AILSA CHANG, HOST:
NPR Tiny Desk Contest winner Quinn Christopherson, drag artist Pattie Gonia and superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma have joined forces to create a new song for the climate change movement.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WON'T GIVE UP")
PATTIE GONIA AND QUINN CHRISTOPHERSON: (Singing) I won't give up for a minute - never giving up on you, never giving up on you.
CHANG: NPR's Chloe Veltman says the trio aims to counteract feelings of despair when it comes to reducing global warming.
CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: The song "Won't Give Up" was originally conceived as a requiem - an act of remembrance for a melting glacier in Alaska.
PATTIE GONIA: We were standing, all three of us, on Exit Glacier in a spot where, even 5, 10 years ago, the glacier was 100 feet tall. And now it's nothing. Now it's the rocks underneath.
VELTMAN: That's drag artist Pattie Gonia. She and her collaborators, Quinn Christopherson and Yo-Yo Ma, traveled to the site in Kenai Fjords National Park to shoot the accompanying music video.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WON'T GIVE UP")
PATTEI GONIA AND CHRISTOPHERSON: (Singing) Well, we're caught - caught up in the fire of time. How do we stay strong, stay calm?
VELTMAN: In the video, the trio performs the song against a rugged backdrop of craggy rocks, dark waters and scattered shards of ice. Yo-Yo Ma's haunting cello solo personifies the weeping glacier.
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO PLAYING)
VELTMAN: Melting glaciers, rising sea levels and extreme weather are just some of the impacts of human-caused climate change. Yet, despite these realities, the musicians decided to give their song a hopeful message. Quinn Christopherson, an Indigenous Alaskan, says that's what the climate change movement needs right now.
QUINN CHRISTOPHERSON: We're not going to give up on nature. We're not going to give up on each other.
VELTMAN: Around 100 people at a recent music workshop held in Fairbanks joined the artists for a sing-along.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) I won't give up for a minute. Never giving up on you. Never giving up on you.
VELTMAN: Princess Daazhraii Johnson is a board member of Native Movement, an Indigenous-led advocacy group in Alaska. She helped organize the workshop.
PRINCESS DAAZHRAII JOHNSON: We have to be able to express these big emotions so we can continue to take action and not fall into this pit of despair.
VELTMAN: The musicians say they hope "Won't Give Up" will become an anthem for the climate change movement. They'd like to see it have as big an impact as "We Shall Overcome," the song that helped to define the civil rights movement.
Chloe Veltman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WON'T GIVE UP")
PATTEI GONIA AND CHRISTOPHERSON: (Singing) I won't give up for a minute - never giving up on you, never giving up on you. I won't give up for a minute - never giving up on you, never giving up on you.
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