From the Big Ugly Bill (the worst of which will kick in after the mid-term elections) to the defunding of USAID to the Epstein coverup to the tariffs and the war against Iran, Donald Trump, his cronies, and the Republican Party have inflicted horror after horror on us.

If you haven’t yet voted get your ass out there and cast your ballot! November 3, 2026 is the beginning of the end of this misery.

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It’s time to make a difference. If you haven’t yet voted, make a plan and get your ass out and cast your ballot!

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Lyrics

She stood outside the factory gate,
Twelve hours down, six days straight.
He worked the line till his hands gave out,
No pension coming, no way around.
They walked off together, they took their stand,
Put eight hours back in the working man’s hands.
Every little freedom we live with today
Came from somebody who wouldn’t give their power away.

They marched for it,
They struck for it,
They stood when standing came with a price.
They learned that power belongs to the people
Only when the people decide.

Your vote is your power,
Don’t give it away.
It came through two hundred fifty years of hands
To reach your hands today.
They fought so you could have it,
They paid so you could say
Who gets the power, who answers to whom.
Your vote is your power.
Don’t give it away.

She signed her name but couldn’t vote,
Raised her children, kept the home.
Marched through jeers and courthouse doors,
Asked what freedom was freedom for.
He faced the questions, the threats, the lies,
A poll tax waiting, a line outside.
They kept coming back till the law finally changed,
Because rights don’t survive when we give power away.

They sat for it,
Went to jail for it,
Crossed that bridge knowing what waited ahead.
They made this country write down the promise
It had only spoken instead.

Your vote is your power,
Don’t give it away.
It came through two hundred fifty years of hands
To reach your hands today.
They fought so you could have it,
They paid so you could say
Who gets the power, who answers to whom.
Your vote is your power.
Don’t give it away.

The weekend off, the safer mine,
The old-age check that comes on time.
A schoolhouse door thrown open wide,
A seat at the table once denied.
None of it fell like rain from above,
None of it came just because they loved us.
People organized, demanded, stayed,
And elected the people who put it on the page.

They spoke for it,
They knocked doors for it,
They filled up union halls at night.
They knew a law is only a promise
Till somebody gives it life.

Your vote is your power,
Don’t give it away.
It came through two hundred fifty years of hands
To reach your hands today.
They fought so you could have it,
They paid so you could say
Who gets the power, who answers to whom.
Your vote is your power.
Don’t give it away.

Now somebody says it doesn’t matter.
Somebody says they’re all the same.
Somebody says one vote is nothing,
So why bother showing up anyway?

Funny how they tell you
Your vote don’t mean a thing
While spending every dollar
Trying to tell you what to think.

If your power didn’t matter,
Why do they want it so damn bad?
Why make it hard to use it?
Why tell you you don’t have it?

They don’t have to take your power
If they can make you turn away.
They don’t have to steal a thing
If you just give it away.

From hands that held the picket signs,
From hands they tried to bind,
From hands that signed petitions,
From hands raised one at a time,
They carried something all this way
Through every hard-won day.
They carried it this far.
Now it’s in your hands.

Your vote is your power.
Don’t give it away.
Somebody fought for the right that you carry.
Somebody cleared you a way.
Now you decide what happens next.
Now you get your say.
They carried the power all this way.
Don’t give it away.

You don’t owe your vote to anybody.
Make them earn it.
Make them hear you.
Make it count.

Your vote is your power.
Don’t give it away.

Who is this band?

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If you know, you know.

For those of you non-Minnesotans, I’ve annotated the lyrics below with links to the Minnesota-specific reference you may not understand.

When it was reported that Republican US Senate candiate in Minnesota, former NFL sideline interviewer Michele Tafoya had a lengthy history of social media posts disparaging the state she seeks to lead, Minnesotans took to Threads to describe just how un-Minnesotan they believe Tafoya to be.

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Lyrics

Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She’d ask for a Juicy Lucy without cheese.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks crop art is just regular art that’s been cut off at the bottom
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks a Payday’s the same as a Salted Nut Roll.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She goes to the State Fair and eats nothing on a stick.

Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks “up north” means Blaine.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks West St. Paul is west of St. Paul.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She tried to book a hair appointment at the Saint Paul Curling Club.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks the Mayo Clinic is a culinary school.

We dig you out when the snow comes down,
Deliver groceries when ICE invades our town,
Rebel Loon flying, neighbors standing guard,
For us, looking out for folks ain’t all that hard.
When things get ugly, we know what to do;
You look out for me and I look out for you.

Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks Paul and Babe are a country music duo.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She asks for the cross street when you say First Ave.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She turns the station when “Purple Rain” comes on.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She has no idea what happened when the gales of November came early.

Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
When she says, “Well, I’d better get going,” she leaves. Right away.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She thinks Camp Snoopy is training for Flock camera installers
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She never talks about the Halloween Blizzard of ’91.
And Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She says “Duck, Duck, Goose.”

We dig you out when the snow comes down,
Deliver groceries when ICE invades our town,
Rebel Loon flying, neighbors standing guard,
For us, looking out for folks ain’t all that hard.
When things get ugly, we know what to do;
You look out for me and I look out for you.

Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She’s never played pulltabs during a meat raffle.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
She calls Dayton’s…Macy’s.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
When she sees a car stuck in a snowdrift, she stays inside.
Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan
That she once tried to purify herself in White Bear Lake.

We dig you out when the snow comes down,
Deliver groceries when ICE invades our town,
Rebel Loon flying, neighbors standing guard,
For us, looking out for folks ain’t all that hard.
When things get ugly, we know what to do;
You look out for me and I look out for you.

Michele Tafoya is so un-Minnesotan.
You betcha.

Who is this band?

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It’s never been clearer to me than after Operation Metro Surge that ordinary Americans take very seriously JFK’s call to give back to your country. The contrast between the rest of us and this abhorrent MAGA grift is becoming more obvious by the day. I’ve got three different genres of this song. If you want to hear them, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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Lyrics

Ask Not

She clocks out late and drives the long way round,
Stops by the shelf where the hunger line is found,
He’s forty years a lineman, hands cracked and cold,
First truck out when the blizzard takes hold.
Nobody asked them twice, nobody had to plead,
They read the room and they answer the need.

Ask not what your country can do for you,
Ask what you can do for your country, it’s true,
That’s the deal that J.F.K. said we’d keep,
That’s the debt patriots still pay but some just reap.

At MAGA, Inc. they don’t climb, they buy the stairs,
Ask the country to underwrite their affairs,
A jet from Qatar lands soft on the tarmac floor,
Trump calls it a gift; we know it’s a bribe, and pay for more.
The Reflecting Pool’s three million turned to seventeen,
No bid, no blink, and the money remains unseen.

Ask not what your country can do for you,
Ask what you can do for your country, it’s true,
Republicans turned the whole thing around,
They’re stealing our taxes and giving no ground.

Trump signs the deal, and the deal gives to Trump,
Every favor’s a trade, and every trade’s got a bump,
The G.O.P. preached bootstraps, then sold off the boots,
Bootstraps for you, subsidies for them: It does not compute.
They call it freedom when the tax bill’s their reward,
They call it patriotism when it’s power they hoard.

But she’s still at the shelter when the shift is done,
And he’s still on the pole before the morning sun,
The ethic never left us, we just got outspent,
By men who never asked what the country meant.
The debt’s always been paid; we paid it every day,
We must root out the corruption that treats us as prey

Ask not what your country can do for you,
Ask what you can do for your country, it’s true,
We kept our half and we never once withdrew,
Now it’s your turn: What will you do?

