It's been my great good fortune to see the world and share some songs. And wherever music has taken me, I have learned that we're all in this together, more or less the same.
Astronauts who have looked down on this Earth of ours from space often speak of the overview effect, an overwhelming sense of awe and the undeniable realization that we are all connected. Science tells us something similar: everyone's human genome is 99.9% identical to everyone else's. What a different world we would be living in if we all woke up tomorrow truly appreciating that.
With The Brothers Four, I have been lucky enough to see it firsthand. The group first took folk music to Japan in 1962 and returned nearly every year for close to 60 years, most recently in September 2026. Those tours led us to Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, and in 1996 we were the first group to bring American folk songs to mainland China.
On my first trip to Japan in 1969, everything seemed different and foreign. It didn't take long to realize how much we have in common, how alike our dreams and hopes are. Years later I said that coming back to Japan felt like going on a great adventure and, at the same time, like coming home.
The same is true of the cities and towns across the United States, and of my hometown of Spokane, Washington. We may not all share the same views, but we share the values that guide us: faith, hope, love and family.
The world keeps getting smaller and more crowded, and it's the only world we've got. It's not too late to try to get along.
