Utah teens record a bluegrass jingle to raise awareness about the Great Salt Lake

Using a cowbell, tambourine and some “country accents,” three Utah teens recently created a call-to-action for the Great Salt Lake:

“Come on down to Great Salt Lake and lend a helping land (yeehaw).

“Every hand will help the lake not dry up into sand (yah who).

All the shrimp and little birds don’t want to lose their home.

So let’s revive the Great Salt Lake so it don’t turn into stone.

“Let’s revive the Great Salt Lake so it don’t turn into stone.”

Mendela “Manny” Herbert and two other teens made the song as audio apprentices at Spy Hop, the Salt Lake City-based nonprofit youth media arts organization.

Spy Hop received a grant from Salt Lake City Arts Council’s Wake the Great Salt Lake program, aimed at commissioning temporary public art about the lake.

“We were going for old-timey bluegrass sound,” said Herbert, 19, who lives in South Jordan. “We’re trying to get across obviously the importance of the issue at the lake [and] trying to get it across in a way that was fun and intriguing almost. You hear it and [think], ‘What’s going on with this?’

“It’s an old-timey sound but a current issue.”

Herbert and several other teens learned about the lake through a partnership between Great Salt Lake Collaborative and Spy Hop. The collaborative was paid via the arts grant to provide information to Spy Hop students about the lake as they created zines, videos and audio-scapes to inform and inspire their fellow teens.

The news collaborative held a panel discussion with experts on the lake, including staff from the Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s Office, which is charged with getting more water to the lake; and the advocacy organizations the Youth Coalition for Great Salt Lake and Grow the Flow. The collaborative also provided its journalism to the students to explain how the lake affects Utahns and suggest potential solutions.

“I didn’t know so much about the lake before,” Herbert said. “I didn’t know how much the world relies on the lake, and us locals. It’s very important for people my age to know all that and to know just how integral it is to our community and our livelihood.”

You can listen to the jingle here on the Great Salt Lake Collaborative website.

Note to readers • The Salt Lake Tribune is a member of the Great Salt Lake Collaborative and its fiscal sponsor.