Brilliant joinery! The basara-tsugi or Otemon splice.
Short-Chain Fatty Acids, Explained: What They Are and Why They Matter
What if I told you there’s a tiny factory inside your gut that produces anti-inflammatory compounds, fuels your brain, strengthens your immune system, and helps regulate your metabolism?
It’s your gut bacteria. And the product they’re manufacturing? Short-chain fatty acids — SCFAs for short.
These microscopic metabolites are quietly running the show behind some of the most important functions in your body. Gut lining integrity. Immune balance. Brain clarity. Blood sugar regulation. Mood. Even your risk of chronic disease decades from now.
The only problem? Your bacteria can’t make them out of thin air. They need raw material in the form of fiber. Which means how much of these critical compounds your body produces comes down to one thing: what’s on your plate.
Here’s everything you need to know about SCFAs, why they matter more than almost any other molecule in your gut, and how to keep that factory running at full capacity.
Short-chain fatty acids are organic compounds produced through fermentation in your gut. When you eat fiber-rich foods, most of that fiber passes through your stomach and small intestine undigested. It arrives in your colon intact, where specific bacteria specialise in breaking down these complex carbohydrates — dietary fibers and resistant starch — and fermenting them into SCFAs.
Your gut cells get first access to the energy SCFAs provide. The colonocytes — the cells that line your colon and play a central role in shaping your gut microbiota — rely on SCFAs for about 70% of their energy. Butyrate is their preferred fuel source. Whatever your gut doesn’t use gets sent to the liver and then into general circulation, where your other tissues can use it. In total, SCFAs provide roughly 10% of your daily energy requirements.
The three main SCFAs are acetate (acetic acid), propionate (propionic acid), and butyrate (butyric acid).
Butyrate
If SCFAs had a hierarchy, butyrate would sit at the top. It’s the primary energy source for colonocytes and, without adequate butyrate, those cells can’t maintain the gut barrier that separates your intestinal contents from your bloodstream.
Butyrate strengthens the tight junctions between intestinal cells, reducing permeability and helping prevent the “leaky gut” that drives systemic inflammation. It also modulates immune cell activity directly in the gut wall, calming overactive inflammatory responses and supporting healthy cell turnover in the colon — a process that’s critical for reducing colorectal cancer risk.
But butyrate’s influence doesn’t stop at the gut. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and directly affect brain function, influencing neuroinflammation, mood regulation, and the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) — the protein that supports learning, memory, and neuroplasticity.
In short, butyrate is the molecule that connects what you eat for dinner to how your gut lining holds up, how your immune system behaves, and how clearly you think the next morning.
Propionate and Acetate
While butyrate gets the most attention, propionate and acetate play essential roles of their own.
Propionate is primarily taken up by the liver, where it helps regulate cholesterol production and gluconeogenesis — the process by which your liver produces glucose. Research has linked propionate to appetite regulation and reduced fat storage, making it a key player in metabolic health. It essentially helps your liver make better decisions about energy management.
Acetate is the most abundant of the three SCFAs and enters systemic circulation, reaching tissues throughout the body. It influences appetite signalling in the brain, and supports cardiovascular function. Acetate is also involved in the production of other fatty acids and cholesterol, giving it a broad metabolic reach.
Together, butyrate, propionate, and acetate form a trio that connects gut health to metabolic, cardiovascular, and neurological outcomes. They’re the reason researchers increasingly view the gut microbiome not just as a digestive organ, but as a metabolic one.
How SCFAs Affect Your Health
Butyrate, propionate, and acetate don’t just sit quietly in your colon. They reach into virtually every major system in your body — your immune system, your brain, your metabolism, your cardiovascular system. The more researchers look, the more they find these three small molecules at the centre of the conversation.
SCFAs and the Immune System
Around 70-80% of your immune system resides in and around your gut. SCFAs are one of the primary ways your gut bacteria communicate with those immune cells.
Butyrate, in particular, promotes the development of regulatory T cells — specialised immune cells whose job is to prevent your immune system from overreacting. This is critical for preventing autoimmune responses, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. When butyrate levels are low, this regulatory mechanism weakens, and the immune system becomes more prone to chronic, inappropriate activation.
SCFAs also suppress the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines while promoting anti-inflammatory ones, helping maintain the delicate balance between immune vigilance and immune tolerance. Low SCFA production has been associated with increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease, allergies, asthma, bacterial and viral infections, and autoimmune conditions.
