Amazing Grace* was my favorite song to play on guitar - it was also one of the few I actually learned (because I played it until my fingers bled). This song begs to be savored, note by note by note by note in all it’s sweet, suffering-ecstasy. It cannot be hurried - it’s fate is steeped in wrenching out every quivering determination of justice… for all.

It’s funny how greatness bestows it’s authority upon common people who’ll go to uncommon lengths to succeed. William Wilberforce met John Newton, and carried the promise of abolitionists to fruition - the abolition of English slavery. This true story is amazing, inspiring and viscerally wrenching. William Wilberforce is an unsung hero here in the states. I will think of William Wilberforce every time I hear Amazing Grace - and I will play it again someday on guitar, in honor of this truly amazing moment in history.

Amazing Grace is not easily rated by stars - in humanities pantheon of heroic specimen, it’s a black pearl.

*The song, Amazing Grace, was written in 1772 by a slave ship captain named John Newton.