Spirit of Life

In 2015, McDade described the 1981 origin of “Spirit of Life” as follows: 

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"I was leaving some late night organizing meeting, driving through the streets of Boston with a friend. I said to her that I felt so dry—like cardboard that had sat in an attic for many years. I just didn’t know if I could go on. We sat until she squeezed my hand, opened the door, and got out. 

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I drove home, went into the dark house, and without turning a light on, made my way to the piano. If I don't know how I feel about something, I usually find out if I sing. What I wanted more than anything in the world was to remain faithful: faithful to all the movements of people who are willing to take the piece of clay of their lives and put it into forming something for the whole.

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In that moment, I was crying out to something bigger and larger than myself. We don't always get ourselves through it totally alone; we know that. I began to sing, and this is the prayer that I sang. It wasn’t composed; it wasn’t written; it was sung into being. The next day I wrote it down, and it has made its way in the world."

Ecofeminist singer-songwriter Carolyn McDade spent more than four decades writing music to accompany and support her work of organizing activist women (and some men) around justice issues. Realizing that the “movement songs” of the sixties did not include a woman’s experience, she set out to fill that gap. With attention to social and international concerns, she grounded anti-war, anti-racist, and earth-care activism in a clear feminist perspective. Her life’s work includes fifteen recordings and more than 150 individual songs.