Who is this band?

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The second job. The late-night work text. The app that decides when you sleep. “Eight Hours For What We Will” carries an old labor demand into the hours work keeps taking. For the garden, the band, the novel. For a life that belongs to you. Listen and share. I’ve got an explanatory article below the lyrics. Unfortunately, Suno is limiting the number of songs I can download, so for alternate versions you’ll need to visit my Suno profile.

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Lyrics

She clocks out at seven and she clocks back in at eight.
Same scrubs, same badge, just a different front gate.
Nine million of us working more than one.
The first job ends and the next job’s begun.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will.
They sang that in eighteen seventy-eight
And we’re owed that third eight still.

The text comes through at a quarter past ten.
It isn’t a shift, but you’re working again.
No punch on the clock, no line on the pay,
Just the rest of your night going into their day.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will.
They sang that in eighteen seventy-eight
And we’re owed that third eight still.

The app drops the shifts at a quarter to one.
You sleep with it lit till the bidding is done.
So the second eight goes the way of the third,
Sold off in pieces and never a word.

In eighteen eighty-six they laid the hammers down.
A hundred fifty thousand won the shorter day in town.
Thirty-five thousand packers on the Chicago floor
Took eight hours at full wage, and then they came for more.

What we will is a garden. What we will is a band.
It’s a Sunday, a novel, an hour in your hand.
It isn’t a bonus. It isn’t a perk.
It’s the whole reason anybody goes to work.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will.
They sang that in eighteen seventy-eight.
We’re not asking. We’re collecting the bill.

Who is this band?

You might also like this song from Labor Day 2025:

The Third Eight

Everyone remembers the first eight hours. That is the one that got a law.

The demand was always three parts, and it came from a Welsh mill owner named Robert Owen, who in 1817 worked out that a day has twenty-four hours in it and proposed dividing them evenly: Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest. It was an math argument as much as a moral one. There is only so much day. Somebody is going to get each piece of it.

Sixty-one years later, an American named I.G. Blanchard wrote a lyric and a Congregational minister named Jesse Henry Jones set it to music. The song was called “Eight Hours,” published in 1878, and its chorus put Owen’s arithmetic into a form a crowd could shout: Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. It became the official song of the eight-hour movement. When hundreds of thousands of American workers walked off the job on May 1, 1886, that chorus was what they were singing.

They won more than the history books usually admit. By the end of that single day, roughly 150,000 workers had secured shorter hours. In Chicago, about 35,000 meatpackers got the eight-hour day with no cut in pay. Three days later a bomb went off in Haymarket Square. The day after that, in Milwaukee, the state militia fired into a column of marchers headed for the Bay View Rolling Mills and killed seven people, six men and a schoolboy. The captain’s order to his troops was not to fire over their heads. It was to pick out your man and kill him.

The federal forty-hour week arrived in 1938, in the Fair Labor Standards Act. That is 121 years after Owen did the math. Most of the people who marched for it were dead before it passed.

So the first eight got a statute. The question this song asks is what happened to the other sixteen, and specifically to the third one, the strange and beautiful clause that few people quote.

Eight hours for what we will.

Not eight hours for rest, which is maintenance. Not eight hours for family, which is another kind of labor. What we will. The hours that belong to you for no reason, that you are permitted to waste. Blanchard’s lyric framed long hours as a violation of God’s design, on the theory that a person requires time for reflection and for walking around outside. The demand was not for a better job. It was for a life with a job inside it.

That third eight was never written into law, and it turns out you cannot protect a thing you never defined.

Here is where the arithmetic stands now.

In November 2025, 9.3 million Americans reported working more than one job. That is the highest number since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started counting multiple jobholders in 1994, and at 5.7 percent of everyone employed, the highest share in twenty-five years. The romantic version of this statistic involves a side hustle, a passion project, an Etsy shop. Indeed’s data says otherwise. The most common pairing among multiple jobholders is the same job twice.

A nursing assistant taking a second nursing assistant job. A licensed practical nurse doubling up on shifts. Indeed’s economist described a workforce under quiet, persistent pressure, and noted that in the month before someone picks up a second job, their application activity triples. Then it slows. Then, about six months later, it starts again, because the second job relieved the pressure without fixing what caused it.

That is the third eight going to the first.

Then there is the hour that is not a job at all. The text at a quarter past ten. The message that is not a shift and is not overtime and does not appear anywhere on a timesheet, but is unmistakably work. Thirteen countries have written a right to disconnect into law, starting with France in 2017. The United States has come close exactly once. California’s AB 2751 would have required employers to define nonworking hours in writing and let workers ignore non-emergency contact during them. It died in committee on May 16, 2024. A similar New Jersey proposal stalled. New York City and Washington State considered measures and dropped them.

And then there is the schedule itself, which is the part of this story that should make you angriest, because the federal position on it is not weak. It is nonexistent. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not regulate scheduling at all. Every single advance-notice requirement in this country, every dollar of predictability pay, comes from a city or a state. As of 2026, Oregon is the only state with a statewide fair workweek law. Ten cities have their own: New York, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and a handful of others. They generally require the schedule fourteen days out, a premium when it changes inside that window, and a minimum rest period between shifts so you cannot be made to close at midnight and open at six.

Eleven states have passed laws forbidding their own cities from doing any of this. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin have made it illegal for a city council to require two weeks’ notice of when you work. A worker in Chicago and a worker in Indianapolis can hold the same job at the same chain and live in two different centuries.

The enforcement numbers tell you how routine the violations are. New York City’s consumer and worker protection department secured a $20 million consent order from Chipotle in 2022 and a $38.9 million settlement from Starbucks in December 2025, the largest worker-protection settlement in the city’s history.

The eight-hour movement understood something we have mostly forgotten, which is that time is the thing being bought. Wages are how you talk about it, but hours are what it is. When your schedule drops at 12:45 in the morning and you have to be awake to claim it, nobody has technically taken your evening. They have simply made it impossible to plan one, which produces the same result and costs them nothing.

The demand was three parts. We won one of them, eight decades late, and treated the other two as a private matter.

Blanchard and Jones wrote a chorus that people sang while marching toward militia rifles. It has not been amended since 1878, and it does not need to be. It just needs to be finished.

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Remember the shock jocks? Back when Howard Stern was a controversial radio personality? The Republican Party took notice and turned that format into a platform to manufacture fear, loathing and hatred with talk radio and Rush Limbaugh.

That formula migrated to Fox News and its competitors and then grifters like Alex Jones and Charlie Kirk followed suit. Turns out, hate is big business. What’s that phrase? Every movement starts as a cause, turns into a business, and ends as a racket? That’s Hate, Inc. (As usual, scroll to the bottom for alternate genres of this song.)

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Lyrics

There’s a screen in the kitchen and it knows your name,
Keeps a fresh little devil in a brand-new frame.
Yesterday a teacher, today a kid,
Tomorrow it’s a neighbor for something they did.

Fox News in the corner with the volume high,
Selling you thunder from a cloudless sky.
Turning Point USA turns till the anger clicks,
Everyone’s frightened, everybody’s fixed.

They don’t want you looking at the factory floor,
At the empty towns and the hospital doors.
They don’t want you asking who picked your pay,
So they hand you a target and point you away.

Welcome to Hate, Inc.
Where the cash register sings.
They sell you a villain so you don’t see the bill,
Hand you a torch while they pick your till.
Welcome to Hate, Inc.
Where the outrage rings.
If you’re mad at the weak, you won’t look at the strong,
And the people who robbed you still sing their song.

