Carlos Santana Reflects on Working Toward Peace

There's only one truth on this planet: that we are all one. What I'd like to do before I die is bring people closer to the same reality that John Coltrane and Bob Marley were trying to bring people to-a reality of no borders, one race, one body-where we all take responsibility that nobody starves to death tomorrow morning. To do that with music is more important than becoming Jimi Hendrix or Beethoven. When you connect with people through music, you affect the whole wheel of life in such a way that, even though you are only one person, you make a difference, like Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi. Then songs become windows for people to look inside or look outside. That's why we love Jimi Hendrix-because his songs are beautiful windows. When we look through them, we like what we see.

Music, more than almost anything else, has the power to bring people together-people of different ages, races, religions. So I'm more clear now as to why I play. It's not just to make people happy or to make them dance-it's to change things: change myself, change the people in my band, change people all over the world, so we can have a clearer vision about life and about ourselves, so we can bring more harmony to the world.

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