SCFAs and the Gut-Brain Axis
The connection between SCFAs and brain health is one of the most exciting areas of current research. SCFAs communicate with the brain through multiple pathways: the vagus nerve, immune signalling molecules, and direct entry into the bloodstream and across the blood-brain barrier.
Butyrate influences the production of BDNF, which supports neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to form new connections, learn, and adapt. Low BDNF levels have been linked to depression, anxiety, and neurodegenerative conditions. A 2020 mice study found that acetate supplementation significantly improved cognitive function and lowered neuroinflammation markers in the brain, and reduced their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
And it’s not just about protecting the brain from disease. SCFAs appear to directly influence emotions and mood. When SCFA levels in the gut are out of balance, it can drive neuroinflammation — the kind of low-grade brain inflammation that affects how you feel, think, and cope day to day. Research has found that people with depression tend to have lower levels of SCFA-producing bacteria in their gut. Improving the quality of your gut microbiome may be one of the most overlooked ways to support your mental health.
SCFAs and Metabolic Health
SCFAs activate specific receptors on cells throughout the body — particularly GPR41 and GPR43 — that regulate energy balance, fat storage, and inflammatory responses. This gives them a direct role in metabolic health.
SCFAs improve insulin sensitivity and help regulate blood sugar, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. SCFAs also influence hunger and eating behaviour and can help people with weight loss and management. A 2021 study found that people with lower levels of SCFAs in their stool had higher body mass index scores, and showed less ability to regulate their food intake compared to those with higher SCFA levels.
The pattern is clear: feed your bacteria fiber, they produce SCFAs, and your metabolism runs more efficiently.
What Happens When SCFA Production Is Low?
When fiber intake drops, SCFA-producing bacteria are starved of their fuel source. The consequences cascade quickly.
Without adequate butyrate, the gut lining weakens. Tight junctions loosen. Intestinal permeability increases. Inflammatory signals rise. Immune regulation falters.
But it gets worse. When gut bacteria don’t have fiber to ferment, they don’t simply go dormant. They start consuming the gut’s protective mucus layer for fuel instead — degrading the very barrier that keeps pathogens and toxins out of the bloodstream. This creates a vicious cycle: less fiber leads to fewer SCFAs, which leads to a weaker barrier, which leads to more inflammation, which leads to worse microbiome diversity, which leads to even fewer SCFAs.
And diet isn’t the only thing that drives SCFA levels down. Antibiotics, while sometimes necessary, can wipe out the very bacteria responsible for making SCFAs. The resulting imbalance often gets filled by species that promote inflammation rather than reduce it. Certain health conditions compound the problem too — people with type 2 diabetes tend to have lower SCFA levels, and lower SCFA levels increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, creating a negative feedback loop.
The good news is that there are things you can do to help break that cycle and restore SCFA-producing bacteria.
How to Boost Your SCFA Production
The most effective way to increase SCFA production is to feed your gut bacteria a diverse range of fermentable fibers and plant compounds. But diet isn’t the only lever you can pull. Here’s the full picture.
Eat diverse fiber
The more types of fiber you eat, the more diverse your SCFA production. Aim for 30 or more different plant foods per week — that includes fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices. Each type of fiber feeds different bacterial species, which produce different SCFAs in different ratios. For context, our ancestors are estimated to have consumed up to 100 grams of fiber per day. Current recommendations sit between 25 and 40 grams — and most people in industrialised countries fall well short of even that.
Prioritise the top SCFA-boosting foods
Not all fiber converts to SCFAs equally — some types are better precursors than others. The standouts include:
Prebiotic fibers like inulin and FOS (found in onions, garlic, artichokes, chicory root, and bananas) and GOS (highest in beans and root vegetables)
Resistant starch from cooked and cooled potatoes, rice, pasta, legumes, and whole grains like barley and oats — the cooling process creates a form of starch that resists digestion and is fermented into butyrate in the colon. It largely survives gentle reheating, so you don’t have to eat everything cold.
Beta-glucans from oats and mushrooms — mushrooms contain both chitin and beta-glucans, making them particularly effective at fuelling SCFA-producing bacteria
Don’t forget polyphenols
Polyphenol-rich foods such as berries, green tea, dark chocolate, red grapes, and extra virgin olive oil act as a secondary fuel source for SCFA-producing bacteria. Research shows polyphenols specifically increase Bifidobacterium and other beneficial species that contribute to butyrate production.