Alex Jones with the siren and the end-times grin,
Got a miracle cure and a bucket to fill.
Charlie Kirk had a camera and a college kid scared,
Turns every question into “How dare they care?”

Trump at the pulpit with a gold-plated sneer,
Says the ones who hurt you are the ones over here.
Not the tax-cut saints with the corporate smiles,
Not the sons in the back stacking money in piles.

They don’t want you counting what the bosses made,
While your rent goes up and your hours get shaved.
They don’t want you asking why the promise broke,
So they flood your throat with someone to choke.

Welcome to Hate, Inc.
Where the cash register sings.
They sell you a villain so you don’t see the bill,
Hand you a torch while they pick your till.
Welcome to Hate, Inc.
Where the outrage rings.
If you’re mad at the weak, you won’t look at the strong,
And the people who robbed you still sing their song.

There’s always a monster.
There’s always a threat.
There’s always a caravan
That hasn’t come yet.

There’s always a bathroom.
There’s always a book.
There’s always a person
To deflect away from the crooks.

And while you’re swinging at shadows,
They’re signing the deal.
While you’re screaming at children,
They’re stealing the meal.

Welcome to Hate, Inc.
Put your pain in the machine.
It comes out as merch, as votes, as fear,
After another lost year and another lost year.

Welcome to Hate, Inc.
Where the whole thing runs on blame.
They need you mad, they need you blind,
They need your heart turned into rage.

They make the villains.
They sell the cure.
They count the money.
They ask for more.

Hate, Inc.
Hate, Inc.
They broke the promise,
Then sold you the stink.
Hate, Inc.

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

1970s Appalachian Country Pop

1970s AM Radio Power Pop

Chicano Lowrider Soul Noir

Junkyard Blues Cabaret

1970s Progressive Blues-Rock

Cold War Spy Surf

Ska Noir

Dirty Funk Rock/Post Punk

1980s Power Pop

1990s Sampledelic

Upbeat Indie Pop

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The depths of corruption to which Trump, his family, and his administration have stopped is unprecedented in modern history. The stagering amount that is in plain sight makes you wonder how much of the corruption we are not seeing.

As usual, scroll for alternate versions of this song.

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Lyrics

We the people, in the matter of Donald J. Trump,
His family, and those who serve at his pleasure.
The charge: corruption in the first degree.
Read the counts.

Trump minted a crypto coin and put his face on the front,
Sold access to power and swore it’s no stunt.
World Liberty Financial: a billion four in his hand,
While the rules that could stop it got stalled, slow, and canned.

Then he pardoned the man whose exchange laundered the cash,
Two months after that engine had propped up his stash.
Call it coincidence, call it a whim,
But the mercy and the money both came out of him.

Guilty, guilty, corrupt to the core,
Guilty in broad daylight, right outside the door.
Yet 30% still love him, it’s the counts they ignore
But Trump’s guilty as sin and still asking for more
Corrupt to the core.

Trump took a Qatari jet, four hundred million in the air,
A gift from a prince, and he swore it was fair.
Fly it a while, then it’s his when he’s gone,
Parked at his library like a trophy he’s won.

Retrofit costs land on us, filed away out of sight,
Paid to paint it his colors; blue, red and golden bright.
Call it a favor, if favors cost that much,
We’re poorer for it and he’s out of touch.

Guilty, guilty, corrupt to the core,
Guilty in broad daylight, right outside the door.
Yet 30% still love him, it’s the counts they ignore
But Trump’s guilty as sin and still asking for more
Corrupt to the core.

They tore out the East Wing because Trump fancied a hall,
Three hundred million, and donors footed it all.
Patriot money, they call it, patriots with a stake,
Funny how much access that kind of patriotism can make.

Down at Mar-a-Lago, membership ran two hundred grand,
Now a cool million, with four seats left, they’re in high demand.
Ask what a seat at that table might buy,
And ask who’s reading every check, and why.

Guilty, guilty, corrupt to the core,
Guilty in broad daylight, right outside the door.
Yet 30% still love him, it’s the counts they ignore
But Trump’s guilty as sin and still asking for more
Corrupt to the core.

Trump sued his own government, and settled the case with himself,
One billion seven hundred seventy-six million, right off the shelf.
That number’s no accident, it’s the year that they chanted,
As they stormed the Capital: “1776 Returns!”, they ranted.

Traitors can apply and all those who beat on a cop,
Formal apologies for January Sixers the law once made them stop.
They won’t release the names, they won’t release the amount,
Call it justice if you want, but you’ll never see the account.

There’s an old line folks still say plain as day,
As rough as a callus, the workingman’s way,
“They got a mouthful of gimmie and a handful of take,”
And there’s no better witness that the record could make.

We don’t need a whistleblower, don’t need a spy,
Trump put it in writing himself, right before your eyes.
Every dollar’s got a fingerprint, and every print’s the same,
So read it into the record, and say the name.

Guilty, guilty, corrupt to the core,
Guilty in broad daylight, right outside the door.
Yet even the thirty percent don’t buy it like before,
Trump’s guilty as sin and the con don’t sell no more.
Guilty, guilty,
Corrupt to the core.
Guilty, guilty,
Corrupt to the core.

Let the record show.
Corrupt to the core.
Thank you for your
Attention to this matter!

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Art Pop/New Wave

Raw Acoustic Folk-Punk

60s Detroit Soul Girl Pop

Dark Southern Gothic

Funk Rock

Garage Blues Rock

Late 70s Hard Rock

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This one is a little late because life got in the way but it was inspired by the thick smoke that settled into Minnesota due to the forest fires up north and the fact that the fires may have been prevented were it not for Trump and Musk’s DODGE cuts. The voice of the song obviously had to be Smokey the Bear.

After doing a little reseach, I was surprised to learn that Smokey has a direct tie to fascism. Scroll past the alternate genres below (I really like the Trip-Hop version, by the way) for a mini historical lesson.

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Lyrics

I was authorized in August of nineteen forty-four.
Our firefighters had left to fight fascists in the war.
So they drew a bear in dungarees, a bucket and a hat,
And the whole assignment was the homefront. That was that.

It wasn’t only carelessness that put me on the wall.
The Japanese floated fire across the Pacific; meant for it to fall.
Nine thousand paper balloons riding on the jet stream’s back,
And a woman and five children died at Bly. That was the attack.

The war got won. The posters stayed. Nobody sent me home.
The Wartime Advertising Council gave me six words of my own.
Then Congress up and passed an act in nineteen fifty-two
To take me out of the public domain. That’s a thing they can do.

They gave me my own ZIP code. Two-oh-two-five-two.
Thirteen thousand letters every week; I answered quite a few.
They put me on a lunchbox. They stood me in a mall.
And somewhere in all that softness, I stopped saying it at all.

There’s a poster where they posed me like Uncle Sam himself,
One paw out, one finger, aimed dead center at yourself.
I never cared much for that pose. But it’s been coming back to me.
Reporting for duty, eighty years late. Same enemy.

Only you. Not the ranger, not the rain.
Only you. Not the season, not the campaign.
Same hat. Same shovel. Same six words.
The last one’s new.
Only you can prevent fascism.

And here’s what I owe you, and it took me eighty years to learn:
I was wrong about the small ones. Some were meant to burn.
Every honest little fire that I stamped out in my prime
Laid the fuel down for a bigger one. I bought that with my time.

I’ve been talking all this while like fire was a figure of speech.
Put that down. I’m done with it. I’ll say the thing that’s true.
The metaphor got out. It’s in the crowns. It’s out of reach.
There’s fires in California, in Minnesota, and in DC too.

