July 23, 2001

 

PACK UP YOUR SORROWS

  Mike's Comment
of the Week
     
  Cool Site of the Week
     
  Comment Archives
     
  Industry Links
     
     
     
     
     
 
SEARCH
  Send us e-mail
    Mail Us
 

Mimi Fariña, much better known as Joan Baez' little sister, than for her own accomplishments, died on July 18, 2001, at age 56.

Although a singer, songwriter, and performer in her own right, she could never escape the shadow of her much better known sibling, or even that of her late husband, Richard Fariña, a firebrand who died in 1966 on Mimi's 21st birthday.

Richard certainly had all the necessary revolutionary credentials. He got kicked out of Britain on charges of gun-running for the IRA, and was part of Castro's army in Cuba, or so the story goes. But, this firebrand flamed out, leaving his young bride with yet another identity not of her own making--widow.

Richard and Mimi released two albums in the 1960's, and that about did it for her recording career, which was just as well, since the folk scene dried up around the time that the Beatles appeared in the United States. Still, she was to contribute, and touch people's lives in a way that transcended selling vinyl, cassettes, or CD's.

Mimi was the founder of Bread and Roses, a San Francisco Bay Area organization that brings live music into prisons, hospitals, shelters and other sites of institutionalized life. The idea for her organization developed from an experience she had in her early teens. She saw her sister perform at a mental hospital, and noted that a near-catatonic woman began to hum along.

"It was an incredible moment...It was probably the first time I saw the impact music could have on a person confined to an institution," she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1995.

Bread and Roses has grown from its original $19,000 budget to an annual operating budget of $1 million and a slate of 500 shows a year. Its scope has now gone well beyond music, with comedians, jugglers and magic acts offered, and its model has also been widely copied across the country.

"Mimi filled empty souls with hope and song," Baez remarked after her sister's death. "She held the aged and forgotten in her light. She reminded prisoners that they were human beings with names and not just numbers."

To be sure, there is a wonderful precedent for what Mimi did...

Then the righteous will answer him and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?"

And the king will say to them in reply, "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:37-40)

One is tempted to think that even the young Mimi, with her husband still at her side, was beginning to question the mindless Leftist radicalism of the 60's, as she intoned certain lyrics of their most famous song, "Pack Up Your Sorrows."


No use roaming, lying by the roadside
Seeking a satisfied mind
Too many highways, too many byways
And nobody's walking behind

But if somehow you could pack up your sorrows
And give them all to me
You would lose them,
I know how to use them
Give them all to me


Perhaps, more can be accomplished by helping others bear their burdens, than by disruption, politics, and photo ops. Too bad that more of her 60's contemporaries never grew up, and are dispensing the same bad medicine even today.

How much of Mimi rubbed off on her older sister, we may never know, but Joan revealed a spiritual dimension when she said of Mimi, "She finally won her battle with cancer."

Indeed. YOUR sorrows are now packed up. Rest in peace, Mimi.


 

Last Update:
Copyright ©1996 - 2002 Interscan Corporation. All rights reserved.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.