Eat fermented foods daily
Sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, miso, and kombucha support the bacterial populations that produce SCFAs. A Stanford clinical trial found that a fermented food diet increased microbial diversity and reduced 19 inflammatory proteins in every participant — outcomes consistent with improved SCFA production.
Move your body
Yes, really, exercise! Studies consistently show that people who are more physically active have higher concentrations of SCFAs, and that SCFA levels increase after sustained exercise over weeks and months. Your gut bacteria and your skeletal muscles are in constant two-way communication, and when you move, your bacteria respond by producing more of the metabolites that keep you healthy. You don’t need to run marathons. Regular walking, yoga, or any consistent movement you enjoy is enough to keep that conversation going.
Supplement with prebiotics
If getting enough diverse fiber from food alone is a challenge, a prebiotic supplement can help bridge the gap. Prebiotic fibers like PHGG (partially hydrolysed guar gum) and XOS (xylooligosaccharides) specifically nourish butyrate-producing bacteria and support SCFA production.
While butyrate supplements (like sodium butyrate) do exist and may have a place in certain situations, they’re absorbed high in the digestive tract and don’t replicate the sustained, localised production that your own bacteria provide in the colon. It’s important to note that these supplements are not FDA-approved either.
The most effective long-term strategy is always to feed the bacteria that make SCFAs for you, rather than trying to supplement the end product directly. And while fiber supplements can be helpful, whole plant foods offer the added benefit of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that isolated fiber supplements simply can’t match.
The Bottom Line
Short-chain fatty acids are the missing link between what you eat and how your entire body functions. They protect your gut lining, regulate your immune system, fuel your brain, and keep your metabolism in balance. And while butyrate supplements exist, the most effective and sustainable way to maintain SCFA levels is to let your own gut bacteria manufacture them — from the fiber and plant compounds you feed them every day.
The prescription is simple: eat a diverse range of plant foods, include fermented foods, move your body, and give your bacteria the raw materials they need to do what they do best. Every colourful vegetable, every handful of berries, every spoonful of sauerkraut is fuel for the tiny factory that’s quietly keeping you healthy.
No fiber, no SCFAs. It’s that simple — and that important.
From: https://goodnesslover.com/blogs/health/short-chain-fatty-acids
Short-chain fatty acids have 2 to 5 carbons, medium chain fatty acids have 6 to 12 carbons and long chain fatty acids have 13 or more carbons. Fatty acid chains are also categorized by the bonds connecting the carbons in the chain. A single bond is just one bond between the carbon atoms, and when a fatty acid chain has only single bonds, it’s called a saturated fatty acid — because it has as many hydrogen atoms as possible — it’s saturated with them.
Triglycerides with saturated fatty acids are nice and straight so they pack together really well, and as a result they’re usually solid at room temperature. And the longer the saturated fatty acid chain, the more likely it will be solid at room temperature.
Carbons can also have double bonds between them, and when a fatty acid has one or more double bonds, it’s called an unsaturated fatty acid because it’s not saturated with hydrogen atoms — for every double bond there are two fewer hydrogen atoms.
Also, a double bond causes a kink in the molecule so the triglycerides don’t pack together as nicely as saturated fats. As a result, unsaturated fats are usually liquid at room temperature. Unsaturated fatty acids can be further classified according to the number of their double bonds. Monounsaturated fatty acids are fatty acids with only a single double bond. Polyunsaturated fatty acids have two or more double bonds.”
Another good reason to include fermented foods, which are high in fiber, in your diet is that some intestinal microbes produce beneficial chemicals called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) while fermenting dietary fiber. Aside from having health-supporting activities, some SCFAs like butyrate serve as an energy source for the cells that line the inside your colon.
They Threatened A Scientist for Publishing This Study!
Another one of those instances where if you did the opposite of what ‘medical experts’ advise you would be better off. A massive 20-year study across 49 countries and 450,000 people may flip everything mainstream medicine has told us. You need magnesium and salt to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system.
Click to view the video: https://x.com/truthache68/status/2045357710821212290?s=20
Quote of the Day
“Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero – Orator and Statesman (106 – 43 BC)
Climate Alarmism Unravels Over Time
In 1954, scientists told Congress the Arctic would melt within 25 to 50 years. Then 20 years later, in 1974, Time magazine warned we were heading for another ice age.
By the 1990s, when that didn’t happen, warming was the returning scare, with Norway’s top experts saying the Arctic would be ice-free by 2007.
The Centre for Biological Diversity said it would be ice-free by 2012.
The BBC said by 2013.
Needless to say, they were all wrong.