You want to know the method? Watch the hands and not the flame.
They didn’t burn the forest down. They burned the fire brigade.
They cut the crews, the maps, the radios, the ones who take the call,
and left the standing deadwood right exactly where it stood. That’s all.

Ten million for the dead spruce north of Ely, on the Echo Trail.
Approved. Funded. Crews were ready. Then an office made them wait
To argue over who’d get rich off hauling out the dead.
They’re doing it this week, in the smoke, at ten times the freight.

Only you. Not the Forest Service. It’s gone.
Only you. Not the funding. Not the phone.
I’d hand you down a shovel,
But they went and sold those too.
Only you can prevent fascism.

I never carried a rifle. Never once had to.
The job was a shovel and a bucket and you.
I’m named for a fireman who went blind saving someone from a room.
That’s the standard. That’s the bar. That’s the whole costume.

Only you. I know. That’s a heavy thing to hold.
Only you, and your neighbor, and the kid down the road.
Eighty years I’ve been pointing.
Now I’m handing it to you.
Only you can prevent fascism.

Only you.
Only you.
Only us.

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Slow Burn Dark Americana

Countrypolitan

Alt Country + Post Punk

Grunge

Alternative Rock

Trip-Hop

Smokey The Bear Was Drafted

He was made to fight fascists

Smokey Bear was authorized by the U.S. Forest Service on August 9, 1944, two months after Normandy. Artist Albert Staehle delivered the first poster that October: a bear in dungarees and a campaign hat, tipping a bucket over a campfire.

He existed because the men who fought fires were overseas fighting Germany and Japan. The Forest History Society puts it plainly: wartime demand stripped the firefighting workforce, so the Forest Service, the state foresters, and the War Advertising Council built a campaign to convince the public that a careless fire was a gift to the enemy.

They were not subtle about it. The Smithsonian has the pre-Smokey posters: “Another Enemy to Conquer: Forest Fires.” “Our Carelessness, Their Secret Weapon,” printed under an image of Hitler looking down at a blaze. The Ad Council’s own archives at the University of Illinois hold the 1944 planning documents.

The bear’s first job was antifascist home-front labor. The song does not have to argue this. It only has to read the file.

The enemy really did use fire

Verse two is not a flourish. Between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched more than nine thousand balloon bombs into the jet stream, paper and hydrogen craft carrying incendiaries, intended to set the American West on fire. Three hundred sixty-one have been found across twenty-six states, Canada, and Mexico.

They nearly all failed. One did not. On May 5, 1945, near Bly, Oregon, a pastor’s pregnant wife and five children from his Sunday school found one on the ground and it detonated. Elsie Mitchell, 26. Dick Patzke, 14. Jay Gifford, 13. Edward Engen, 13. Joan Patzke, 13. Sherman Shoemaker, 11. They remain the only people killed by enemy action on the continental United States during the Second World War. HistoryLink has the fuller account.

The monument at the site is maintained by the Forest Service. In 2021, fire crews had to save it from the Bootleg Fire, which burned right up to it. A memorial to people killed by a wildfire weapon, nearly consumed by a wildfire. Nobody wrote that. It just happened.

Nobody sent him home

The war ended. The bear stayed. In 1947 the Wartime Advertising Council gave him the six words. In 1952 Congress passed the Smokey Bear Act, which removed him from the public domain and handed him to the Secretary of Agriculture. It is still in the code at 16 U.S.C. 580p-2.

A warning about fascism, nationalized and licensed. Then softened. By 1964 he had so much mail that he received his own ZIP code, 20252, one of only two ever assigned to an individual. The other belongs to the president.

That is the arc of verse four. Not censorship. Merchandising. The most effective way to retire a warning is to put it on a lunchbox.

They posed him as Uncle Sam

There is a Smokey poster built directly on the Uncle Sam and Lord Kitchener composition: the finger out, aimed at your chest. It sits at the top of his Wikipedia entry.

If you have read the last song in this series, you know why that mattered. The same pointing hand, reassigned.

And he was wrong about the small fires

This is the verse that took the longest to earn, and it is the one the Forest Service made possible by conceding the point itself.

In 2007, two Forest Service researchers published “Be careful what you wish for: the legacy of Smokey Bear” in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Their finding: a century of aggressive suppression degraded forest health, loaded the woods with fuel, and produced fires harder and costlier to fight. The Washington Post walked through the debate in 2018.

Ecologists call it the Smokey Bear effect. Stop every small burn and you are not preventing fire. You are saving it up. The suppression regime also displaced Indigenous fire stewardship that had managed these landscapes for millennia, a loss the agency is only now trying to reverse.

It is not the whole story. Climate is doing enormous work here, and Smokey is a mascot, not a policy. But the correction is real enough that the slogan itself changed in 2001, from forest fires to wildfires, partly to stop implying that prescribed burns were the enemy.

A country that suppresses every small conflict is not calm. It is loaded.

Shovel-ready

Which brings it to the Echo Trail, and to a coincidence I would have cut from a draft for being too neat.

In 2024, as part of a $100 million wildfire initiative, the Superior National Forest was awarded $10 million to thin roughly 4,000 acres of dense, dry forest: dead spruce and balsam removed, fuel breaks cut, prescribed fire treatments planned. Some of it along the Echo Trail, the 36-mile gravel road north of Ely.

In early 2025, DOGE paused or canceled federal grants to screen them for ties to climate or diversity initiatives. That screen caught nearly all Forest Service grant projects, this one included. Most of the work never started.

Two dozen lightning-sparked fires have been burning in the Superior since early July. The Sioux Fire jumped the Echo Trail. Parts of the corridor were evacuated. Crews are now doing the delayed work under emergency conditions, in the smoke, at emergency prices. The Star Tribune picked up the story locally.

And here is the line. Aaron Kania, the district ranger who spent six years on that forest and retired last December, described where the project stood when the money stopped.

They were shovel-ready.

Smokey has carried a shovel since 1944. Not a rifle. A shovel. The whole doctrine was that catastrophe is prevented by unglamorous, unfilmable, repetitive work, done early, by ordinary people, before anyone is watching.

They were shovel-ready, and somebody in an office decided the work could wait.

That is the song. They did not burn the forest down. They burned the fire brigade.

Sources

• U.S. Forest Service, The story of Smokey Bear

• Forest History Society, Smokey Bear

• Smithsonian Magazine, A Brief History of Smokey Bear

• History.com, How Fear of a WWII Invasion Gave Rise to Smokey Bear

• University of Illinois Archives, The Birth of Smokey Bear

• Oregon Encyclopedia, Balloon Bombs

• U.S. Forest Service, Mitchell Monument

• HistoryLink, Elsie Winters Mitchell and five children killed by balloon bomb

• KDRV, Fire crews save Mitchell Monument from the Bootleg Fire

• SmokeyBear.com, Smokey’s Story and About the Campaign

• Cornell Legal Information Institute, 16 U.S.C. 580p-2

• Donovan and Brown, Be careful what you wish for: the legacy of Smokey Bear, USDA Forest Service, 2007

• Washington Post, Was Smokey Bear wrong?

• Washington Post, DOGE delayed a grant that would have reduced fire fuels in a Minnesota forest now ablaze

• Minnesota Star Tribune, Report: DOGE delayed fire-prevention plan for Echo Trail near Ely

• KAXE, Parts of Echo Trail, Fernberg Corridor evacuated as fires explode in SNF

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This is the one, two, three, four, five, sixth song I’ve created from the point of view of Uncle Sam. It is a call to action to those people who sit on the sidelines complaining that no one is doing anything about the state of affairs, yet they sit idly by, taking no action themselves.

