As I wrote the other day, music (for me, writing and performing it) can be a key to sanity in turbulent times. Of course listening matters too.
Here are some songs you might enjoy as events play out from Election Day through certification and whatever comes in between, and beyond.
The Nields
The song at the top of this post, “We’re Gonna Build a Boat,” about building a better nation like building a boat that can carry all, was written by Nerissa and Katryna Nields (the leaders of the band The Nields). That was a magical moment from early in 2020 on my Sunday Sanity sessions of my Sustain What webcast.
Please be sure to listen to their potent 2017 song Tyrants Always Fall, as well.
I did post it earlier this year but buried at the bottom of my dispatch on the pop anthem “Put a Woman in Charge”).
Jesse Welles
The day after the June 27 septugenarian-octogenarian debate smackdown that knocked President Joe Biden out of the race, the hyper-productive neo-folk songwriter Jesse Welles posted this fabulous fresh-made tune, “The Debate.”
Last night I saw an archeological wonder
On the Espn of war and lies
Cnn’s death rattle an ancient species battled
Two fossils tryna poke each others eyes
I just love that line.
Welles, who just a few years ago was fronting a Nirvana-tinged hard-rock band called Welles, is now a hyperproductive Dylan-style bard who seems to post a new tune field-recorded on a farm plot or in a junk yard about once a week. He’s gained a substantial and much-deserved following, particularly after a semi-viral response to “War isn’t Murder,” a stark look at the brutality of Israel’s assault on Gaza and Putin’s on Ukraine. This line along gives me chills:
War isn't murder, they're called casualties
There ain't a veteran with a good nights sleep
He continues to amaze and impress me. I stumbled on him through this year’s Farm Aid concert - building a song list on X. See my X thread here for much more.
Here’s a tune Welles just wrote - so fresh that it mentions the insults tossed at Puerto Rico at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally - called The Electoral College.
Well, if you want to go and vote, let me tell you what to do. You got to pick yourself a side and there's really only two. Don't ask questions.
There's a college that you ain't in debt to. There's a college you could not apply. It's the electoral one, and it ain't quite as fun as bullshit degrees and Saturday nights.
Each state takes up all of its votes, tosses out the minority, and they take a few tokens and say, No, this ain't broken, and then they head on over to the powers that be. To the winner. Rah, rah. Go, team. Don't joke. Don't say that it works but don't say that it's broke.
We like to throw around Nazi. We like to throw around Woke. Be happy. Think less. Make your selection. Enjoy the bread and the circus and the U.S. election. There's a left wing and a right wing on a big, flightless bird. They like to keep us all fightin' over things so absurd. And Puerto Rico ain't trash. We all know that's a joke. Yeah, we are under their honor, but we won't let them vote....
And I love his tune The President - about what presidents do and don’t change (more of the latter):
Well your president won't help you not hate brown folks. They won't make your troubles disappear. They can't change the fact you're broke. They won't turn everyone Woke. And all they can do make you less a slave to fear.
It's your president. But it ain't your picnic. No, it's a great big club and honey bunches, we ain't in it. You and me, we're ain't the ones to please. Now they got all the guards and lobbyists and billionaires and gods and kings.
Well, your president won't help you love your neighbor. They can't help you find inner peace. They won't change your mind. That change will start inside and that's outside their jurisdiction - well, for now, at least.
It ain't your President. And it ain't your picnic. Now. It's a great big club. And honey bunches, you ain't in it. You and me, we the ain't the ones to please. Now they got oligarchs and lobbyists, millionaires and gods and kings. These things, you can see.
Finally, there’s Elle Cordova’s “The Ballad of the Ballot” - a sweet biography of a ballot, from tree onward.
Here’s the tail end of the lyrics, with a staccato coda that betrays her choice:
I’m a ballot with lots on my mind
I got races for places in courtrooms and stations,
the White House and more on the line
But my fear, to be frank
Is that you’ll just leave me blank
I’ll be crumpled and tossed in the bin
This is my chance to count
So won’t you please fill me out
Good luck, and may the candidate who who isn’t clearly an aspiring dictator, who listens to scientists instead of capitalizing on misinformation, who puts the future of our planet before the profits of polluters, and who will uphold the basic tenets of our democracy instead of undermine the election results in a selfish grasp at power — win.
There’s so much more out there, of course, including my seaweed-farming neighbor Carl Karush who wrote Dump Trump back when Biden was still the Democratic candidate.
What music is on your list as 2024 plays out?
Insert, 11/5, 4 pm ET - I have to add the 2008 song “Worst President Ever” by the departed “Fast Folk” songwriting dynamo Jack Hardy.
As I just mused on X, I wish Jesse Welles and Jack Hardy could have overlapped, but lung cancer took Hardy way too soon. Here’s a link (my paywall-free gift) to my 1999 Times profile of Hardy: “A Village Pied Piper For the Spirit of Folk; Weekly Gathering Fosters Songwriters' Dreams.”
An Election Sanity Playlist