CREATE: Music to Heal Community

"Because the World needs Great Songs" — Richard Rogers

And the world needs great healing. Healing is not a cure. The cure to climate change, mental illness, parasites, pain, to loss, or to change can be found in the music. When I was standing at one big intersection of my life, a pastor told me, "There's more to your life than music." When I reflect on it, at the turn of this century, in my thoughts and in my words, what I have done and what I have failed to do — what matters is music. And although we cannot bring people's homes back from fire, or remove burdens from our lives, the soul can be healed through music. The choice I make as a songwriter to cause trouble or to bring healing is what I must do to bring healing. I wish I could say that I chose healing over trouble and in the midst of it — yet I can promise that I choose healing from now on.

When The Fever is High

We just had the Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival in our big Valley of the bookended Cliff towns. And our valley serves as a camp for those devastated by fire in the Aspen Acres Fire, which is approaching 100,000 acres. The music created an atmosphere conducive to healing. I do not say this lightly. As we walk Main Street and return to the Bluff this morning, when the tents are gone and the music stops echoing around the valley, a sense of loss and mourning prevails at the base camps. "You bring the cool water, when the fever runs high." — Paul Simon, "Something So Right."

The World Needs Great Songs

Because I am called to tell you, Because I am here to sing

Because I don't know a better way to pray

to bring it to every living thing

I can see a world surrounding

what is right and what went wrong

I will write and sing this morning

Because the world needs great songs

While the rain is falling down

on me — I am more aware

And the pain is not hard to see,

You need to know we care,

So I sing it all around you,

Investigate what has gone wrong

Nurturing all nature

The world needs great songs

I am sorry how we made it

And whatever comes along

I promise to use my voice

to write a healing song

No matter where you're going

Our heart song carries on

And if I can write and sing your story

Pour out this song to everybody

If I can be used to heal the body

the world needs great songs

Richard Arnold Beattie

A Musical Life

July 14, 2026

Westcliffe, Colorado

CORE Respondents through Community Organizations for Responsible Entrepreneurship

Email: richardbeattie809@gmail.com