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 approval…most of us need to get approval, from our neighbors, before we can actually let it all hang down, you dig? 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 protest 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 – 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. And this grounding makes it objectively good.

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 overlook incompatibilities and adopt an optimistic attitude in the face of the world’s evils. It’s about trying to forge forms of unity and ameliorate what we can in a perilous world without guarantees – a view which, I think, he went on to express in his dark masterpiece There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971) and throughout his life as well. Andrew R. Chow, in his recent Time article “Sly Stone Knew Why America Rioted Better Than Anyone,” reports:

“Fifty-five summers ago, a riot broke out in Chicago’s Grant Park, where Sly and the Family Stone was booked to play a concert. Sly was on en route, but the crowd, fearing that the erratic rock star wouldn’t appear, started throwing bottles and rocks onstage. This, in turn, provoked police to wade into the crowd, beating people with nightsticks. As the incensed crowd spilled out across the park, windows were smashed, and cars were overturned. Three people were shot, although it wasn’t clear by whom, and 160 more were injured.The dystopian scene was a far cry from a Sly concert the year before: Woodstock in ‘69, where the band, operating at the peak of its powers, had implored its 400,000 rapt attendees to take it higher into the wee hours of the morning. But the Summer of Love and the ensuing years had given way to disillusionment and rage, and Sly felt this shift acutely. “I had sensed a shadow was falling over America,” he wrote in his 2023 memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). “The possibility of possibility was leaking out and leaving the country drained.”….In 2023, TIME conducted a written interview with Sly, who was struggling with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and near deafness. TIME asked him how the summer of 2020 compared with other summers of protest that he had lived through. “I still watch the news and still think about what could make things better in America,” he wrote. “There are days when it feels like things are going in the wrong direction, that every good thing has two bad things behind it. Black and white, rich and poor, we have to find some way to live together without hurting each other. It’s not simple but it’s important.””

Sly wanted to take everyone higher to a place of community. His band itself embodied his pluralistic vision by integrating diverse musical forms as well as diverse races and genders in times of strife. With his passing let’s listen to him – and feel – so that some of his astonishing energy can help us forge community in our difficult times as well. After all, as he exclaims in the song “Everyday People,”

We got to live together!

Sly and the Family Stone in 1968. Left to right: Freddie Stone, Sly Stone, Rose Stone, Larry Graham, Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini, and Greg Errico.

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