Hello God by Dolly Parton is a song so powerful that it got me writing again after a four-year hiatus. The hiatus is more like five years, if I am being honest with myself.
After the incident of October 20, 2020, I never got back to writing like before. It was like a haze would descend on me each time I tried to write. There were a thousand and one ideas, but I just couldn’t get to typing. I could hardly write with a pen either. 

All my life, I have always prided myself on the fact that I have never had writer’s or creative block. All I needed to do was decide that I want to write, and the words will flow. I am more likely to suffer from a lack of time to write than a lack of ideas or will to write. As a matter of fact, even when I took breaks from publicly sharing my pieces, I never stopped writing. 

So you can understand how disturbing it was for me to be unable to write for this long. Even when the ideas were coming back, I was still refusing to write. It got to a point, I was only taking on projects that ensured I wouldn’t write. Why?

Nigeria. The country that chews her young, spews out the bones, and asks if it can get the blood of its old to sip on and also wash its mouth with.
Watching the soldiers of your country open fire on unarmed protesters, some younger than you, as they sing the national anthem and wave the flag in the middle of the night is never going to be a sight for sore eyes. Knowing a couple of people who had been there earlier during the protest and even earlier that day doesn’t make it any easier to process. 

A part of me still wishes I had never watched the video. From that moment on, I have gone out of my way to avoid gory videos on all platforms. I strongly believe that what we have seen over the last decade, especially with the Boko Haram attacks in the North-East of Nigeria, as well as the incessant bandit attacks across the Middle Belt of Nigeria, has left a lot of us desensitised to bloodshed, loss of life, and inhumaneness. 

It is getting to a point where we just look at the pictures and videos, click on a button to share, and continue our day as if we didn’t just watch someone struggle to breathe their last in the most gruesome of pain, or just see the charred remains of someone who was just alive less than two minutes before the camera started rolling and is now lying lifeless on the ground. 

Hearing this song for the first time, the earnestness in Dolly Parton’s voice; seeing her perform it in front of an audience, the look in her eyes; reading through the lyrics, the desperation in the words; it finally struck me.
All these years, whenever one of those images came across my screen, all I could do was say, “Please God.”
That was all I could say. Because where should I start the prayers from?

From the mother who just lost six children and her husband in one night? The two-year-old girl who has just seen her family and everyone she knows wiped out right in front of her? Or the five-year-old boy who is only alive because his mother had to stay back and get hacked to death so he could keep running? Who should I pray for? 

Where do I begin? 

I would love to go line after line in this song and analyse the lyrics, talking about the use of poetic devices; take you on a journey through each question asked in the lines, telling you which struck me the most, which asked questions I have had for years, and which is my prayer too; but of what use is that now? 
I want to talk about the composition of this piece, about her live performance of Hello God at the Country Music Awards in 2002, about how I spent a whole day playing it on repeat and yet, it still feels new, profound, and time-halting each time I hear it, but I can’t do that right now.

All I can say right now is that I am grateful for the fact that this song got me writing again. I hope one day, I can come back to appreciate this song truly and share its earnestness, beauty, and specialness with you.
Until then, listen to it. Then listen again.

Hello God Lyrics (Dolly Parton)

Hello God, are you out there?
Can you hear me, are you listening anymore?
Hello God, if we’re still on speaking terms
Can you help me like before?
I have questioned your existence
My resistance leaves me cold
Can you help me go the distance?
Hello God, hello, hello?

This old world has gone to pieces
Can we fix it, is there time?
Hate and violence just increases
We’re so selfish, cruel and blind
We fight and kill each other
In your name, defending you
Do you love some more than others?
We’re so lost and confused

Hello God, are you out there?
Can you hear us, are you listening anymore?
Hello God, if we’re still on speaking terms
Can you help us like before?
Oh, the free will you have given
We have made a mockery of
This is no way to be living
We’re in great need of your love

Hello God

Hello God, can you grant us
Love enough to make amends?
Hello God, is there still a chance
That we could start again?
Hello God, we’ve learned our lesson
Dear God, don’t let us go
More than ever
Hello God, hello, hello

Hello God, we really need you
We can’t make it without you
Hello God, we beseech you
In the name of all that’s true
Hello God, please forgive us
For we know not what we do
Hello God, give us one more chance to prove ourselves to you
Hello, God, hello, God