It’s a crazy time in ol’ the U.S. of A. right now, what with the contentious Democratic primaries competing against the ongoing incompetence and venality of King Trumpf’s administration for our dwindling attention spans. But if you’re a songwriter who cares about politics it’s hard to resist the urge to engage with that topic, in order to try to clarify, persuade, inspire, and/or deepen your audience’s engagement with the issues you care most about.
But how to go about it? The old model of the folky protest song is still available of course, but that approach long ago started feeling shrill and predictable. Since the 1960s the repertoire of politically-minded song forms has widened greatly, with all sorts of new approaches being tested out, from the grim first-person lament of Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” to Public Enemy’s blistering “Fight the Power,” to Patti Smith’s anthemic “People Have the Power” — to name three of the many hundreds of songs that have charted new approaches to political expression since the sixties.
Here in the City of Brotherly Love, several of my favorite songwriters (a few of which I am blessed to call mentors and/or friends) have tackled the challenge in their own unique ways, while speaking out on a variety of political issues. As I struggled to find an original and impactful way to address the recent rise of authoritarian-style leaders — an effort that resulted in my song “Bonesaw (For Jamal Khashoggi),” which was released today — I was lucky to have their songs to ponder and consider as possible models of politically-inspired songwriting.
What follows is a brief analysis of seven very different songs by these writers, with an eye toward better appreciating the ingenious ways they tackled the challenge of getting us to think about, and potentially act on, the political issues they wanted to address. Even if you’re not interested in my takes on these songs from a craftsman’s perspective, I hope you’ll at least give them a listen, either via the individual title links below or this Spotify playlist I created.
Cliff Hillis’ “Love Not War”
If you’re a friend of Cliff’s (and who isn’t? – as David Uosikkonen once noted on introducing him as a band member, Cliff is widely regarded as “the nicest guy on the planet”) or if you follow him on social media, you’re no doubt well aware that he’s a passionate man when it comes to politics. He’s been battling it out on the front lines against our Trumpster fire of a president, though in as sensible, mild and amiable way as you could possibly imagine. He’s clearly as frustrated and enraged as the rest of us, yet somehow he finds a way to bring an open heart to every dialogue and to show genuine empathy toward others, even if he vehemently disagrees with them.
What I love about this song is how simply and succinctly it embodies that approach to today’s adversarial political climate. Though it begins with a jangly, light-hearted melody, the first verse goes right to the heart of the issue:
Although we are enemies We make a perfect pair You with your suit of armor And me with my fist in the air Gathering up our armies Making our battle plans Waiting for that signal Two if by sea, and one if by land
But then comes the abrupt turn of the pre-chorus:
But ho-old on, let's put up our flags of truce Because we both know that it's no use When you've forgotten what you're fighting for It's time to make love, not war
Boom! Within the first 1:09, Hillis sets the scene, lays out the conflict, and reaches out for resolution — both lyrically and musically. The second verse elaborates by tracing the (pre-)origins of the crisis at hand, putting it into a longer, more humane perspective:
Once we walked hand in hand The years pulled us apart We drew a line into the sand And tightened up our hearts You know as well as I do That's just no way to live So can we put our weapons down Everything that you get is the same that you give
The tune is so lilting and sweet, and the lyrics so simple and direct, that you hardly even notice the masterful economy behind it. Like its title, the song’s melody is as catchy, direct and memorable as the pithiest bumper sticker. It’s the perfect, enlightened antidote to our seemingly incessant fighting in the online political trenches.
Pete Donnelly’s “American Town”
The title cut from his 2014 album of that name, “American Town” takes the sense of sadness and gloom we all felt after the senseless murders of Trayvon Martin and several other African-American youths and compresses it into a painful cri du coeur. It starts off with some loud, thrashing, industrial-sounding guitar shrieks, but quickly settles into a mid-tempo, classic Tom Petty-style chord sequence (E – A – E, C#m – B – A – E) embellished by some nifty vibrato flourishes. Or so you think — until Donnelly’s anguished tenor kicks in on the pleading first verse:
What's your country done for you now? Is it making you feel that you just don't count? Even if you know your way around You'd better watch out when the sun goes down
Ouch! The lyrics put us on notice immediately, then pan back calmly to reveal the bigger picture:
Your bankers, lawyers, collecting their fares While the sick and diseased are left to despair Each of us knows what another can't bear Being cheated and lied to, treated unfair
The chilling cry of the chorus kicks in with an angry scrape of the low E string, as Donnelly’s voice rises demandingly:
Sometimes I wonder if everyone sang As loud as they could at the top of their range All of the glass would come shattering down To litter the streets of this American town
Without pointing any fingers — note how he deftly employs the generalizing “some folks” — Donnelly takes on the victim’s view in the second stanza:
What's it take for some folks to see What it's like to have never been free? Watching you waiting for one little slip Do you know what it's like to be treated like this?
