Four Names in the Choir

Birmingham sings this one in first-person plural, with gospel piano, Hammond organ, tremolo guitar, and a bruised full-band rise. The story moves from the Children’s Crusade in May 1963 and the fire hoses at Kelly Ingram Park to the September 15, 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, where Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair were killed. 12

The hook refuses a polished civic ending: “Four names in the choir, four candles in the rain.” Listen when you want a city portrait that can carry a hymn and an accusation in the same breath.

The four names remain in the player’s lyrics, where the song’s final question keeps ringing: “And we will not look away.”