Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Cry the Beloved Country

From 1996, please listen -- more in sorrow than in anger, if you can do it (at the moment I can't) -- to Iris DeMent and the greatest (or at least most prescient) protest song of the last several decades "Wasteland of the Free."




I hadn't thought about this one for ages, but the events of the last several weeks brought it suddenly to mind for some reason (heh).

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
but they don't look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free

Like I said, prescient. She got everything except cops getting away with the murder of black people with impunity and torture as merely a question of semantics.

God, I barely recognize this place lately. Which may merely be a tribute to my own naïveté, but still...

5 comments:

Ken J Xenozar said...

Man, that was a great, angry album. Pulled it out a year ago. Like you said, it still resonates. I can see why some people don't like her singing, but her honesty is refreshing.

steve simels said...

I think the contrast between her voice -- which is as back country old as the hills as you can get without being the Carter Family's great grandmother -- and the modern angry folk rock backing is part of what makes the thing work.

Anonymous said...

Steve,
I haven't even played the music yet but I love the lyrics.
At the risk of adding to your mental anxiety, there are a couple of other things I've seen in the media about the current state of America that I'd recommend:

1) Chris Rock's opening monologue from his guest-host appearance on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago (Nov. 1 was the original air-date). In about seven minutes, he riffs on the Boston Marathon, 9/11 and the Freedom Tower, commercialization in America (especially Xmas) and gun control. Some people were probably righteously offended by what he said, but I thought it was the funniest, bravest thing I'd seen on TV in ages.

2) Matt Taibi's article, which appeared in a recent issue of "ROLLING STONE" (the cover story was Bob Dylan and the recent "Basement Tapes" reissue), about Morgan Chase's role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis and how, despite paying fairly hefty fines, they were allowed to escape more severe punishment, largely through help from the U.S. Government's Department Of Justice. There's even a sidebar on the egregious misdeeds of some of the other Big Banks. The whole article will make you want to wash.

J. Lag

Mark said...

Great song and great direct lyrics, and a song that I had not heard until right now. And while we can argue whether 2014 is the worst of times or the best of times -- and everything in between -- I'm at the very least thankful that some recording artists, like Iris DeMent here, and in some songs, like WASTELAND OF THE FREE, feel compelled to act as social and political storytellers to remind (some of) us that there's a big picture that runs alongside our own lives, and that the big picture ain't always exactly as it seems.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Steve. Been a while since I heard that, and having the lyrics to read along with only increases its punch.
Iris' subtlety and intelligence is way underestimated. (See "Let the Mystery Be")