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Lyrics

I’m older than the flag you’ve been standing under, son
I’ve seen us lose our nerve, watched our country come undone
But I’ve been counting up the wreckage that they left behind this year
The losses in the courtrooms where the lawyers disappear

I’ve seen this fascist tide before, I’ve seen it pull back out
I’ve stood on docks of certainty and watched the certain drown
The polls are surely turning, like a tanker in the bay
The culture’s catching on to what they’ve been trying to wipe away

I’m not asking for a hero, nor some dramatic scene
I WANT YOU to stop the waiting, you’re the one I came to find
I WANT YOU to wear the armor that you’ve had on the whole time
You’re the one I’m pointing at, you’re the one I mean

I don’t need you in a uniform, I don’t need a single gun
I need you in the meeting hall when the meeting is no fun
I need you on the Tuesday that you’d rather sleep right through
I need the door you knock on twice because the first time, no one knew

It’s the ride you give a stranger to the polling place at dawn
It’s the kid you helped get registered before the deadline’s gone
We didn’t build this country with one battle, one campaign
We built it with a million small right things, not one in vain

I’m not asking for a hero, not some dramatic scene
I WANT YOU to stop the scrolling, start the showing up
I WANT YOU to do the small thing till the small thing is enough
You’re the one I’m pointing at, you’re the one I mean

I’ve watched whole empires gut themselves and call it victory
I’ve watched the ash turn into orchards more than once in history
The thing they’re burning down right now, you think it’s only loss
But I’ve seen what grows back greener when you finally pay the cost

You’ve been waiting on a knight in shining armor, scanning the horizon line
But no horse is coming, no stranger’s gonna save you in the nick of time
You’ve had the armor on since birth, you just forgot to look
You’re not waiting for the story, son, you’re the one who writes the book

I’m tired of being a picture, I’m raising my damn voice
I’m done waiting for a hero, this was always your choice
So if you’ve ever loved this country…
Prove it now

I’m not asking for a hero, not some thrilling scene
I WANT YOU to make a phone call, knock on one more door
I WANT YOU to do it today, not some day you’re waiting for
I hope you know by now…you’re the one I mean

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Funky Civic R&B

1970s Glam Art Rock

1970s Classic Arena Rock

1980s Art Funk

1980s Dance Rock

1990s Alt-Funk Groove

New Orleans Brass Band

Electric Chicago Blues

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Last July I created the Good Good Trouble song in honor of John Lewis; I decided to create a new batch of that song this year. Same lyrics, different music. Get inspired to go make Good Trouble.

This year, “Good Trouble Lives On” returns for a weekend of action from July 17-19. Find an event near you at the Good Trouble Lives On site. Or if you’re in Minnesota, join us in Chaska this Saturday for our weekly protest. (As always, scroll down for alternate versions of this song.)

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Lyrics

Click on the post below to read the lyrics and hear the previous versions of this song.

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Anthemic Gospel Rock

New Wave Glam Pop

90s Alternative Folk Rock

Hip Hop Soul

Afrobeat

Latin Rock

Appalachian Protest Hymn

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On our 250th birthday as a nation, we should take time to recognize all the ways America has left the world and humanity a much better place. For all our glaring faults, especially during this period of crisis we are going through, we should not lose sight of the greatness we are capable of. That should be our north star as we redouble our efforts to form a more perfect union.

I had a really difficult time chosing the version of this song as the headliner for this week but I figured a fusion of great American genres of blues and jazz with the Latin influence thrown into the mix as appropriate. Still, I really like how all the different genres turned out for this one. Scroll to the bottom to listen to them.

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Lyrics

We crossed an ocean to write something new,
Put the power in the people, said all men are true,
It was said imperfect, we said it half-right,
But we wrote down a promise we’ve been fighting to ignite.

We built the factories, we fed the world’s poor,
Sent boys across the water to end a dictator’s war,
The Marshall Plan, the moon landing, polio’s cure,
Jazz and blues and rock and roll, democracy’s great roar.

We didn’t get it right the first time through,
But every generation strove to make the promise true.

Happy birthday to US, to you and to me,
Two hundred fifty years of trying to be free,
We’re the dream and the wound, we’re the chain and the key,
Happy birthday to US, now who do we want to be?

Harriet walked her people north through snow, mud and fear,
Lincoln paid in blood to make the nation hear,
Suffragettes in Seneca Falls would not be told their place,
César Chávez in the dirt made justice show its face.

We gave the world the internet, we mapped the human gene,
Bob Dylan sang of wounds the powerful kept unseen,
We sent Voyager past Saturn into the infinite black,
And every time we fell from grace, we fought our way back.

We didn’t get it right the first time through,
But every generation strove to make the promise true.

Happy birthday to US, to you and to me,
Two hundred fifty years of trying to be free,
We’re the dream and the wound, we’re the chain and the key,
Happy birthday to US, now who do we want to be?

But look in the mirror, look hard, look long,
A fearful minority is trying to erase freedom’s song,
MAGA waves its flags while the courthouse bends,
And a king in the making says the Constitution ends.

They’re selling out the birthright, they’re burning what we built,
Dressing hatred up in red, white, and blue silk,
But we have seen darkness try to swallow us before,
And every time it tried, we walked back through Liberty’s door.

So light the candles, two hundred fifty strong,
This is not the ending, this is the middle of the song,
We are Madison and Douglas, King and Seneca’s cry,
We are Stonewall and the GI Bill and Armstrong in the sky,

We are flawed beyond forgetting, we are stubborn beyond shame,
We are every generation playing the same impossible game,
And the experiment isn’t over, it’s just waiting on US,
Every one of US, it’s waiting on US.

Happy birthday to US, to you and to me,
Two hundred fifty years of dying to be free,
We’re the dream and the wound, we’re the chain and the key,
Happy birthday to US, now who do we want to be?
Happy birthday to US, we are who we choose to be.

Who do we want to be?
Who do we want to be?
Who do we choose to be...

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

New Orleans Gospel Blues

Delta Blues

Joyful American Parade

50s Guitar-Driven Rock & Roll

Whimsical 60s Music Hall Pop

Celebratory Americana Gospel-Rock

Bright 80s New Wave Pop Rock

Jangly 90s Folk-Rock

Quirky Indie Folk-Pop

Minimalist A Cappella Art-Pop

Hypnotic 2000s Indie Art-Rock

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I wrote two versions of this song last year for Juneteenth. Same title, different lyrics. This is the second version. (As always, scroll down for alternate genres.)

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Lyrics

They came ashore in Galveston, blue coats and Union pride,
Granger read the order out while the sea stood dignified.
“All slaves are free,” the paper said, “with rights to work and own.”
But freedom’s voice was trembling, and we were far from home.

Some danced, some wept, some ran to find the names they’d lost to sale,
Some masters lied, some pulled their guns, said freedom was a tale.
But word had come, and word held weight, and though the sky was gray,
We marked the flame, we made a vow: We’d honor Juneteenth Day.

Freedom keeps coming, it don’t stand still.
It’s a train in the night climbing up the hill.
It’s a hymn and a warning, it’s the fight and the friend.
Freedom ain’t a moment; it’s the road that won’t end.

We built our schools, we cast our votes, we married in the light,
We wore our names, we bought our land, we stepped into our right.
But white hoods wrote the Black Codes, and justice wore a mask,
And soon the laws were blades again, and freedom was a task.

