for good, then I’m okay with that” — hits home, hard. I hear it as a stark and personal reminder that I’ve left the light on for all the wrong men for roughly 30 years.
We practiced the tricky parts and reviewed the harmonies. I found little joys in remembering how to read music and hearing my voice blend with my neighbor’s. After a few rounds, we sat down on the concrete floor to dissect the lyrics. It felt like a collegiate group project in poetry. Before long, every vulnerable bone in my body was triggered when we isolated the lyrics in the first verse: “Would you hear me out if I told you I was terrified for days, thought I was gonna break?”
Oof.
Feeling on the edge of breaking seems like the baseline for human existence lately. From the environment and abortion rights, to the crippling wealth gap and seeing the National Guard on the subway, the world is terrifyingly capable of breaking a soul.
For me, it’s also being a single woman at the invisible age of 45. I'm living in New York City to be closer to my aging parents, watching all of my friends with kids (and wondering if my dog is enough), while trying to find the balance between doing fulfilling work and earning a living wage.
Eventually our analysis go to the lead into the chorus, which repeats:“You should be so happy now!’” Eye roll. Might as well have told me to smile.
No matter how happy I might be in the moment, what I’m really craving — what I came to the warehouse to chase that day — is joy. Joy is so much bigger than the missive to “be happy.” It’s a sense of belonging, a state of being that reveals herself in connection, in community. For the past however long, that deep sense of joy had been a ghost. The pandemic killed my dream job, I’ve had my heart broken too many times to count, I’m still daydreaming about what I want to be when I grow up, and I live in a city of 8 million people at a stage in life where, in the same breath, I feel more confidently myself and more alone than ever.
Back in the warehouse, I let those lyrics wash over me. I felt them washing over all of us. “You should be so happy now” became a galvanizing punch in our collective gut. The sound swelled, 400 people singing with full hearts (and mostly on key). Any nerves were gone, replaced by chills. After three hours of practice we were ready to sing it one final time — outside, in a park, for the public.
Off we trekked, a giant band of merry music-makers, filling Bushwick’s sidewalks and turning heads in the otherwise quiet neighborhood. We filtered into a park and stood around the mosaic circle in its paved middle, kids on skateboards visibly annoyed that we were interrupting their tricks. Another call-and-response announced us to the crowd, and promised that we’d only sing one song, once.
The park grew silent. The skateboards and swings stilled. Even the wind died down in cooperation. Then we took a collective deep breath, and began. Softly, and then with confidence, squinting to see our sheet music in the sun. You could hear the smiles in our voices. The volume rose. There was stomping, clapping, and full-belly belting as the song crescendoed to the final “YOU SHOULD BE SO HAPPY NOW!”
And here’s the thing. In that moment, I was. Maybe not happy, exactly, but certainly, fleetingly, full of joy. It was everywhere.
After, I laughed with a new friend as we waited for the subway; we talked over each other about how much fun we’d just had. I listened to "Light On" on repeat the whole way home, and another line jumped out at me, one that had eluded me throughout the day: “I am finding out, there’s just no other way, that I’m still dancing at the end of the day.”
Back home that evening, I took those words as instruction. I danced around my apartment, shed a few tears of new-found joy, and, finally, snuggled my dog.
