today-only-happens-once:

“Found/Tonight” by Ben Platt and Lin-Manuel Miranda launched midnight on Spotify and proceeds go to the March for Our Lives movement. I have spent the last half hour listening to it on loop and I have some initial reactions that I’d like to express here. I don’t know how much of this will make sense, because I am just so deeply emotionally moved, but I’m going to try.

These are two songs from two popular and recent musicals that, at least in some ways, smashed normal convention of musicals (not to mention wining numerous Tony Awards, Grammy’s, etc.). Two songs that many Gen X kids know and relate to and recognize. 

But the choice of these specific songs (”The Story of Tonight” and “You Will Be Found”/”For Forever”) creates a narrative that, at once bold and understated, positions the legacy of the March for Our Lives movement as one of finding each other.  Of standing together. Of not giving up on one another. If a legacy is indeed “planting seeds in a garden we never get to see”, then all the more imperative that we demand change now and find it with one another through finding each other. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda said “Here’s your March”. I can think of no better anthem for this movement, for this generation that is loudly demanding change. 

“When you’re broken on the ground, you will be found. So let the sun come streaming in, ‘cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again. If you only look around, you will be found. And when our children tell our story, you will be found. They’ll the story of tonight. No matter what they tell you, tomorrow they’ll be more of us telling the story of tonight.” -Found/Tonight