They burned our books, they shut our towns, they beat us for our breath,
And said our rise was arrogance, and dignity was theft.
But still we held our memory, and passed the flame along,
In churchyard speeches, whispered prayers, and children’s freedom songs.

Freedom keeps coming, through smoke and bone;
It’s carved in names we call our own.
It’s buried in cotton, it’s nailed to the trees;
It walks through fire and sings through grief.

They made us ride the back of buses, drink from separate wells,
But we took Juneteenth with us, through city streets and hell.
From Houston east to Harlem’s hum, to Oakland’s rising sun,
We cooked our food, we told our tales, we never came undone.

We danced beneath red, black, and green, our joy a kind of fight,
Because the world said, “Know your place,” and we said, “Know our right.”
Through jukebox truth and marching feet, we laid another track;
For every step they pushed us down, we rose up and pushed right back.

Freedom keeps coming, in the hush and roar;
In the eyes of the child they tried to ignore.
It’s the verse we repeat when they steal the refrain;
It’s the echo of chains turned into a flame.

Now they ban the books, and close the doors, and say, “We’re colorblind.”
But color is the banner still, in justice redefined.
They pull their funds from festivals, they say the past is done,
But we’ve seen how long a shadow lasts beneath a bitter sun.

And still we gather, still we shout, still we love and learn,
Still we teach our babies that the fire has to burn.
Because freedom isn’t given; it’s something we become,
Each time we rise, each time we run, each time we beat the drum.

Freedom keeps coming, through every age;
It’s written in loss and born in rage.
From Granger’s voice to this very breath;
We live it in struggle, in love, in death.

It’s not just a holiday, not just a name;
It’s the story we carry in soul and flame.
Freedom keeps coming, it don’t pretend;
It’s the road we walk, again and again.

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Cinematic Gospel Soul

Black Western Country Soul

Southern Blues Rock

Afrofuturist Chamber-Dub

80s New Wave Surf Rock

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Slavery did not end with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. It took two years after the Civil War ended, when General Granger traveled to Gavelston, Texas to read General Order Number 3, announcing to the formerly enslaved people that they were now free.

In 2021, President Biden signed into law legislation recognizing Juneteenth as a federal holiday, our second Independence Day.

Here’s the song I created last Juneteenth.

Who is this band?

ICYMI

Alternate Genres

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An event planned on the National Mall tied to celebrating our nation’s 250th birthday, originally featured several entertainers. However, many pulled out, including Martina McBride and Bret Michaels, after they felt misled, saying the event was more politically aligned with Donald Trump than they expected.

Trump responded by calling the artists boring and is now building a monstrosity of a stage on the White House lawn for a UFC match. Politics is downstream of culture and Trump is losing the culture. Here’s some coverage of this embarrasement:

• People.com

• San Francisco Chronicle

• New York Post

• The Daily Beast

This version is in the style of 1980s-era Minneapolis funk, in a nod to Morris Day and The Time, who said NO to Trump’s self-aggrandizement.

As always, scroll down for alternate genres (I tried to create a version in the musical style of each of the artists/bands that said No Freaking Thanks to Trump).

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Lyrics

First Martina said, “Nah, this ain’t my vibe,”
Bret took his bandana, said, “Not my tribe.”
The Commodores sailed off, Young MC dropped the mic,
The party turned ghostly, no one’s up for the hike.

Morris Day checked his watch, said, “I’m outta time,”
Fab said, “Not faking this,” left the conga line.
Bret’s “Poison” was mild next to the scene,
No encore for Trump, they all fled the scheme.

Happy birthday, Mr. President, but the stage is kinda bare,
Bret took his “Poison” and the Commodores aren’t there.
You called a fair, a festival, a patriotic spree,
But it’s just you and that big empty house on TV.

Oh, the balloons floated off, the band packed their gear,
Left Trump shouting in silence, “It’s my year, it’s my year!”
But if no one will sing, he’ll still make it grand,
Turn the lawn to a ring, he’s got fists on demand.

When the last “no” came, he threw down his red hat,
Said, “No birthday parade? Well, imagine that!”
Scrapped the whole party, the tantrum was grand,
Now the White House lawn’s a cage fight stand.

Happy birthday, Mr. President, but the cake’s just gone stale,
No band, no parade, just a fight club tale.
You called a fair, a festival, a patriotic spree,
But now it’s UFC on your birthday marquee.

So blow out the candles, the fight’s on at nine,
A birthday to remember, though not quite divine.

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Circus Rock

Satirical Punk-Funk Rock

Lat 80s Glam-Metal Power Ballad (Bret Michaels/Poison)

Late 80s New Jack Swing (Fab Morvan/Milli Vanilli)

Late 80s Golden-Age Hip Hop (Young MC)

Mid-70s Smooth Soul Ballad (The Commodors)

90s Nashville Country Rock Power Ballad (Martina McBride)

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The famous quote by Samuel Johnson would have read “Patriotifm is the laft Refuge of a Scoundrell” before the 1755 publication of A Dictionary of the English Language by the very same Samuel Johson, which standardized spelling in English. Thus “patriotifm” becomes “patriotism,” “laft” becomes “last,” and “scoundrell” becomes “scoundrel.”

Johnson wasn't attacking real love for one's country. He was attacking hypocrisy. He meant that when a dishonest person (a "scoundrel") has run out of all other ways to defend their suspicious actions, they wrap themselves in the flag to claim their motives are beyond reproach. At the time, Johnson was particularly annoyed by the "Patriot" faction in British politics, whom he viewed as agitators using the guise of liberty to cause disorder.

The phrase is as relevent today as it was then.

(As ususal, scroll for alternate genres of this song—I particularly like the barber shop quartet version.)

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Lyrics

They wrap themselves in red, white, and blue
Like the flag was made for the chosen few
Talk about freedom with a fist in the air
Then build their bubble out of lies and fear
They kneel to power, they laugh at the poor
They withdraw the welcome, they dead-bolt the door
And call it “order,” call it “making us strong”
But the house they praise is what they would burn down

They want the name, but not the cost
They love the symbol, hate what it’s bought

Last refuge of a scoundrel
It’s the flag they hide behind
They say “country” like a password
While they poison what it means inside
No, you don’t get to wear her glory
While you tear up her design
Last refuge of a scoundrel
Wrapped in the stars and stripes

They curse dissent but they worship control
Want a strongman to strangle the national soul
They say “founding fathers” like a magic spell
But they’d suppress the vote and muffle liberty’s bell
What made this place a light in the storm
Was not fear of the uniform
It was the promise nobody stands above law
And the right to speak when power does wrong

They want the glory, not the grit
Draped in the flag upon which they spit

Last refuge of a scoundrel
It’s the flag they hide behind
They say “country” like a password
While they poison what it means inside
No, you don’t get to wear her glory
While you tear up her design
Last refuge of a scoundrel
Wrapped in the stars and stripes

America was never in the shouting
Never in the boot against the throat
It lives in the unfinished promise
In the widening of the vote
In the hand that pulls a stranger closer
In the truth that stands when tyrants lie
You call yourself a patriot
Yet you cheer as democracy dies

Last refuge of a scoundrel
Now the mask is wearing thin
You wave the flag above the wreckage
Of the faith you never believed in
No, you don’t get to steal the language
Of the ones who fought and died
Last refuge of a scoundrel
Wrapped in the stars and stripes
Last refuge of a scoundrel
There’s no patriot in a lie

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Barber Shop Quartet

Spaghetti Western

Gothic Country Ballad

Eccentric Psychedelic Folk-Rock

Jangly Psychedelic Folk-Rock

Circus Punk

Sea Shanty Punk

Raw Street Punk Anthem

Fast 70s Punk

Dark Political Rock

Anthemic Protest Rock

Classic American Protest

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This song borrows from the Star Wars series The Mandalorian and is inspired by the many ways Americans are saying hell no to authoritarianism.

