Keillor’s Rare Achievement
I have long been a fan of Garrison Keillor—author and radio personality who created the Minnesota Public Radio Show “A Prairie Home Companion,” and for many years, hosted The Writer’s Almanac on NPR.
Ever the stoic and dry- humored mid-westerner, his perspective on many things is a direct reflection of his roots in rural Minnesota, and similar to this neck of the woods, as well.
Though no longer affiliated with NPR, Keillor (now an octogenarian) has taken his radio show on the road and performs around the country in live, on-stage performances. Quirky skits are performed (replete with manmade sound effects) poems are recited, stories are narrated, songs are sung, and basically there is just quite a lot of merriment made. If you are over 40, you will recognize (and probably appreciate) the reminiscence of simpler, more wholesome times in much of the content.
I was fortunate enough to catch one of his performances in Colorado a couple years ago, and it proved to be an evening of good, clean entertainment. But my favorite part of the whole experience was the end of the show when Keillor invited the audience to stand and sing along as he sang what I would guess was a very deliberately selected group of songs.
Like a faithful church congregation, the crowd stood and obliged, some more enthused with the notion than others. But as Keillor led us through the old familiar refrains from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “This Land Is Your Land,” "My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and “How Great Thou Art” and “You Are My Sunshine,” and certain, more enthusiastic members of the crowd slipped into harmonizing, a surprisingly emotional undercurrent began to ripple through the entire theatre. Most everyone over the age of 40 still knows the words to these particular songs, even though they are no longer heard anywhere, or taught to the youth. They are tunes from a bygone era, though, like all great art, their power is as timeless as it is magical.
That night, in a theatre in Colorado, as a few thousand people joined together in song, so many delineating distinctions fell away. Ages, races, religious affiliations, political alignments, and so many other factors we like to use to differentiate ourselves from one another—effortlessly melted away at our feet, and for the space of about seven sublime minutes, we were all one giant body, filling the air with the sound of our humanness.
Keillor has had a long and very successful career, published numerous books, created several programs, advocated for the arts, and brought joy to so many, for so long, with his clever humor. Yet this one small act, probably added to his program as somewhat of an afterthought, for me, is his greatest work to date. To be able to bring people together ina moving and meaningful way, to engage their voices and touch their hearts and move their minds, reintroducing them to the humanity they’ve forgotten lives inside their fellow man, as well as themselves—well…that’s a rare achievement.
