Encore Presentation: Songs About Solidarity

In this episode of A Symposium of Popular Songs, which originally aired 22 September 2025, we listened to songs about solidarity, one-half of the foundation of Catholic social teaching. Send me your…

Michial Farmer

July 6, 2026

In this episode of A Symposium of Popular Songs, which originally aired 22 September 2025, we listened to songs about solidarity, one-half of the foundation of Catholic social teaching. Send me your song recommendations at symposiumofsongs@gmail.com! I’ll be back with a year of new episodes on Monday, 3 August.

0:00
The 77s, “Smiley Smile” (Pray Naked, 1992)
2:22
Reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church
4:50
Curtis Mayfield, “Keep on Keeping On” (Roots, 1971)
10:01
Reading: Ernest J. Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men
13:19
Michael Jackson, “You Are Not Alone” (HIStory, 1995)
18:59
Mavis Staples, “You Are Not Alone” (You Are Not Alone, 2010)
22:49
Reading: Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society
27:37
Okkervil River, “Family Song” (In the Rainbow Rain, 2018)
32:43
Helen Reddy, “Candle on the Water” (Pete’s Dragon, 1977)
36:18
Funkadelic, “I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody’s Got a Thing” (Funkadelic,
1970)
40:08
The Arcs, “Stay in My Corner” (Yours, Dreamily, 2015)
43:16
Reading: Richard Adams, Watership Down
46:27
Bill Withers, “Lean on Me” (Still Bill, 1972)
51:20
Pretenders, “I’ll Stand by You” (Last of the Independents, 1994)
55:21
Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Dolly Parton, “When We’re Gone, Long Gone” (Trio II, 1999)

Michial Farmer

Michial Farmer is a poet, essayist, and history teacher. He is the author of Imagination and Idealism in John Updike’s Fiction (Camden House, 2017) and the translator of Gabriel Marcel’s Thirst (Cluny, 2021). He lives in Atlanta.