Early this morning, while everyone was still sleeping, I sat down to browse through some John Denver videos on YouTube. I know just about every John Denver song by heart and can follow the lyrics because I've memorized them. I was excited to see a few songs that I haven't heard before and I was able to pull up the lyrics to follow along.
I stumbled upon a YouTube recording from the Biography channel that looked back on the ten years since John Denver's death.
Bam. A door shuts.
The video isn't captioned and there's no way for me to access what's being said. There are no closed or open captions available for it. I find more and more videos on the John Denver search list that I want to access. I attempted to lipread a few of them, and learned from one of them that John Denver played at someone's birthday party for his final performance.
I attended two of John Denver's concerts without an interpreter-- this was before I knew sign language. Nothing could compare to the concert that I went to in 1994 at the Star Theatre in Indiana. When we bought the tickets, we requested interpreters and a clear view of the stage. The manager was wonderful at that time--she put us in front row seats, provided excellent lighting and even delivered a letter from me to John Denver and attempted to set up a meeting afterwards. John acknowledged the interpreters during the show and smiled at us-- a smile that I'll never forget. At the end of the show, he looked over and said that he regretfully couldn't meet with any fans afterwards as they had to head to the next city.
I'm sad that I'll never get to meet this wonderful guy whose songs I could hear when I was growing up and still can enjoy today. I long for the day that I can access all the wonderful John Denver videos on the internet with captioning.
I only hope that the dream of a fully accessible internet will come true.
So today, I'd like to share one of my favorite songs, I Want to Live. Here are the lyrics, courtesy of Lyrics007:
There are children raised in sorrow
on a scorched and barren plain
there are children raised beneath the golden sun
There are children of the water,
children of the sand
and they cry out through the universe
their voices raised as one
I want to live, I want to grow
I want to see, I want to know
I want to share what I can give
I want to be, I want to live
Have you gazed out on the ocean
seen the breaching of a whale?
Have you watched the dolphins frolic in the foam?
Have you heard the song the humpback hears
five hundred miles away
Telling tales of ancient history
of passages and home
I want to live, I want to grow
I want to see, I want to know
I want to share what I can give
I want to be, I want to live
For the worker and warrior, the lover and the liar
For the native and the wanderer in kind
For the maker and the user and the mother and her son
I am looking for my family, and all of you are mine
We are standing all together
face to face and arm in arm
We are standing on the treshold of a dream
No more hunger, no more killing
no more wasting like a way
It is simply an idea
and I know its time has come
I want to live, I want to grow
I want to see, I want to know
I want to share what I can give
I want to be,
I want to live, I want to grow
I want to see, I want to know
I want to share what I can give
I want to be, I want to live
I want to live, I want to grow
I want to see, I want to know
I want to share what I can give
I want to be, I want to live
I want to live, I want to live
