Dan And Claudia Zanes Sing About Justice And Joy On Their New Album For Children

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Social justice, anti-racism and joy - these are the themes of a collection of original songs written by family musicians Dan and Claudia Zanes. Smithsonian Folkways has just released their first duo album. NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports.

MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Dan and Claudia Zanes' album "Let Love Be Your Guide" is filled with uplifting messages.

CLAUDIA ZANES: It's an anthem of love and joy and possibility and community.

DEL BARCO: The title track is an homage to the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET LOVE BE YOUR GUIDE")

DAN ZANES: (Singing) Well, I stood among you, and I knew.

DAN ZANES AND CLAUDIA ZANES: (Singing) Let love be your guide.

D ZANES: (Singing) It was clear what you were here to do.

D ZANES AND C ZANES: (Singing) Let love be your guide.

DEL BARCO: The husband-wife duo say they were inspired by the words John Lewis wrote in his final New York Times opinion piece, published the day of his funeral.

C ZANES: He says, so I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters. And let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

D ZANES: It's a manual for life right there in one sentence (laughter).

DEL BARCO: Love was the guide for Dan Zanes, who's known as the godfather of the children's music renaissance. The former lead singer of the 1980s rock band The Del Fuegos founded the anti-racist organization Constructive White Conversations. Five years ago, a friend introduced him to jazz vocalist Claudia Eliaza, a music therapist whose family is Haitian American.

D ZANES: We got together and sang that whole afternoon the day we met.

C ZANES: Yup, that's right. It's true.

D ZANES: I knew at that moment that Claudia was the person that I'd been dreaming about my whole life.

C ZANES: Aw (laughter). Yes, and we've been making music ever since.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS")

D ZANES: (Singing) Two different worlds.

C ZANES: (Singing) So many miles...

D ZANES: (Singing) We'll walk them hand in hand.

C ZANES: (Singing) ...Between you and me.

D ZANES: (Singing) Two different worlds.

C ZANES: (Singing) Can't turn away.

D ZANES: (Singing) In fire we're born.

C ZANES: (Singing) So much still unseen.

D ZANES: (Singing) In ashes we will stand and look ahead...

C ZANES: (Singing) The pain is real.

D ZANES: (Singing) ...To where our hearts are led...

C ZANES: (Singing) And we need to heal.

D ZANES: (Singing) ...To another life...

D ZANES AND C ZANES: (Singing) ...Instead of two different worlds.

D ZANES: It was important for us as an interracial couple to speak from our two perspectives, really with the belief that young people are hungry for this. Young people and families want to be talking about these things.

DEL BARCO: Their album of electric folk songs and singalongs. are in English, Creole and Spanish. There are touches of gospel, country, R&B and traditional Haitian music. Some of the tracks include rappers or the voices of their friends' children.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ARRIBA MEANS UP!")

C ZANES: (Singing) And if you're driving and you have a wreck, look out. You might get tickled on your neck.

(LAUGHTER)

DEL BARCO: Other songs were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. One urges people to build bridges, another to repay descendants of slaves.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REPARATIONS IS A MUST")

C ZANES: (Singing) All the children in their classrooms and the teachers they're asked to trust can write it on the whiteboard.

D ZANES AND C ZANES: (Singing) Ooh, reparations is a must.

DEL BARCO: The idea for this album began last year after the Zanes moved from Brooklyn to Baltimore. The coronavirus pandemic forced them and everyone else to stay home. But after George Floyd was killed by police, they joined the protests outside.

C ZANES: People were having these deep conversations about social justice and racial issues here in America.

D ZANES: People taking to the streets - that was love. People demanding change - that was love.

C ZANES: Yeah.

D ZANES: People asking other folks to wake up, to listen - that was love (laughter).

C ZANES: Right.

DEL BARCO: They wanted to contribute to those intergenerational conversations. So every day, they went online to sing folk and gospel songs.

D ZANES: We called it the Social Isolation Song Series. And for the next 200 days, that's what we did, never missed a day as things heated up in the world and as issues around racial justice in particular were just so much at the forefront.

C ZANES: Sometimes, we just couldn't find that right song. We had to write it ourselves.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING DOWN")

D ZANES: (Singing) Oh, white supremacy...

D ZANES AND C ZANES: (Singing) ...Coming down.

D ZANES: (Singing) Bars of oppression...

D ZANES AND C ZANES: (Singing) ...Coming down.

D ZANES: (Singing) Oh, hierarchies...

D ZANES AND C ZANES: (Singing) ...Coming down. Someday, we could all be free.

DEL BARCO: Fans responded to their anthem for social justice by recording their own versions. Here's the First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Medfield Choir.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

FIRST PARISH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST OF MEDFIELD CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, patriarchy coming down. Someday we could all be free.

DEL BARCO: Dan and Claudia Zanes say reaction to their music keeps them optimistic about the future.

C ZANES: There is no shortage of bad news around us. So where we can find joy and laughter as a revolutionary act - to say that, you know, we're not going to be overtaken by fear, pessimism.

D ZANES: You know, everybody's thinking about new beginnings and new possibilities. You know, so many things haven't worked. But what can we do to make them work?

DEL BARCO: In fact, "New Beginnings" is the title of one of the songs on their album. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEW BEGINNINGS")

C ZANES: (Singing) Everybody... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.