I am not going to end this transcendentally joyful day on a worrying note. The song was released on November 29, 2019, the music video on December 21, on the very eve of a holocaust for humanity, the coronavirus pandemic. Wikipedia:
A single edit was released on streaming services on 10 July 2020, after it went viral during mid-2020, garnering international reaction due to the #JerusalemaChallenge.
By the time Jerusalema went viral the world was in lock down as COVID-19 went viral. A poor choice of words, but it is the term du jour for a popular culture phenomenon that blows up suddenly. The propinquity is transcendent, poignant, and gestures convincingly to the centrality of joy in humankind's soul, defiantly affirming: We will be happy. I wish I had known about it in 2020. It would have cheered me up as the most immense changes were occurring in my corner of the globe. 2020 was also the tipping point for the form of government in my country and all of Americans' vision was bifocal: on the virus that threatened physical existence and the virus that threatened democratic existence. So if the Jerusalema Phenomena was mentioned in the media it sure flew in the stratosphere way over my head. Maybe I was the Designated Last Person to Know.
Forgive me for repeating myself, and, no doubt to some, sounding irrationally exuberant. I don't apologize but I hope I don't bore you for I truly believe that this song is unique in human history. It has a God-sent quality that clearly inspired the world, all of the world. I've screenshotted some of the myriad situations in the numberless communities in nearly every nation on the earth to show the song's and the dance's universality as Humankind's anthem. We sent an indestructible disc on one of our interstellar spacecraft to give any wayfarer who found it an idea of who the beings were on the blue marble. Included was a biological drawing of a man and a woman and some of the music of humankind. A Bach concerto was included. From first watching I wanted to snatch Voyager out of the heavens and replace the music of Bach with Jerusalema. They may get a bad impression of us, but if we sent Jerusalema they would see we were not all bad, winning even.
The Jerusalema Dance Challenge has been performed by common people in our biggest groupings, in cities, in rural areas, at work places, by five year-olds and by octogenarians in nursing homes, by men in suits, and women in rags; on the shop floors of multi-national corporations and in the bush next to elephants; in office space and, more frequently, out of doors. It is essential for me to emphasis agayne that Jerusalema is not a spectator event but a participatory event. Communal dancing, it can be as few as a half dozen but more frequently involves dozens or hundreds. It is a communion with our better selves shared communally.
Two dads with their babies in the street.
Danced on stage to full orchestra.
In public squares in the great European cities and on the beaches of island nations, in dusty shanty towns in Africa and in impoverished Haiti. No place and no people are exempt from its irrepressible, infectious joy.
Jerusalema is a miracle. Good night and may the Almighty, if she exists, bless you eternally. Heaven is a place on earth.