The Arctic sea ice minimum has actually been stable for the past 18 years now.
In 2008, NASA’s James Hansen predicted Lower Manhattan would be underwater by 2018 due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Back in 1923, scientists claimed Glacier National Park would melt by 1950. Then in 2006, Al Gore said it would be gone by 2020. Yet today, the glaciers are still there about the same size they were 35 years ago.
Decade after decade, the doomsday dates change, but the climate alarmist script persists.
Video: https://x.com/Electroversenet/status/2044928832180814264?s=20
Covid Clinical Safety Notice
Straight from the official NSW Ambulance files, August 20, 2021. They issued this internal Clinical Safety Notice (CSN 404/21) warning paramedics and clinicians about myocarditis and pericarditis risks after mRNA COVID vaccines – especially after the second dose. It was “particularly evident in young males under 30,” with symptoms like chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath, and irregular heartbeat.
Staff were told to treat any recent vax patient with these signs as a potential emergency and get them to hospital fast.
Then, just weeks later, the mandates rolled out hard. Healthcare workers, emergency services, and entire sectors faced stand-downs or job losses if they raised concerns or said no.
Compliance was non-negotiable.
So here’s what still needs answering: Why the full-throttle push for mandates when these risks were already flagged internally? Was genuine informed consent ever given? And what real support has been there for people now dealing with these adverse events?
This isn’t “anti-vax” talk – it’s basic accountability. We need an independent investigation into the whole pandemic response: the mandates, the injuries, the decision-making.
Aussies deserve the full truth, no spin. What do you reckon – should this have changed the whole approach?
18 Common Weeds You Can Eat
These weeds can be eaten raw in salads or cooked in a variety of dishes – soups, stews and stir-fries.
Amaranth
Burdock
Dandelion
Dock
Chicory
Chickweed
Cleavers
Clover
Japanese Knotweed
Lamb’s Quarters
Plantain
Purslane
Queen Anne’s Lace
Stinging Nettle
Wild Garlic
Wild Mustard
Wood Sorrel
Yellow Dock
Click to view the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTdocgAMjT4
Wind Turbine Farm
Australia currently has 13.3 gigawatts of installed wind energy capacity across roughly 90 operating wind farms. To meet the federal government’s renewable energy targets Energy Minister Chris Bowen admitted Australia needs to build 40 wind turbines every month until 2030. That is approximately 3840 new turbines on top of what already exists.
Let that number sit for a moment. 3840 wind turbines. In eight years. Across regional Australia.
Now let us look at what each one actually involves before a single blade turns.
A modern wind turbine stands between 140 and 200 metres tall. That is taller than a 50 storey building. Before the tower goes up the foundation has to go in. A typical foundation for a modern turbine requires between 550 and 850 cubic metres of concrete. At the MacIntyre wind farm in Queensland each foundation required nearly 2000 tonnes of concrete.
The reinforcing steel in each foundation runs to between 60 and 110 tonnes of reo bar. That steel reinforced concrete base is buried permanently in the ground. When the turbine reaches the end of its life in 25 to 30 years that foundation stays there forever. It is effectively impossible to remove without destroying the surrounding land.
The civil work and foundation for each turbine costs between 300000 and 600000 dollars. The tower itself between 500000 and 1.2 million dollars. Transport crane hire and installation another 500000 to one million dollars. Electrical connections and cabling another 300000 to 800000 dollars.
That is between 1.6 million and 3.6 million dollars per turbine before you count the cost of the turbine itself.
Multiply that by 3840 turbines and the civil and infrastructure cost alone runs to between 6 billion and 14 billion dollars. Just for the holes in the ground the concrete the steel and the cranes.
Then there are the roads.
Wind turbine blades on modern turbines run between 60 and 85 metres long. Each blade is transported separately on a special oversize load vehicle. Each movement requires pilot vehicles front and rear. Special permits. Road assessments. Road widening in many cases. Bridge strengthening. Removal of roadside trees and overhead infrastructure along the route.
A wind farm with 100 turbines requires 300 blade movements plus movements for towers foundations and nacelles. Across roads in regional Australia that were never designed for this traffic.
The cost of that road damage and infrastructure upgrades falls on local councils and state governments. Which means it falls on ratepayers and taxpayers. No wind energy company is picking up the bill for the regional roads their supply chains destroy.
And here is something nobody mentions. More than 3000 existing wind turbines across Australia will reach the end of their operational life by 2045. Those turbines need to be decommissioned. The fibreglass blades cannot be recycled. They are being buried in landfill. The concrete foundations stay in the ground permanently. And who pays for decommissioning is largely unresolved in most lease agreements across the country.
