“There’s a fire starting in my heart.
Reaching a fever pitch, it’s bringing me out the dark.”
The opening lyric of Rolling in the Deep – one of the great songs, off one of the great albums of the past decade, Adele 21. How could a then 21 year-old girl from London find the musical connection for everyone from teenagers to people in their sixties, seventies and even older?
Everyone has been impacted and affected by her music. Doesn’t matter if you’re into rock n’ roll, heavy metal, country or hip hop, you get what Adele is doing on every level. Spiritually. Emotionally. Her deep connection with the audience is forged by the simplest of ideas: she sings her soul. No BS. No filter. Just her. She’s real.
And at less than three decades old, she’s already timeless.
It’s precisely what I wrote last week about Frank Sinatra. He sang his soul and the music has resonated for half a century. Adele is doing it her way too. She doesn’t just want to entertain us. Adele helps us to understand the human condition by baring her own humanity on the stage. It’s what all the legends have done.
So how does this tie-in to Areena?
Our members are constantly telling us that after they mentor a young person or deliver a meal to a housebound senior or put up a food pantry shelf that while, yes, they feel better, they also come away from their experiences with a deeper understanding of themselves. Many find they are more compassionate, more sympathetic than they ever expected to be and it drives their desire to do more.
Why? Because the experience is real. When we find real – like Adele, Sinatra and the experiences Areena provides – we want nothing else ever again. And as our members embark on a mission to make their communities better places to live, we’ll be able to look back at our efforts and, to paraphrase Adele, at least we can say that we tried.
Art Gurwitz
Founder, Areena
Author