As the second chorus kicks in with a roar, it’s almost like Donnelly is channeling the fear and rage that built up to the Ferguson riots of 2014. After a searing guitar solo followed by some bass rumblings intercut with spiky electric piano and guitar riffs, the rage softens into despair with the final, imploring verse:
Rivers of blood have begun to flow Each of us caught in the undertow The hardest rain has yet to fall 'Cause high on the hill there's a clarion call
“Clarion call” indeed. This is a call-to-political-arms of the highest and yet most elemental order. But it’s universal in approach rather than partisan: If we truly love our country, Donnelly seems to be saying, we absolutely have to address our racial and economic inequities. As he put it in an interview:
“It’s a critical song but it’s not an anti-American song. To be critical of your country is to be caring of it. For me, the song is a reflection of what I’m seeing. It seems like there’s so little protest music right now, and there’s so much to criticize. People have to make their voices heard.”
The first time I heard him perform this song I couldn’t hold back the tears. Kudos to Donnelly for making his voice heard in such a passionate yet stirringly artful way.
Almshouse’s “Gaslight”
This more recent tune, by Irene Lambrou and Troy Schoenmeier of the band Almshouse, caught my eye when it showed up in one of my automated “…you’ll also like” Spotify playlists a few weeks ago. From the title there’s no mistaking what — or more importantly, WHOSE — phenomenon Lambrou is tackling lyrically here. What’s surprising is that she manages to grapple with it without getting overly shrill, strident or obvious. In fact, it took me a few listens to hone in on the lyrics’ edginess.
It begins hauntingly against a backdrop of layered, reverb-y electric guitar arpeggios, as Lambrou slowly intones:
Open wide, eat the lies Real men don't apologize Shut your mind, my darling, shut your mind Close your eyes, my darling
Then the rhythm section kicks in, though still somewhat restrained, for the second verse:
When you see the water rise Just pretend we'll be alright Shut your mind, my darling, shut your mind Close your eyes, my darling Close your eyes
With that second iteration of the word “eyes” the tune opens up and ascends to a darkly lifting half-chorus, now sung from the gaslighting victim’s disoriented point of view:
I am in another world Upside down and I'm a lost girl
The second verse has a nursery rhyme-like, or William Blake-ish, ring to it, as it admonishes the listener to:
See the cities burning bright Lock the doors, hold on tight Shut your mind, my darling Close your eyes my darling Close your eyes
A full chorus follows:
I am in another world Upside down and I'm a lost girl Stumble through the strange, strange night I lost my way in all the gaslight
The music suddenly stops, and a doubled guitar solo erupts out of the silence, only to sweep back into the chorus one more time. By this point the full orchestration has kicked in, to solemn and haunting effect. It’s almost as though some kind of religious or mystical event has occurred.
But no: it’s just that the lulling voice of the gaslighter-in-chief has finally worked its spell — which is what makes this song’s approach so ingenious. Like a good fiction writer, Lambrou doesn’t just describe a scene, she makes it come alive by putting you in it. As the final hushed note fades, you realize that you now know what it feels like to be gaslighted. The musical synesthesia, so to speak, is mesmerizing.
John Faye’s “Miss America”
I’ve secretly taken to calling John Faye, the multi-talented songwriter and singer extraordinaire behind the bands The Caulfields, IKE, The John Faye Power Trip, John & Brittany, and Those Meddling Kids, “EFFing John Faye,” at least in my mind. It’s not (just) because I’m jealous of his f-ing incredible talent, but because he’s Everybody’s Favorite Frontman. (Get it? “Now introducing, EFF… John Faye!!”)