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Lyrics

They came back wrapped in flags and hubris,
Selling fear like it was faith,
Told the judges bend the language,
Told the weak to know their place.
But the robe and gavel answered,
Not every line can be undone,
There are still a few bright outposts
Holding steady in the sun.

And when they say bow your head,
When they say fall in line,
We raise our eyes to one another,
Say not this time, not this time.

This is the way
We keep the faith where the fear begins,
This is the way
No crown survives where the people dig in
Hand in hand, town to town,
We don’t scare easy, we don’t obey,
Love is the shield around those they’d cast away,
This is the way

Some are marching in the daylight,
Some are filming in the dark,
Some are cutting up the credit cards
That fed spineless market gods.
Some are singing from the stages,
Calling tyrants by their names,
We are filling out our ballots
To stop their shameless games.

And they can buy another network,
They can flood another feed,
But they can’t buy our nation’s promise,
They can’t buy what we believe.

This is the way
We keep the faith where the fear begins,
This is the way
No crown survives where the people dig in
Hand in hand, town to town,
We don’t scare easy, we don’t obey,
Love is the shield around those they’d cast away,
This is the way

They want fear to be the language,
Want exhaustion to win out,
Want the decent and the quiet
To forget what hope’s about.
But we’ve seen too much to swallow,
We’ve got too much left to save,
And the line keeps getting longer
Every time they say behave.

From Minnesota’s mourning winter
To the heat on city streets,
People done with all the whispering
Put their bodies in between.
Not for glory, not for cameras,
Not to hear their own names ring,
Just to say we will not take this
While there’s breath in anything.

This is the way
We guard the small and tell the truth when they would look away,
This is the way
We turn their rage to stubborn grace and meet them day by day,
Vote by vote, name by name,
Song by song, state by state,
We are not the silence they were betting on to seal our fate,
This is the way
This is the way

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Psychedelic Indie Rock

Progressive Folk Rock

Protest Rock Anthem

Bombastic Glam Arena Rock

Theatrical 70s Arena Rock

Epic Frontier Sci-FI

Cinematic Space-Western

Melodic Power Pop

Upbeat Power Pop Resistance

Modern Folk Protest

Dark Cinematic Resistance

Dark Appalachian Protest Folk

18th Century American Revolution Protest Folk

Acoustic Singer-Songwriter

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Last August, I released Texas Hold ‘Em (Abbott Rules) in response to Texas’ cynical mid-decade redistricting scheme.

Now the corrupt conservatives on the Supreme Court pounded the last nail in the coffin of the Voting Rights act, clearning the way for a return to Jim Crow legal discrimination at the ballot box. Southern Republicans took immediate and full advantage to halt voting and redraw the maps. (Scroll for the many alternative genres below)

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Lyrics

First they muffled the warning bells, called it neutral, called it fair
Took a knife to voting rights with a haughty legal air
Said the past was past enough, said the ground had finally changed
While the same old hands kept reaching for the power they could gain

Page by page and case by case, they whitewashed voting rights
Turned the law from shield to loophole, dressed retreat up as insight
What was written to protect got narrowed by design
Till the bench became a backhoe for the old exclusion line

Chip the stone and crack the wall
Call it doctrine, watch it fall
If you gut the rules that kept us safe
You hand the barbarians a key to the gate

They know they can’t win it straight
Trump’s tanking with Black folks, GOP panics
So they gut the vote and redraw the state
Politicians shouldn’t choose voters
Or Jim Crow gets a fresh coat of paint

Then Roberts hands Alito’s pen another loaded round
And suddenly the map rooms hum from every southern town
Memphis sliced in three quick cuts, Louisiana jams the brakes
Elections bent midstream for power, chaos sold as what it takes

Tornado watch, flood in the hall, still they rush to get it through
Like the weather itself was warning what these men were set to do
Not one secret midnight plot, not one hidden alley trade
Broad daylight, courthouse language, racial lines with new names made

Bless the knife and call it law
Split the people, steal it all
If you choke the vote and fix the weight
You did not win, you rigged the state

They know they can’t win it straight
Trump’s tanking with Hispanics, GOP panics
So they choke the ballot, lock the gate
Politicians shouldn’t choose voters
That’s Jim Crow dressed up as a court mandate

They say “colorblind” while drawing maps that bleach the living truth
Pack the Black wards, crack the barrios, shave the future from the youth
Move the line and move the school and move the weight of every street
Till representation turns to paper no one powerful has to meet

They do not need burning crosses, they do not need the sheet
They learned to trade the snarl for robes, the nightstick for a brief
Same old order, cleaner fonts, same contempt with softer names
A system built to blunt our numbers and then dare us to prove the blame

Who needs a hood when the robe does the job?
Who needs a cross when the court tips the law?
No torch to wave when the map does the work
No need to shout when the ruling’s the slur

The hood came off, the program stayed
Now it’s chamber votes and old charades
Same old poison, tailored fit
Same old grave, more elegant script

No new South
Old scheme
New stamp
Same dream
Cut the map
Cut the voice
Call it law
Leave no choice

They know they can’t win it straight
Trump’s tanking with women, GOP panics
So they split the map and rig the weight
Politicians shouldn’t choose voters
That’s the old white order in a fresh red state

They know they can’t win it straight
Trump’s tanking with young folks, GOP panics
So they carve us up and call it fate
Politicians shouldn’t choose voters
Or democracy dies by legal hate

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Dark K Pop

Doo Wop

South African Protest Pop

Dark Surf Garage

Civil Rights Era Gospel

Socially Conscious 70s Soul

Satirical Jazz Rock

Satirical Art Rock

Work Song

Dark Delta Blues

Southern Gothic Protest

Alternative Rap Protest

Alternative Rap-Rock Protest

80s Arena Hard Rock

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There was a line in my first Uncle Sam song that I thought would be perfect for its own song: “They may try to bury truth, but we’ll keep diggin’ it up.” Well, here it is! (Scroll down for alternate genre versions of this song.)

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Lyrics

They sold a stolen-election story like a gospel on repeat
Fake electors in the shadows, polished shoes on sacred streets
Lost in every court they entered, still they lit the match for proof
Then sent a mob to break the chamber, wrapped in flags and bulletproof
And with the glass shattered on the floor, they changed the camera angle too
Called it tourism, called it patriot love, called the lie a different truth

Every time the record speaks, they drown it in another sound
Every time the facts break through, they drag them underground

They keep trying to bury the truth
(But we’ll keep digging it up)
They keep throwing dirt on the proof
(But we’ll keep digging it up)
With book bans, redactions, and backroom spin
With flags held high over original sin
They keep trying to bury the truth
(But we’ll keep digging it up)

Sharpie lines on weather maps, the storm was bent to fit a boast
CDC warnings trimmed and softened while COVID killed the most
Press rooms punished, science muted, pages deleted from the web
Words erased from public record so the truth begins to ebb
Teachers boxed and libraries raided, history cut to fit the script
If you can’t outfight the evidence, you get the whole thing stripped

Call the press the enemy, call the judge a crooked hack
Call the witness traitor first, so no one hears them answer back

