Nobody's Woke. (Everybody's still waking.)

November 17, 2020

I wrote a new song! (It's a secular, civic bluegrass gospel song. How could I not?)​

Obviously, it's been a year. Also obviously (at least for those of us in the U.S. and maybe elsewhere too), it's been a heck of a couple of weeks as we've coped with a fraught political landscape surrounding the election.​

I had the distinct, uncomfortable pleasure of spending much of that time reading Eric Liu's book Become America, and writing a song about it for Bushwick Book Club Seattle's November show, which streamed on YouTube last Saturday.

I say "uncomfortable" because let's face it, immersing ourselves in politics and civic philosophy isn't comfortable right now. But I also say "distinct pleasure," because the book is inspiring, and it was a surprisingly joyful process to sit down and write a song with the book as my prompt:​

You can click up there ^ to watch just my song. You can also click here to watch the whole hour-ish long show--which features a guest appearance from the author, as well as eight other songwriters who wrote songs specifically for the occasion based on the book. (Including one by my Josephine the Volcano bandmate Olivia Brownlee!)

More about Become America, Eric Liu, and his organization Citizen University: https://citizenuniversity.us/

“This collection of essays exhorts Americans to love the nation they have by becoming the nation they want.”
​—The Washington Post​