There are moments in life when we are forced to transform. While most changes in life are slow-burning processes, there are extreme circumstances that can transform us immediately from the inside out. A near-death experience. A joy-producing miracle. An unexpected funeral. These moments can either break us or they can build us. For Lauryn Hill, her transformation came from the decision to have her first child, despite pressure from many to abort in the midst of her burgeoning career. This decision is beautifully painted on “To Zion”, a major highlight from her legendary debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, an emotional song that captures the profound personal and spiritual impact of creating a life.

“To Zion” by Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill’s spiritual journey began way before the birth of her son. Coming from a Baptist family, she brought her strong belief in God to her music, drawing artistic influences from gospel vocals and penning songs with subtle yet powerful spiritual undertones. It’s this spirituality that helped her produce 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of the most deeply moving pieces of art of our time. Yet there was a period where this internal spirit was nowhere to be found. In the time before her pregnancy, Lauryn had been suffering from the creative stagnancy of writer’s block. It was this pregnancy that renewed her.

In a biography of Lauryn Hill written by Leah Furman, Heart of Soul: The Lauryn Hill Story, Lauryn describes the personal effect of her pregnancy.

“When some women are pregnant, their hair and their nails grow, but for me it was my mind and ability to create. I had the desire to write in a capacity that I hadn’t done in a while.”

In that sense, “To Zion” is the most important song Lauryn has written.

The song opens softly with Carlos Santana’s soothing yet melancholy guitar strings. After a brief into from Lauryn, the song launches into a stunning blend of instrumentation. The rich and textured bassline kicks in with a vigor that makes your heart leap; it immediately gives a stability to the production that keeps you locked in with the vibe and aura of the track. Santana’s guitar work is impeccable, as he glides through gentle arpeggios that add a melancholy and downtrodden undertone to the lively and calming baseline. As the song masterfully draws you in, Lauryn begins to tell her story.

She recalls the initial stages.

“Unsure of what the balance held / I touched my belly overwhelmed / By what I had been chosen to perform.”

Starting a family is an emotionally arduous process as it is, but Lauryn was in the midst of trying to record music, had swarms of media outlets refusing her to give her a space to breathe, and was dealing with the societal taboo of having a child out of wedlock. This is enough for any one person to breakdown. These first couple lines paint a picture of a young Lauryn sensing her body’s changes and feeling fearful of what these changes will bring. Yet within the very next line, bolstered by the confidence of Lauryn’s vocals, there is still an internal conviction that “she was chosen” to raise this child.

With this touch, Lauryn remembers how she wants to move her life forward.

“Woe this crazy circumstance / I knew his life deserved a chance / But everybody told me to be smart / ‘Look at your career’ they said / ‘Lauryn, baby, use your head’ / But instead I chose to use my heart.”

It’s a beautiful thing to hear someone deciding to do what feels right for them. It can be so easy to make major life decisions solely based on the pressure around us, especially when material success and the opinions of others come into play. Both of these things are incredibly determinant in one’s ability to stay relevant in the music industry, and all external reasoning pointed for Lauryn to listen to those around her.

Yet it’s this agency in Lauryn, in the midst of this “crazy circumstance”, that leads to transformation.

“Now the joy of my world / Is in Zion! (Zion, Zion!) / Now the joy of my world / Is in Zion! (Zion, uhh, Zion!)”

Lauryn Hill experiences a deep spiritual awakening from giving life to her newborn, an awakening that is complemented by the heavenly backing vocals and the rainfall-esque feel of the percussion. The choirs give an astounding grandness, as Lauryn herself has been awoken from a slumber. The vocals wreak of a long and deep-seated pain that feels relieved for the first time in ages, maybe ever, and Lauryn can find a place to put her joy in.

The way she delicately stretches and holds each word of the chorus adds to the deep emotion of the track, allowing each and every emotion to breathe fully. The song screams joy, fulfillment, and a discovery of a deeper purpose. The percussion and guitar perfectly compliment each other, adding just enough backing to lift Lauryn’s vocals that absolutely dominate this chorus.

It is worth noting that people often name their children to symbolize something deeper about the child or the relationship between the parent and child. In the recording of Miseducation, Lauryn Hill was deeply shaped by both Christian and Rastafarian theology. Lauryn’s relationship with Rohan Marley, Bob Marley’s son and Zion’s father, brought a Rastafarian influence to her strong Baptist upbringings. As a result, Lauryn decided to record the album in Jamaica with many of Bob Marley’s family. As she recorded, her own Christian roots never left as she often consulted the Bible for inspiration and comfort. In both of these theologies, while the specifics differ, the word “Zion” is often symbolized as a representation of the promised land of God. As Zion himself comes from Rastafarian and Baptist roots, this name just felt right.

