Tracy Chapman’s first album came out while we were living in Germany. This song, “Talkin’ ’bout A Revolution,” was one of several favorites from the album. We quickly became Chapman fans, and her second album cemented her status in our minds.

“Talkin’ ’bout A Revolution” seems apropos for this mild winter Wednesday. The White House released its budget. Since a budget was signed a few days before its release, the WH budget does little as far as being a law, but it provides insights into their thinking, and the thinking seems to be feed the rich, starve the poor, cut the arts, and increase the world’s largest military and nuclear forces into a larger force. Depressing thinking.

I think Chapman understands the gist:

While they’re standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

h/t azlyrics.com

In short, as larger numbers of common Americans have less to gain by maintaining the status quo, and the status quo moves into more conservative modes that favor wealthy individuals and corporations, there’s less vested interest for the multitudes to maintain the status quo.

There will eventually be change. History shows that revolution and change is a dance. The time and beat vary, as do the moves. Sometimes it’s a structured box step, forward, sideways, backwards as changes take place.

That seems to be the dance we’re doing now.