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Active and Healthy Living: Microphone
By Lee-Ann Cudmore Registered Acupuncturist | Call/text 902-300-5100 | valleyacu.ca
The scope of this article has shifted with our changing political environment. To start, if I was to use restraint, I would simply do a review on the artist and call the song “Microphone” – the best song you will hear this year. I could tell you of the beauty in her honesty, and the empowerment in her realizations, but that is not enough. Whether Kinley Dowling intended to or not she has created a song that is a rally cry, a marching song, for us to find our collective voices and call out injustice.
Whether it is the movement #believewomen which speaks out against rape culture, or #AmINext a movement surrounding the missing and murdered aboriginal women and children, #BlackLivesMatter, #LoveWins, #StandingRock, or #NoBanNoWall, the line “I’m gonna call you out” applies. Now more than ever, we must find ways to encourage our communities to be engaged in our politics, to gather together in the name of love, unity, and freedom, and stand up against hate, oppression, and injustice. We must act as one voice projecting as a microphone, collectively stating “I’m gonna call you outâ€.
Kinley Dowling’s song “Microphone†will seep into your bones and her message of empowerment will become part of you. Play it for yourself and your children. Let it be a gateway to important discussion; let it be your marching song. “I’m gonna call you out… I’ve got a microphoneâ€.
Kinley Dowling’s album “Letters Never Sent†features seven songs, all personal and vivid narratives. Equally noteworthy, her song “Golden Days†is perfection, a real love letter to the island. “Yeah, maybe you should come home. You’ve been saying it for so long. Let the water lift you from the city’s undertow. Yeah, maybe you should come home.†This singer songwriter from Charlottetown, PEI, is also part of the band Hey Rosetta! Her song “Microphone†is haunting, and timely. The song itself came from an anxiety that she would one day look out into the audience and see the man who raped her, from this fear, a song of empowerment was born.
Acoustic version youtube.com/shared?ci=
The album can be sampled and purchased at: kinley12345.bandcamp.com/
“Microphone”
When you held my hand that night and said “don’t you worry.â€
I thought I was the chosen one.
But you led me to the field and you kissed me so fast.
I couldn’t find my legs to run.
And the smell of your cheap cologne started to churn my stomach.
When I said “no†a thousand times.
You were a pirate in the night.
You took something that was mine.
How do you live your life thinking this is alright?
And if you come to my show, I think you should know, I’m gonna call you out.
For the rest of my life, you are smeared on my mind, but I’ve got a microphone.
My body went cold, I had to look away.
I was frozen in time, I felt a tear fall from my face.
I hoped someone would come and save me and I’d ride away forever.
Never to remember.
You were a pirate in the night.
You took something that was mine.
How do you live your life thinking this is alright?
And if it happened to me now, I would bash your head in.
I would scream at the top of my lungs. I’d go get all of my friends.
And if you come to my show, I think you should know, I’m gonna call you out.
For the rest of my life, you are smeared on my mind, but I’ve got a microphone.
And if you come to my show, I think you should know, I’m gonna call you out.
For the rest of my life, you are smeared on my mind, but I’ve got a microphone.

Yeah, I’ve got a microphone.
Lyrics printed with permission from the artist.
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