Seriously, everybody I know loves John and admires his uber-potent songwriting. He’s been a fixture of the Philly music scene (like a few other folks on this list) for several decades now, and he’s still cranking out the hits. But not just any hits: John only knows how to craft smart, edgy, impactful and memorable ones, it seems.
“Miss America” came out a couple of years ago, just as the Trumpf (Mal-) administration was starting its endless war on immigrants (especially those with a skin color different from Herr Orangeface’s). The song is a bit of departure for Faye in that it instead of embedding sporadic Molotov cocktails into his lyrics via ironic potshots and wicked smaht turns-of-phrase (see, for example, his tune “Where Are They Now”), “Miss America” aims for a direct-hit political statement right from the get-go.
Not that it doesn’t include some of Faye’s signature ironic lyrical flourishes. Behold the master at work:
I miss America But I don't get the feeling That she's missing me back I miss America But she don't wanna see That I've been under attack They say you never know how lucky you are You got a half a tank of gas in your car Hit the pedal and go Hit the pedal and go... I miss America
Naturally, that chorus hook (“I miss America”) is about as catchy as anything this side of the Coronavirus. I love how Faye immediately goes for the jugular in the second verse though.
I've been here for her So why she want to leave me When she needs me the most This is America But she just wants her Very own reality show It's getting hard to get my heart to pretend Thought she would never but she fooled me again Honey, where do we go?... HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW?
Like the Almshouse song discussed above, Faye ironically invokes the false placations of a nursery rhyme / lullaby in the bridge:
Hush little baby, don't you cry Mama's gonna sing you a lie, lie, lie... Hush little baby, don't you cry-eye-eye
(Interesting how feelings of infantilization seem to accompany the Trumpf admin’s actions, no?) And then comes the coup de grace, with the final pre-chorus:
But what's a lover, not a fighter to do? I'm gonna tie a yellow ribbon to you So you know that I know And I know that you know... I miss America
I love the pure snark behind “I’m gonna tie a yellow ribbon to you.” What schmaltzier image (and song) could Faye possibly invoke to make such a simple point: America, you’re lost. It’s time for you to come back. We’ll embrace you with a hero’s welcome when you do. But first, you have to remember who you are.
There’s a world of hurt and frustration and despair wrapped up in the hyper self-referential ironies of those final lines (“So you know that I know / And I know that you know.”) You can’t put it past us this time, Faye is implying. Although, perhaps she just did? (Wink, wink.)
Ben Arnold’s “Detroit People”
This tune off Ben Arnold’s fine 2016 album Lost Keys responds directly to both the broader economic collapse of the title city as well as the Flint, Michigan water crisis that started in 2015 and still (unbelievably) continues to this day, since the city won’t finish replacing all of the lead-contaminated water lines until June of this year. As I watched the latter crisis unfold, with its ongoing revelations of underlying corruption, mismanagement, and racism by the Republican Governor of Michigan and his cronies, I could really only muster one response: outrage. Any song I’d have tried to write about it would have fumed with pure anger and hate.
Luckily, Ben Arnold is a WAY better songwriter than I am. His response was to express solidarity with, admiration of, and compassion for the people of Detroit and Flint. A bluesy intro to this tune gives way to a more upbeat, R & B favored, horn-backed sound as Arnold invokes the workingman / woman’s life over his surging piano:
Whole lot of muscle, black grease on their hands A constant struggle to make it in this land Things got real ugly when some folks took a stand Sure ain't much money but they do the best they can
The chorus makes it crystal clear whose hurtin’ (to use a favorite word of his) Arnold is singing about:
Detroit people, take it on the chin Detroit people, gonna come around again Detroit people, in the heart of Michigan
The intro’s blues riff intervenes briefly with a half-time feel before the second verse goes on to describe the city’s proud history prior to the recent crises:
Live in a city, left out in the cold Their life is gritty, but it got us down the road That bumper's spit-shined, don't matter if it snowed She sure looks pretty, and she got a lotta soul
After the second chorus and another repetition of that slowed-down blues lick, Arnold lays down an absolutely gorgeous half-time bridge, buoyed by lovely Motown-style horns:
Hanging by a thread, it's tough down in the rubble Just can't get ahead, God, these times are troubled Seems like there's nothing left but pieces of the bubble This city is depressed but the people rise above it
The melody rises with those last three words, and we’re back to the chorus chords, with Arnold and a group of backing singers wailing “Na na, na na na / Na na na, na na na / Na na, na na na / Na na na, na na na.” After another reprise of the blues lick, Arnold continues expressing his admiration for the people of Detroit, this time emphasizing their monumental musical heritage:
Them records spinnin', 45's go round and round They built a solid groove, knew how to lay it down They taught us how to move, and we still love that sound Brothers and sisters makin' hits in Motor Town
It’s a pretty straightforward tune, all in all, but Arnold puts all the pieces in just the right places: the blues licks, the horns, the tasty rhythm section, the stirring vocals — and above all, the heart.
