The "Better Times" Project

Janis Ian & Friends

Jane Hirshfield (Spoken)

Listen to or download the song.

Play this on the jukebox and listen to a lot of other versions too.
You can also download all the different musical versions, in the order they went up.

Check Jane’s Facebook page for more info.
Check poets.org and Poetry Foundation for more info.

Photo by Nick Rosza

From Janis: A wonderful correspondent who’s bravely embraced the digital world as a way to work through lockdown, she’s been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, and the Academy of American Poets. Jane’s most recent work is Ledger, though I must confess a great fondness for “Ten Windows” which to me contains the best piece on haiku ever written in English. I loved that piece so much, I wrote it out by hand!

BETTER TIMES WILL COME
(Janis Ian)

Better times, better times will come.
Better times, better times will come.
When this world learns to live as one,
oh, better times will come

When we greet each dawn without fear
knowing loved ones soon will be near
When the winds of war
cannot blow any more
Oh, better times will come

CHORUS

Though we live each day as our last
we know someday soon it will pass
We will dance, we will sing
in that never-ending spring
Oh, better times will come

CHORUS