PHILOSOPHICAL EGGS

The great Sylvester Stewart, Sly Stone, passed away yesterday at 82 (March 15, 1943 – June 9, 2025). I have loved his music since I first saw Sly and Family Stone perform “Music Lover/Higher” and “I Want to Take You Higher” in the movie Woodstock (1970) when I was 9 years old. The raw energy, grooves, and singing were just as infectious then as they are now.

But in this post I want to dwell on Sly’s words rather than his groundbreaking music. In the middle of “Music Lover” he takes things down and says:

“What we would like to do…is sing…a song…together. And you see what usually happens…is you got a group of people that might sing and for some reasons that are not unknown any more they won’t do it. Most of us need to get approval…most of us need to get approval, from our neighbors, before we can actually let it all hang down. And what is happening here…is we’re going to try to do a singalong. Now a lot of people don’t like to do it because they feel that it might be old-fashioned. But you must dig that it is not a fashion in the first place. It is a feeling. And if it was good in the past, it’s still good. We would like to sing a song called “Higher” and if we can get everyone to join in we’d appreciate it.”

He then sings “wanna take you higher” to which some 400,000 people yell “higher!” in response. In between the call and response efforts, he reiterates that many think they need approval to “get in on a situation that could do you some good” and adds that many think they “can somehow get around it and feel there are enough of people to make up for it and on and on, etc., etc.” His rap gets the audience to, as he says, “throw up the peace sign” by participating more, yelling louder, and, after a few rounds, the band returns to the song which lifts everyone into a state of euphoria (see footage here).

Sly leading the Higher singalong at Woodstock: a feeling, not a fashion

There is a lot worth pondering in these words. The healing power of music, the power of group expression, the issue of needing social approval to engage in that expression, the distinction between fashion and feeling, and the tendency to think others will make up for our lack of participation in music and, to be sure, other areas of human experience such as politics, service, parenting, education, and so on.

But for me, as a philosopher who loves the arts and teaches philosophy of art, the point that has really stood out over the years is his claim that if a genuine singalong was good in the past then it is still good. Many hold that our experiences of art, beauty, the sublime, and so on are relative to observers in such a way that there is nothing objectively true about them, that is, there is nothing independent of our personal or cultural opinions. If we hold this view we might say something like this: “Sure, singalongs might have been all the fashion in the past but they are, frankly, kind of corny. You guys can sing if you want but I’ll pass.” But Sly disagrees and has an argument to offer which can be formulated as follows:

If singalongs were really good in the past then they are still good.

Singalongs were really good in the past.

So singalongs are still good.

This modus ponens deduction is valid and will be sound if we agree with Sly that the aesthetic experience of a heartfelt singalong is not a fashion – something only good relative to a certain group, period of time, and so on with no objectivity – but a manifestation of a genuine feeling presumably grounded in our shared humanity with its love of music, need for solidarity, and need to express that solidarity with others. It is because of this grounding that we can access its beneficial feeling now just as people did in the past.

So we see Sly is arguing that everyone at Woodstock should participate because what he is offering is not just a matter of personal or cultural opinion…it is something truly good. He might, of course, be wrong about this (although I don’t think he is). But in a few short minutes Sly gives us much to think about and, in doing so, does something I doubt anyone else has ever done at a rock concert or any other concert for that matter: offer a deductive argument for audience participation.

And it is an argument that can help us in our time when so many of us find it increasingly difficult to talk to our fellow human beings due to moral and political differences. Let’s not forget that when Sly engaged all those people back in 69′ our country was far more divided than we are now. Therefore we might heed his words as we seek out points of contact, musical or otherwise, that remind us we often have more in common than we think. Of course this is not a call to be superficially optimistic in the face of the world’s evils. It is about trying to ameliorate what we can in a perilous world without guarantees – a view which, I think, he expresses through his dark masterpiece There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971).

With his words and music Sly wanted to take everyone higher to a place of community from which some real healing and growth could occur. With his passing let’s listen to him – and feel – so that some of his astonishing energy can help us do the same. After all, as he exclaims in the song “Everyday People,”

We got to live together!

Sly and the Family Stone

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