Then there are the transmission lines to carry all this electricity from where it is generated to where people actually live.
The Central West Orana renewable energy zone transmission project near Dubbo. Original estimate 650 million dollars. Current confirmed cost 5.5 billion dollars. Eight times the original estimate.
VNI West connecting Victoria and NSW. Started at 3.9 billion dollars. Now heading towards 11 billion dollars.
Project EnergyConnect connecting South Australia and NSW. Started at 1.53 billion dollars. Now over 4 billion with another 1.1 billion being sought from consumers on top of that.
HumeLink in southern NSW. Originally 1.3 billion dollars. Now 4.88 billion dollars. And its carrying capacity was reduced at the same time. More expensive and less capable.
Every dollar of every blowout goes onto your electricity bill for the next 30 to 50 years.
Then there is Snowy 2.0. The pumped hydro project that is supposed to store energy when the sun shines and the wind blows and release it when they do not.
Original cost 2 billion dollars. Current cost past 12 billion and still climbing. The 12 billion figure has been declared unachievable by Snowy Hydro’s own chief executive. The tunnelling machine was stuck underground for 19 months. Independent critics say the real total including transmission will exceed 20 billion dollars.
Then there are the batteries.
The government tells us that when the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing the big batteries will keep the lights on. Here is what they can actually do.
The Waratah Super Battery in NSW is one of the largest in the country. It can power 970000 homes for one hour. Or 80000 homes for a full day. Australia has 11 million households.
The standard grid scale battery in Australia currently stores between two and four hours of electricity. Four hours is what the industry calls long duration storage. When the sun goes down on a hot summer night and the wind drops the batteries have two to four hours before they are empty. Then what.
The Australian Energy Market Operator says Australia needs 22 gigawatts of battery storage by 2030 and 49 gigawatts by 2050. We currently have about 3 gigawatts. That means increasing battery capacity by more than 700 percent in five years and over 1600 percent by 2050.
And here is what nobody is telling you. The batteries being installed right now through the 2020s will need to be replaced in the 2040s. You pay for them once and then you pay for them again. Just in time for the 2050 net zero deadline.
So what does all of this actually cost.
The federal government has already paid more than 29 billion dollars in subsidies to the renewable energy industry over the past ten years. The 2024 federal budget committed another 22 billion on top of that. The home battery subsidy program has been expanded to 7.2 billion dollars over four years. Grid scale battery investment hit 2.4 billion dollars in a single quarter in early 2025 alone.
Wood Mackenzie analysis shows the battery pipeline in Australia alone represents more than 80 billion dollars of potential investment.
And the Australian Energy Market Operator’s own modelling puts the total annualised capital cost through 2050 for grid scale generation storage transmission and distribution at 128 billion dollars. That is not a figure from critics. That is the government’s own energy market operator using their own least cost optimal pathway numbers.
128 billion dollars. For a system where the standard battery lasts two to four hours. Where the biggest battery in NSW can power 80000 homes for one day.
Where 3840 new wind turbines need to be built in eight years across regional roads that cannot handle the transport. Where transmission lines blow out to eight times their original cost estimates before the first pole is in the ground.
And every single dollar of it comes from one of three places.
Your taxes. Through direct government spending and through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which has been given 32.5 billion dollars of taxpayer capital to lend cheaply to private energy companies.
Your electricity bill. Through network charges that recover the cost of transmission lines over the next 30 to 50 years added to every power bill in the country.
Or both at once. Through government underwriting schemes that guarantee private investors a minimum return. Meaning if the projects lose money the taxpayer makes up the difference. Private companies build the wind farms and solar farms. They take the profits. When the returns fall short you cover the losses.
Some people will say that is federal money not state money or that is state money not federal money. It makes no difference to the person paying the bill.
Federal spending comes from federal taxes. State spending comes from state taxes. Transmission blowouts come from your electricity bill. When all levels of government are spending money on the same program the taxpayer pays all of it regardless of which parliament wrote the cheque.
The federal government alone has committed over 100 billion dollars in direct spending loan guarantees and investment underwriting to this program. The states are spending billions more on top of that. The total is what matters. And the total comes out of your pocket one way or another.
There has been considerable public debate about whether the Future Fund which holds the retirement savings of Australian public servants should be used to help rebuild Australia’s oil refining capacity and protect our fuel security.