Marion Halliday’s “We Are the Change”
I wrote in the introduction to this post that the sixties-era protest song “long ago started to feel a bit shrill and predictable.” After hearing Marion Halliday’s stirring live recording of “We Are the Change,” from her recent album Rings Around Saturn, I have to admit I was wrong about that. This rousing protest song is a call to rise up in the tradition of the very best sixties political songs, and it works perfectly for our troubled times too.
It begins with a spoken intro by Halliday, interspersed with some grumbling and “Yeah’s” from her bandmates:
I've got some questions, have you guys had some questions too? (Yes.) I think I need some answers (yeah!).
And boy, is her first question a doozy!
What harm can one man do?
She repeats the question three times with rising urgency, breaking it down along the way into the repeated phrase “What harm? What harm? What harm?” Her answers are as blunt and direct as the question is:
Go ask the Cambodians Or the Polish Jews What harm a man can do
In case there was any doubt, Halliday — who bills herself as a “Proud Purveyor of Bluegrass and Bourbon Infused Original Women Powered Americana” — is a pretty ballsy woman. The ensuing verses don’t back down any, either. The second verse consists of the repeated phrase “When lies become the truth,” which gets whittled down to “When lies, when lies, when lies!”
This is followed by the plangent:
How long till we raise our voice? Till they come for our brothers? Our sisters too? And maybe me and you?
The bridge unabashedly announces its faith in the power of righteous resistance in the face of hatred and evil:
Enough shouts and hate We must listen with our hearts If we do we might find Truth beyond the noise And a place to make a start
In a classic sixties-style move, the song then turns to stress how we each need to take personal responsibility if we hope to collectively initiate broad social changes. The repeated refrain here is “What good can we each do?” (three times) followed by “What good, what good, what good?” Halliday responds pointedly: “Go ask Nelson Mandela / Or maybe Rosa too / What good we each can do.”
The final verse’s repeated phrase, echoed by a choir of women’s voices, is “What change can we create?” “Doesn’t matter, big or small,” Halliday answers, “just start it now it right now – the change we will create.” This is followed immediately by the title phrase “We are the change, We are the change,” which Halliday emphatically repeats against the choir’s swelling “Ooh, ooh-ooh’s.”
In lesser hands, this simple call-and-response structure could easily slide into cloying cliche, but thanks to Halliday and her bandmates’ powerful, bell-like voices the song strikes just the right conscience-stirring note. Audiences lucky enough to hear it performed live, I’m guessing, will feel pretty darn primed to march into a brave new future by song’s end.
Mack Hooligan’s “Bonesaw (For Jamal Khashoggi)”
Finally, if you would be so kind as to indulge me, I’d like to add a few words about my new song “Bonesaw.” In case you are not familiar with Jamal Khashoggi’s story: he was a Saudi Arabia-born U.S. citizen and Washington Post journalist who was lured into the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey and brutally tortured and killed because he had published some stories that were critical of the reigning Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman.
Though bin Salman later shifted the blame and publicly hanged several people after a closed court supposedly found them guilty of the crime, the true story (based on collaborated reporting) is that the Prince had his henchmen lure Khashoggi to the embassy by promising to supply some paperwork Khashoggi needed to facilitate his upcoming marriage to his fiancé, who was waiting outside the embassy while Khashoggi went inside. Once he was inside they brutally tortured, murdered and dismembered him.