They keep trying to bury the truth
(But we’ll keep digging it up)
They keep throwing dirt on the proof
(But we’ll keep digging it up)
With book bans, redactions, and backroom spin
With flags held high over original sin
They keep trying to bury the truth
(But we’ll keep digging it up)

They called Renée Good and Alex Pretti “terrorists” before the facts came through
Called the press “the enemy” when cameras caught a cleaner view
Election workers, whistleblowers, judges all crooked too
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, pushed aside for comedic truth
That’s the play: attack the witness, make the public doubt the proof
Smear the face that names the lie, and hope the lie outlives the truth

Epstein files, sealed-room whispers, names and favors, smoke and fear
Everybody wants the headline, no one wants the ledger clear
“What about this? What about that?” till the trail is choked with dust
That’s the game, confuse the jury, break the mirror, kill the trust
Fox paid out, but still they sell it, every hearing cuts a clip
Truth gets buried by a thousand hands that never let the shovel slip

Bury the votes
Bury the tapes
Bury the science
Bury the names
Bury the books
Bury the blame
Bury the facts
And call it a frame

They keep trying to bury the truth
(But we’ll keep digging it up)
They keep throwing dirt on the proof
(But we’ll keep digging it up)
From the Capitol’s broken windows
To the economy they’re blowing up
They keep trying to bury the truth
(But we’ll keep digging it up)

You can flood the zone with lies
You can redact the files up
But every grave they dig for truth
Becomes the ground where we rise up

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Alt R&B

Psychedelic Soul

Art Pop Opera

Baroque Pop

Dark Pop

Darkwave

80s Art Rock

Trip-Hop

Industrial Rock

Dark Americana

Blues Rock

Southern Gothic

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I’ve listened to the Paul McCartney and Wings album Band on the Run countless times over the years. One of my favorite songs from that album is “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)”.

I didn’t realize until recently that the line in the song (Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore.) was literally Picasso’s last words. The story McCartney tells is that Dustin Hoffman asked him if he could write a song about anything and then pulled out a Time magazine with Picasso’s death featured on the cover as a challenge. McCartney met the moment, obviously.

That line has been running around in my head as a potential song from the point of view of Lady Liberty. (Read the Wikipedia entry about the Statue of Liberty, by the way; fascinating.)

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Lyrics

I stood here for the poor and hunted
For those who crossed the sea in fear
But you brought in a ban on Muslims
And told the world they’re not welcome here

You took young children from their parents
And locked them up behind my back
You turned the promise into cruelty
And called that strength while rights went black

Drink to me, drink to my health
You know I can’t drink anymore
The cup is dry, the night is heavy
My torch is dim along the shore
Drink to me, drink to my health
You know I can’t drink anymore
I tried to drown what I was seeing
I cannot bear it anymore

You came for protest, speech, and due process
For foreign students, schools, and law
You ruled by fear and mass detention
And dared the courts to stop it all

You sent the agents through the cities
You made the neighbors shut their doors
You filled the streets with raids and murders
And called it Operation Metro Surge

Drink to me, drink to my health
You know I can’t drink anymore
The cup is dry, the night is heavy
My torch is dim along the shore
Drink to me, drink to my health
You know I can’t drink anymore
I tried to drown what I was seeing
I cannot bear it anymore

But now the numbers start to turn back
In red-seat races, town by town
The voters push against the strongmen
And beat his margins down and down
The spell is breaking here and elsewhere
The ones who fed on fear now fall
The tide is turning toward democracy
And late at last, Orbán falls

Drink to me, drink to my health
Raise up your glass and raise your voice
The torch is bright above the harbor
The people still can make the choice
Drink to me, drink to my health
Not as a plea but as a vow
If liberty has nearly drowned here
Then pull me from the water now

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Irish Pub Singalong

Rock Anthem

Celtic Art-Pop

Desert Blues

Contemporary Folk Ballad

Cinematic Anthem

Dark Cabaret Torch

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I’ve been meaning to create a song from the point of view of Uncle Sam going shopping for awhile. The fact that Trump started an insane war with Iran that is driving gas prices through the roof means the time is now. This is my fifth song from the point of view of Uncle Sam. A few more and I’ll have an album’s worth! (As usual, scroll down for alternate genres).

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Lyrics

Kitchen light hummin’, bills all spread,
He said “day one,” but the costs cause me dread.
Rent climbed higher for the same thin walls,
Same cracked ceiling, same leak in the hall.

Power bill thicker than a Sunday Bible,
Trump’s war makes the whole grid’s liable.
Heat costs more, lights cost more,
Every month another shadow at the working family’s door.

The the health plan notice slid in like a knife,
Premium jumped on the price of a life.
They call it “adjustment,” I call it a raid,
Cut help for the people, keep the insurers paid.

They say the market’s hummin’, singin’ all is fine,
But I can read a bill and I can read a sign.

I want you (to afford your life),
Keep the lights on, keep the kids fed right.
Trump said day one would make it all all right,
But the costs climb higher every night.
I want you, I want you (to afford your life),
Not get gaslit by a president’s lie.
We can see the prices with our own two eyes,
I want you (to afford your life).

Stepped off the porch, hit the pump on the corner,
Digits started climbin’ like they smelled disorder.
Gas went up when Trump bombed Iran,
Now every commute pays for a weak man’s plan.

Every gallon’s got war priced into the math,
Foreign adventures hit the pump awfully fast.
Then I rolled my cart under supermarket lights,
Found sticker-shock tellin’ me reality bites.

Ground beef priced like a rich man’s treat,
Bread costs more, sweets got elite.
Tariffs jam the pipeline, prices creep, then leap,
Trump taxed the shelf and called the damage cheap.

Picked up, put back, did that twice,
That’s the new national anthem of the age of price.
And when they raid the hands that harvest, haul, and load,
Food costs rise from the field clear down the road.

They say the market’s hummin’, singin’ all is fine,
But I can read a bill and I can read a sign.

I want you (to afford your life)
Keep the lights on, make it through the night
He said day one would make it all all right
But the costs climb higher every night
I want you (to afford your life)
Don’t gaslight me with a stock price lie
We can see the prices with our own two eyes
I want you (to afford your life)

Pharmacy counter, text says refill delayed,
Same old prescription, brand-new price to pay.
Co-pay climbed up, coverage got thin,
You’ll get sick in this country with R.F.K. cashin’ in.

Health insurance up while the help got cut,
Boardroom smiles with the safety net shut.
Then they raid the kitchens, the job sites, the farms,
Rip the labor from the backbone and call it “reform.”

Food costs rise, construction jumps, hotel bills climb,
Mass deportation turns shortage into overtime.
Mama needs a visit, granddad needs care,
Home health costs soar but the G.O.P. don’t care.

He told us “day one,” now look where we’ve been.
Higher at the pump and the checkout again.
He waves that stock ticker like it feeds a child,
But I’ve seen the milk, the meat, the medicine climb.
War for the oil, tariffs on the crate,
Raids on the labor that put food on the plate.
Then they smile for the cameras and call it a win.
Tell me who can afford to be American.

What’s humming?
(The market)
What’s hurting?
(Our lives!)
They can brag on the Dow till the cameras go dark,
We still see the total in the grocery cart.

Who is this band?

Alternate Genres

Indie Anthem Art-Rock

Afrobeat

Ska

Synthwave

Minneapolis Dance-Punk

Boogie Blues Rock

80s Heartland Piano Rock

New Orleans Brass Band

New Orleans Brass Band Bounce Crossover

New Orleans Brass Band Dirge-To-Jubilee

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