Hawaiian guitarist Makana says he put his fears aside and listened to his heart when he chose to repeatedly sing his protest song, “We Are the Many,” to world leaders gathered for an APEC dinner Saturday. “At the halfway point,
Hawaiian guitarist Makana says he put his fears aside and listened to his heart when he chose to repeatedly sing his protest song, “We Are the Many,” to world leaders gathered for an APEC dinner Saturday.
“At the halfway point, I just had the urge to play it,” Makana, 33, told Civil Beat Sunday morning. “I didn’t want to be rude about it, but I wanted to sing this song to these people. At first, I was very, very, very nervous — there was Secret Service everywhere.”
The song and video had just been released Saturday on You Tube and Facebook.
The opening lyrics are:
“Ye come here, gather ‘round the stage, The time has come for us to voice our rage, Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage, To steal from us the value of our wage.”
“I received so many comments so quickly,” he said of the release.
“I mentioned to fans that I was going to play that night and the response was overwhelming to sing it. I thought, I don’t know, I don’t want to get in trouble, what if they shoot me, or, I don’t know what. I’m scared. But my friends said to just do what I feel.”
Makana, who had played at the White House in 2009, said he was asked by the White House to play background music for the exclusive world leaders dinner at the Hale Koa, hosted by President Barack Obama. Makana said he played from 6:45 until a little past 9 p.m.
He said he didn’t let his nerves get the best of him, but said “every time I’d think about playing it, I’d shake.”
He eased into the song.
“The people closest to me turned around and gave me a funny look,” he said. “But nobody really knew what to say. When I would get their attention, I’d back off a bit. It was like a cat-and-mouse game. I played another song, but then had about a half-hour left so I sang it again. I just mutated it into a symphony that just went on and on, and I kept changing the way I sang it for the remaining time.”
“I kept repeating the last line: ‘Till you do the bidding of the many, not the few. We are the many, you are the few.’” He wore a home-made white T-shirt that read “Occupy With Aloha.”
He also was interviewed by CNN Sunday.
The performance was featured on yeslab.org, a website that describes itself as “a series of brainstorms and trainings to help activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions, focused on their own campaign goals.”
Makana said he’d never worked with the group before and couldn’t recall how the partnership came about. He only learned he would be performing at the event when the White House called him two weeks ago.
“I don’t know how it happened. It’s not something I normally do,” he told Civil Beat.
• Honolulu Civil Beat is an online news source serving Hawai‘i. Read more at www.CivilBeat.com.