In Furman’s aforementioned biography, Lauryn explains her son’s naming.

“Names wouldn’t come when I was ready to have him. The only name that came to me was Zion. I was like, ‘is Zion too much of a weight to carry?’ But this little boy, man. I would say he personally delivered me from my emotional and spiritual drought. He just replenished my newness. When he was born, I felt like I was born again…I wanted [‘To Zion’] to be a revolutionary song about a spiritual movement, and also about my spiritual change, going from one place to another because of my son.”

As the second verse begins, this spiritual change shifts Lauryn’s idea of love.

“How beautiful if nothing more / Than to wait at Zion’s door / I’ve never been in love like this before / Now let me pray to keep you from / The perils that will surely come / See life for you, my prince has just begun”

While Lauryn depicts the grace of romantic love for Zion’s father on another Miseducation highlight “Nothing Even Matters”, a duet with D’Angelo, the unconditional love she feels for her child supersedes any love she has felt up until this point. It is simply unparalleled. With this type of love, it is natural for parents to hope and even pray to protect their own child from the hardships that exist in the world.

As the second verse progresses, this new love gives life to a renewed sense of spiritual stability.

“And I thank you for choosing me / To come through unto life to be / A beautiful reflection of His grace / See I know that a gift so great / Is only one God could create / And I’m reminded every time I see your face / That the joy of my world / Is in Zion! (Zion, Zion!)”

Lauryn’s inflections in her voice raise higher, her gratitude and joy shining through her pristine singing. It is breathtaking to hear the way she says that her child has chosen her, as if his soul had already existed and simply picked Lauryn to be his mother. It shows the strong spiritual roots that are in Lauryn and the deep responsibility she feels to raise Zion and bring him up into this world. With her direct allusions to God, Lauryn sees her child as having parallels with the higher power she believes in, seeing her son as deeply pure and good.

For her, Zion’s birth is the start of a new spiritual journey, one that is brought to life in the song’s magnificent outro.

“Marching, marching, marching, marching (Marching) / To Zion, marching, marching, marching, marching (We gon’ march) / Marching, marching, marching, marching / To Zion, marching, beautiful, beautiful, Zion”

This outro is commanding, exciting, and epic. It repeats and repeats, the drum pattern mimicking this marching rhythm while the backing gospel vocals add a divine element to the production. The musical marching conjures images of the literal marching that may come in a spiritual pilgrimage, leading to a destination that makes one feel reborn. This marching, complemented with Lauryn Hill’s beautiful harmonic wailing, parallels the beginning of an internal pilgrimage for her and her newborn son. There is a heartfelt level of excitement coated through the outro — excitement of possibilities, of adventures, and of dreams that her son will have.

As the anthemic wailing subsides, the vocals gradually turn gentle as Lauryn and the backing choirs croon for her “beautiful, beautiful Zion”. The plick-plucks of Santana’s guitar hit on opposite beats of Lauryn’s vocals, creating a unique outro — one that allows the emotion to linger long after the song ends.

For anyone who has begun a spiritual journey, whether it be traditionally religious, personally spiritual, or simply focused on deeper awareness, there is a internal transformation that can often occur. Lauryn’s “To Zion” is her transformation, from being lost and downtrodden to finding spiritual peace in giving life to her first-born. This song is not a proclamation to pick a child over a career or that spirituality must align with starting a family, but rather about her honest experience of a difficult, emotional, and life-changing decision.

This transformation has kept her soul alive to this day.

During the summer of 2018, I went to the Pitchfork Chicago Music Festival, where Lauryn Hill performed a 20th anniversary tour of Miseducation. It was an immaculate show. Lauryn absolutely commanded the stage, singing each and every song with the same level of emotion as when they were first released, with the added layer of these same emotions becoming more textured, nuanced, and wiser. She spoke about how Zion was a young man now, about to turn 21 and take on the world. The pride she spoke about him and the joy about the decision was palpable. Songs are often frozen in time but to see her sing “To Zion” with an even deeper joy was absolutely surreal; she was no longer singing about the newborn boy she had just created but the young man she had raised and guided. As she passionately belted these vocals, two decades after the release of the song, Lauryn’s message to her child was crystal-clear as ever.

March on.