It’s happening again. We’ll be hanging out after a show or having dinner with a host after a house show and they’ll get kind of serious and look us straight in the face and say “You travel all over the country…what the hell is happening out there?”
And we know exactly what they mean. We’ve been through this before in 2016. Not so much 2020 because nobody was leaving their homes, but we’ve been asked if we can explain the state of the union in radio interviews and over drinks more times than we can count because everybody knows that election years are big years for folk singers. When the politicians start politicking, here come all of these folk singers doing their best Woody Guthrie impressions, writing songs like Peggy Seeger and attempting the earnestness of Joan Baez, because if there’s one thing that will change minds in an election year and make an impact, it’s a song.
Or will it?
We break down the ins-and-outs of political songs in our most recent From the Green Room essay on our Patreon, but here's a take on the heart of the issue: We secretly love this question because it supposes that folk singers are these double agents, who’ve infiltrated the secret cells of the alt-right and have gone camping with leftist activists and peaceniks. And I’m not going to tell you that isn’t true. But mostly we just drive around a lot and count the number of Trump signs vs. any other sign. It’s by no means a Gallup poll, but it was accurate before. More than anything, we can tell just how nervous people are feeling when they ask us “What are you seeing out there?” People all over the country are nervous right now. People all over the country are angry right now.
Nerves and anger, the false connectors of our country. When we experience these feelings we reach out and seek others who feel this same way to bolster those feelings and in that way become a country of lobbyists and special interest groups. While we believe that self-expression and personal acceptance and actualization are the signs of a free society, we sometimes look at the way we vote and wonder what this country would look like if we voted in the best interests of our neighbors instead of ourselves. If instead of voting out of our own anger and nervousness, we realized that those are only feelings. And feelings pass, and when they do we’re left to find another cause to lobby for to fill the void in our ego.
But it would be utopian if we let our egos get out of the way and instead vote in the best interests of people who do not look like us or have the same means as us. What truly connects us in this life is our vulnerability with other people. Our need. Our love.
As a member of the folk singer caucus, we exist to remind you that we are only as free as we allow our neighbors to be. Vote like your neighbor’s freedom depends on it. That is our platform. But all we can do is write a song. And all you can do is sing along. Will these songs change anybody’s mind about actual policy being discussed? Probably not. But that’s not the point of political songs. Political songs are there to rally the believers, bolster the tribe, incense your opponents. It’s not there to state a thesis, present facts and form an argument.
A folk song will not change someone’s mind. But the singer might. The person who stands in front of someone else and bares their soul without coercion, who tells a story that is true is hard to argue against. Humans have a capacity to care, and we’ve seen time and time again people relate to our music across party lines, religious beliefs, social distinctions- not because our music is all that great, but because we are standing in front of them sharing ourselves.
In some ways, I (Scott) think that the only useful part of church is to get people together to sing, because something happens when you sing together. You seek harmony, a blend of voices, a consensus is reached in the tempo, you speak words that may not be true now but you hope they will become true in the future. When you sing together you learn to care about the health of your choir, you learn to appreciate voices that don’t sound like your own, and you learn where you can fit in to support the common song. This may sound idealistic and naive, but there is science behind it and years of history to prove the point.
A folk song will not change someone’s mind, but singing together might.
We are not saying that if you listen to this little folk band and join a choir then suddenly all of us will agree and have no problems. Differing points of view are important in a healthy society, and while we have our own opinions on all of these social issues and have party affiliation, someone else may have reason to believe differently. And that’s a good thing. Argument is a good thing. But disrespect is not. We just hope that reasonable, kind discourse can prevail in our private lives this year. We hope for a groundswell of respect and not just tolerance between neighbors, but actual love, because we can’t have an insurrection every four years.
So, what the hell is happening out there? People are struggling. People are fighting with their own anger and nervousness and they are struggling to find balance in this choir. It sounds like cacophony right now. But that is only because we are not practiced at getting along, playing together, listening to each other while lending their voice. America is a teenage garage band right now. It will take time, but we can do it. We must do it.
---
We're heading into the studio next month to record an album called Hymns For My Atheist Sister and Her Friends to Sing Along To. It's an album that's been in the crockpot for a few years, and when we decided to release it this year, we had no idea how pertinent it would be in addressing the social and political divide we are facing in this election year. But that's the way of a song. It seems to rise to the top when you really need it. We'll be touching on themes mostly of loving your neighbor and making peace within yourself. Can't wait to share it with you on November 24, 2024, with a few singles leading up along the way. It's not a political record, but it is a personal one, which in a time like this seems like the same thing. Or maybe a welcome break from blurring that line.
Kommentarer