So a friend of mine grew up in Thousand Oaks, and has been rather devastated by the shooting there. She’s already pretty upset about how US politics are going, and I think this hit her especially hard. So I decided to write a song, not so much to cheer her up, because me trying to cheer someone else up about politics would be a case of inmates volunteering to run the asylum, but rather, in solidarity.
Among many strong contenders, I think gun control might be the most divisive issue in US politics. Explaining why would itself constitute starting an argument, for which I’m not really in the mood. But the divisiveness of the issue, particularly of late, put me in mind of some of the words of Arlo Guthrie.
I had the opportunity to see and hear Arlo Guthrie live on two occasions. And the thing about Arlo Guthrie is that he’s as much a storyteller as a singer. Just as interesting as the actual songs was the context he gave for them, about how he came up with them, why he sang them, and the like. He talked about how he saw his songs as a living medium. Someday, he said in his lead up to Alice’s Restaurant, someone would write songs that would solve major social issues and bridge the divides that separate us.
He made no claim that his songs were those, but he did say that he thought they might be a stepping stone. And he said that he expected that the next generation of songwriters would use his songs as templates and starting points, just as he had used the previous generation’s melodies and rhymes to give them new life. He said he expected this and welcomed this, in the grand folk and protest song tradition.
So, in the grand tradition, I borrowed a melody from an old labor song, Which Side Are You On (famously covered by Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, and the Dropkick Murphys, among others) to express the new dilemma facing our generation.
Chorus:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Tell me, which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
They say in Parkland County
Kids don’t feel safe in school.
They say they won’t be coming back
Until we change the rules.
[Chorus]
I grew up next to Newtown,
My friends lost friends that day,
Our school goes into lockdown
But it’s not the guns they say.
[Chorus]
Oh parents can you stand it?
Tell me how you can?
When your children are murdered
For lack of a weapons ban?
[Chorus]
Arise all you good students,
Stand up for your own lives
For you know what senators don’t
You can’t be shot with knives
[Chorus]