NOTES:
So many protest songs accuse. I wanted to write a protest song of sympathy. I am from WV. My grandfather came home at night black dust covered. I’ve watched my relatives give their lives to coal mines, seen them used up and then see them vote against their own self interests. Battered wife syndrome. Southerners can embrace the hard of life in a way that resembles fate. They also celebrate with gusto. The land, its resources, and fear of losing a job get used in a Faustian deal. I have seen the abject poverty in rural Appalachia up close and personal. I feel for their plight at the same time I love that they rarely let beauty escape. I think the Right got really good at using all these things in order to control. A con game. Working people used like bullets against themselves and many times not unwittingly. A sense of futility at the system. It’s not just what the Right has done, it’s what the Left has not. No one is wrong if rather than fighting while the boot is coming down, they are looking for scraps to feed hungry kids. That’s a moral problem that’s not so straight forward. Joe Strummer was very much on my mind. His sense of empathy and moral complexity along with urgency and beautiful musical compositions. I also included a ton of The Police, one of my true loves, in the breakdown section and the 80’s chorused bass. But the real influence on this track was The Good, The Bad, The Queen. Damon Albarn and Paul Simonon. How is this not in everyone’s record collection? The music is almost art house, odd and angular but listen again and there is such feeling and uniqueness – a sense of just seeing what will happen, music for music’s sake – adventure. All with a smokestack belching overhead. The vocals broken or resolved and yet saying fuck off in every breath. I wanted very much to capture that same feeling. I see the new politics and our divided nation as a fight between scared people. O.W.S. and Tea Party not so vastly different in their upspring. Watching the racism and vile on the conservative right fueled with money from business interests gave me the line “money moves like water flows; it don’t need you to help”. It’s a shell game for their own interests devoid of connection or responsibility to the wellbeing of people whose voices they are using.
LYRICS:
And some people pray/ with arms all raised
And all the air in their lungs
From a sacrament come a soldier sent
And peace wrapped in gun
From all this beauty comes all this hatred
Loves been put on the cross
Are you satisfied with what you hold so tight
Is it worth what’s been lost
And all your dreams and all your worries
They get used in the con
And all the air in your lungs
In a tenement life there’s no room for rights
On a factory floor
And for a living wage there’s a three-card game
Moving hate, fear and blame
When you’d rather win than be right
That’s when talking is done
(CHORUS)
Take your medicine, buy your share of shit
Until you feel you are free
When you’re burning things who sells gasoline
And did you torch what they want
Money moves like water flows
It don’t need you to help
(CHORUS) (FIN)
