A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: 5 Songs for America
This week's songs are from Lana Del Ray, Childish Gambino, Dion & Paul Simon, Eytan Mirsky, and Dave Rawlings Machine
A Rolling Stone reviewer once said Randy Newman’s “Sail Away” will tell you more about America than “the Star Spangled Banner”. In 186 words, Newman offers deep insight into the slave trade and racism, greed and unfettered capitalism, the hucksters and hustlers, the excessive consumption of food, drink, and other; it’s the selling of an American Dream that is and always was just out of reach for the masses. It’s a vision that people have bought into since mass migrations started in the 1500s. Yet the people that fall for the singer’s pitch in “Sail Away”—assuming they have a choice to begin with, or even survive the journey—will be forced into slavery and used as property so someone else can enjoy what’s been promised. There is art that embraces myth, and art that destroys it, turns it inside out, and tries to make sense of it. As we approach the 4th of July, I can’t help but wonder how anyone living in America, regardless of their political disposition, thinks much is going well. It may never have existed in the first place, but I don’t even think a common understanding of what America is ever really existed in the first place.
Here are 5 songs with something to say about America.
“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom. Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.” - Alexis de Tocqueville
Lana Del Ray - “Looking for America”
Lana Del Ray was one of those artists that gained prominence and the response was divisive for some reason—a whole barrage of “Think” pieces about her, full of takes. So I ignored it and her completely for years. I’ve come around a bit recently. A handful of stand-out songs, and pretty consistent quality across her output, but it is too one-note for me to want to listen to it a lot.
A week after Election Day, we took the older two girls to see Jess Williamson who was in town on a solo tour, where she performed a cover of this that really spoke to the moment without getting too preachy. Before anything, it’s a really beautiful lament, and a tragic-but-hopeful vocal performance. After that, it’s an honest portrait of the fear many of us walk around with as we go about things like letting kids play outside, ride public transit, or go to the drive-in—the potential for violence permeates everything. It also speaks to a sort of multi-verse we live in—the many versions of America framed by an individual’s limited perspective, and a better version that is possible. In addition to thematic overlap, it has a tonal and melodic similarity to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
McNulty: “I got to ask you, if every time Snot Boogie would grab the money and run away, why’d you even let him in the game?”
Kid: “…What?”
McNulty: “If Snot Boogie always stole the money, why did you always let him play?”
Kid: “Got to…This America, man.”
- The Wire, David Simon S1E1 (2002)
Childish Gambino - “This is America”
“This is America” is basically the first half of Jay-Z’s career condensed into a single song. The portrait of America on offer is all partying and money and violence. In the face of such depravity and senseless greed, the provided solutions are to strap yourself, get your money, spend it, and don’t get caught slipping up. “Rugged individualism” and consumer-celebrity hypercapitalism quickly becomes an every-man-for-themselves free for all. It’s like Mad Max set in a Vegas Casino-Mall. What I love about the song is how the contradictions of America are baked into the song. It starts in blissful harmony before the floor drops into a gruesome and grinding deep, bass heavy crawl and then the pendulum swings into an exultant falsetto Gospel choir and back again. It’s bleak, but exciting; fun, but also reveling in ugliness. The snippets of beauty, harmony, and joy—for many are not a given, the must be taken.
“I am speaking as a member of a certain democracy in a very complex country, which insists on being very narrow-minded. Simplicity is taken to be a great American virtue, along with sincerity. One of the results of this is that immaturity is taken to be a virtue too.” - James Baldwin
Dion ft. Paul Simon - “Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)”
Similar to Lana Del Rey, Dion explores the fractured versions of America out there, through a tribute song to his old friend Sam Cooke. 2020’s Blues with Friends, which includes a number of collaborations including Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck, and Van Morrison. Dion sounds a bit like Bob Seger, and Paul Simon doesn’t really need to be on the track at all. In addition to being an exploration of how racism creates those fractures in the American experience, it’s a nice tribute to a friend. The refrain—“Here in America”—is a reminder that this didn’t happen in some far off place. While a bit hokey, its an impressive tune—and sadly, extremely relevant in 2020—from someone whose career was assumed preserved in amber.
“That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” - George Carlin
Eytan Mirsky - “American Splendor”
This song appears briefly in American Splendor, the film adaptation of Harvey Pekar’s purposefully pedestrian comics. Like Pekar’s work, the song almost doesn’t register within the film on the first ,or second viewing; it’s subtle and only when you’re paying attention to the quiet moments do you realize what a plain-spoken treasure it is. It takes on disenchantment, and a little resentment in a way that doesn’t come across as bitter and sad. That said, one of the great opening lines:
Thought that I could be somebody
Looks like I was wrong
It’s a lament for the every-day disgruntled loser, but taking stock of the last 25 years or so, my fellow members of a nation in rapid decline can join in wondering what the hell has happened.
“The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine; and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race.” - Woody Guthrie
Dave Rawlings Machine - “I Hear Them All > This Land is Your Land”
Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, and Willie Watson pull off an incredible magic trick here, with a medley of Dave Rawlings’s “I Hear Them All” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” a song we’ve all heard countless times (at least the first verse). This was recorded as part of the Another Day, Another Time concert celebrating the music of Inside Llewyn Davis (essentially T. Bone Burnett trying to replicate the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou?) at Town Hall in New York City. There are some good performances in it, but this medley stops me in my tracks every time I hear it.
You get the opportunity to see Rawlings’ skill as a fantastic guitar player. You get the unmatched vocal harmonies. And some how you get kind of emotional hearing “This Land is Your Land”? Well, I certainly do, and you can hear it happening to the crowd too. That type of visceral response is rare, but always fun to experience with live music. It’s rarer still that you can feel the energy in the room shift seeing a recording of it. Every time I can feel the hair raise up on the back of the neck. The magic trick is that Rawlings led you right up to that moment through his own song about the promise of a better tomorrow. It’s all first person, and you agree with him, then he invites everyone else to share in that hope through Guthrie’s song—it’s you and me. And so it’s that invitation that sparks that burst of joy. And they’re right to add the extra verse, reminding everyone that Guthrie was a true punk of his time:
“As I went walking, I saw a sign there
And on the one side it said "No trespassing"
When I looked on the other side, it didn’t say nothing
This land was made for you and me”
Happy 4th of July.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs: