I Hear the World Singing (after Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing")

I hear the world singing in sorrow and joy,
The faithful sing for their church in Paris, Ave Maria for the history lost.
The victors in another athletics event sing their country's anthem,
And some children add "cha-cha cha" to every Happy Birthday.
They sing to their babies, their elders, their lovers,
To mourn, to comfort, to celebrate.
And yet I wonder: do those in the ivory tower, the keepers of the music
Even hear the singing outside?
If music becomes do-ti-do, I V I, it's no longer music at all
For the heart's been ripped out leaving empty notes that mean nothing, plunks of futility.
"It's just music" they'll say, or critique intonation and the tempo that never quite settles
The singing's alive with the hearts of its singers but there's no notation for that.
If "why music?" is still the question they're asking, maybe they need to come down from the tower
Music isn't numbers and it isn't on paper, it's alive in the streets and the fields
I'd rather sing with the masses than with those who can't hear the beauty.
Hallelujah, they cannot trap me in their tower any more.