The Saudis had thought ahead, though. Not only did they hire a body double to leave the embassy a while later (like Khashoggi’s fiancé wouldn’t notice the difference?!), but they asked a doctor to bring in a bonesaw, to help facilitate the dismembering and disposal of the body.
So that’s the origin of the song’s title, and the impetus behind my writing it.
But how to write about such a gruesome, almost unimaginable event? Did I want to focus solely on Khashoggi and the grisly details of his assassination, or broaden the focus to make a more general, U.S.-relevant political statement, given our current president’s expressed admiration for and chummyness with not only bin Salman, but other strongman/authoritarian types like Putin, Erdogan (Turkey’s dictator), and Kim Jong-un?
I chose the latter. My next question/challenge was: whose perspective should I present the song from? Khashoggi’s? His fiancé’s? The Saudi henchmen’s?
I decided to stretch myself by trying to inhabit the mentality of the central force(s) behind the suppression of dissidents like Khashoggi: the authoritarian leaders themselves. Though this seemed like a pretty dicey approach, I decided to give it a try.
The first verse is told from the point of view of bin Salman:
You see that man? He's got opinions You see that man? He's not on our side He's asking questions On television Just might uncover All those things we wanna hide
Perhaps this says something bad about me (hehe), but I kinda dug the idea of writing from the evil villain’s perspective. So I continued in that mode. What kind of awful statement(s) about dissidents like Khashoggi might an egomaniacal, paranoid authoritarian like bin Salman make to his lackeys? Given the Saudi obsession with swords and the scheme he eventually cooked up, possibly something like:
We've got to cut him down We've got to cut him down... right now
When I found some appropriately sinister chord changes and a melody to accompany this refrain, I knew I was on the right track. But I didn’t want to get stuck on Khashoggi’s story. Were there other journalists, maybe closer to home, who’d experienced such threats and violence? Who had our own benighted, wannabe authoritarian president been trying to suppress recently?
I knew the answer immediately (this was not too long after the Women’s March). Hence for the next verse I imagined President Duncecap peering angrily from behind the curtains of the White House at a group of women protestors, and then glaring angrily at a TV set displaying a congressional hearing during which a woman was testifying against His Trumpyness.
You see those girls? They don't respect us You hear those women? They keep knocking at our door They're asking questions, They won't protect us Don't even answer They'll just want more and more
And then of course — BOOM! — off with their heads too (meaning, same chorus refrain but with “him” replaced by “them”).
I struggled the most with the bridge. I knew where I wanted to go with the final verse — I wanted to invoke crowds charging the evil villain’s fortress while he shouted at his underlings to “cut them all down!”, essentially — but I felt like I first had to indicate somehow that although the foreign and domestic authoritarians’ cultures might differ, their essential motivations and depraved conceptions of everything being about Us versus Them were identical.
My first draft of the bridge didn’t quite do that. Luckily, on hearing it my friend Mr. Faye (see above) gave me a nudge in the right direction. “What do those guys do to the dissidents, to put their backs up against the wall, so to speak?” he asked. The answer:
We've got to put the fear of God in their hearts Put out the fire in the eyes We've got to take their will and break it apart We've got to --
“We’ve got to do WHAT?,” John and I asked ourselves out loud. Order supplies? Cover them with… chocolate and flies? (Further hilarity ensued along these lines, as often happens during our writing sessions.) Eventually I stumbled on the rhyming word we were looking for:
We've got to make them COMPLY
Because, hey, what do all authoritarians demand above all? Two things: absolute loyalty and compliance.
The final verse pretty much wrote itself, since I already had a mental blueprint for it, as mentioned above. (The awesome idea of inserting an exotic-sounding percussive interlude to lead into it came straight from the fertile brains of co-producers John Faye and Ron Disilvestro, however.) Here’s that last verse:
You see those crowds? They keep getting larger You see those people? They're not gonna turn away It's getting louder Supersonic whisper Those angry people Gonna make them rue the day
Full credit for the amazing phrase “supersonic whisper” goes to Mr. Faye, who insisted on it despite my initial hesitations (yup, he was right, as usual). And Ron gets all the credit for the drums and other percussion touches, as well as for his superlative recording, mixing and engineering skills.
As for the inspiration behind my initial songwriting efforts? Just scan the list of talented Philly songwriters above, and you’ll know exactly where that came from.
Mack's Musings 