The government ruled that out. Yet that same government found 128 billion dollars worth of ways to fund a renewable energy system that stores electricity for two to four hours at a time and still cannot guarantee power on a calm cloudy night.
Nobody in government will say the full number out loud in a single sentence. Ask your local member to do it. See what happens.
Paul Stookey
He wrote it in one hour. He gave away every penny it ever made. And it became the most beloved wedding song in America.
In the fall of 1969, Paul Stookey got a phone call that would quietly change his life — though he had no idea at the time.
His bandmate and close friend Peter Yarrow was getting married. Peter was one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary, the folk trio that had helped define a generation. His bride was Marybeth McCarthy, niece of Senator Eugene McCarthy. Peter asked Paul a simple question: would he write a song and sing it at the ceremony?
Paul said yes immediately.
But privately, he knew something. This was not a song he could write on his own. Not this one. This needed something beyond his ability.
A short time before the wedding, Stookey went down to the small basement studio of his Connecticut home. He picked up his twelve-string guitar, sat in the quiet, and prayed.
“Lord,” he said, “nothing would bless this wedding ceremony more than Your presence. How would You manifest Yourself?”
Then he picked up a pencil.
For the next hour, words came. Not slowly. Not with struggle. They arrived as though they had been waiting. Stookey later said he did not feel like he was composing. He felt like he was transcribing. The pencil moved across the page and all he had to do was allow it.
The first words he wrote were: “I am now to be among you at the calling of your hearts.”
Just one hour before the ceremony, he sang it for his wife Betty. She loved it, but she caught something. “They won’t understand ‘I am now to be among you,’” she told him. “They’re going to think you’re presuming to be God.”
Stookey thought about it. She was right. He changed one word.
“He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts. Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part.”
On the evening of October 18, 1969, at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Willmar, Minnesota, Paul Stookey stood before the congregation as Peter Yarrow’s best man. He held his guitar and sang the song for the first time.
It was meant to be a private gift. A blessing between friends. He assumed it would never be sung again.
Several weeks later, backstage before a Peter, Paul and Mary concert, Peter leaned over and made a request. His wife was in the audience. Would Paul sing the song for her?
Paul stepped to the microphone and played. The audience went still. There was something in that simple melody — unhurried, vulnerable, honest — that reached people in a way no one had expected.
He kept singing it. And people kept asking.
When the trio took a leave of absence from performing in 1970, Stookey recorded the song for his debut solo album, Paul And…. The single, “Wedding Song (There Is Love),” was released in 1971. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 and climbed to number 24. On the Easy Listening chart, it reached number 3.
But here is where the story becomes extraordinary.
Paul Stookey refused to claim the song as his own.
He had a dilemma. He believed the song had been given to him, not created by him. If he copyrighted it under his name, he would profit from something he felt was never his. But if he claimed nothing, the record company would simply keep the royalties.
So he found a third path. He established the Public Domain Foundation, a charitable trust to receive every royalty the song would ever generate as a composition. He kept none of the songwriting income.
The record company called him with exciting news — The Tonight Show wanted him to perform “Wedding Song” on national television. They told him it could launch a solo career.
“No, thanks,” Stookey said.
Over the decades, the Public Domain Foundation has distributed more than two million dollars to charitable organizations across the United States — soup kitchens, children’s programs, hospitals, music education, and causes Stookey will never see the results of. That two-million-dollar figure was reported in the 1990s. The total has only grown since.
“Wedding Song (There Is Love)” has been covered by Petula Clark, Captain and Tennille, Mary MacGregor, Nana Mouskouri, and many others. It has been performed at countless weddings across America and around the world for more than fifty years. Acoustic guitarists learn it. Brides request it. It has become, for many families, the song that means the beginning.
And Paul Stookey has never taken a cent of the songwriting royalties.
Every year, he turns down requests to perform the song at weddings around the country. His answer is always the same.
“It’s not my song,” he says. “It belongs to every bride and groom who ever had a good friend strum a guitar and sing at their wedding. God gave me a song. It was mine to give away.”
When asked how he explains the song’s origin, Stookey keeps it simple.
“Into every songwriter’s life comes a song, the source of which cannot be explained by personal experience.”
He wrote it in one hour in a basement in Connecticut. He sang it once for two people he loved. He gave away everything it ever earned.
And more than fifty years later, that hour of work is still blessing strangers on the most important day of their lives.
Some songs are written.
Some songs are given.
The difference is what you do with them after.
Change Your Mind-Change Your Life
