Powerful New Song/Video by Gabriel Kahane: “To Be American”
An absolutely stunning musical arrangement played by a stellar band, to go with a moving video.
Gabriel Kahane’s “To Be American,” from his album ‘Magnificent Bird,’ due March 25 on Nonesuch Records. Pre-order: https://gabrielkahane.lnk.to/MagnificentBird
Andrew Bird - violin
Gabriel Kahane - piano, vocals
Paul Kowert - double-bass
Ted Poor - percussion
Caroline Shaw - background vocals, violin
Chris Thile - mandolinVideo by Robert Edridge-Waks
Excerpt from “ALCF James Kilgore Films Clip 5220” by James Kilgore (CC BY 4.0)
Excerpt from “West Palm Beach FL Candlelight Vigil -Occupy Our Homes- 12-6-2011” by flymaus (CC BY 3.0)TO BE AMERICAN
To be American again,
Teenaged and certain of innocence:
Six lanes of Western caravan
Burn fuel to speed up the renaissance.Before the trench coats and the roped off rooms,
The shell-shocked mothers and the TV crews,Foreclosing a grand old dream—
Black motorcade running on empty,
Big box and a Ponzi scheme,
Drain everything, land of the plenty.In high school I sang in the choir
With all the Mormons from Rohnert Park.
Now all their houses are on fire;
Strange glow of oxblood in the dark.I think we all meant well, or so I thought,
That season, privilege was a parking spot.Foreclosing a grand old dream—
Black motorcade running on empty,
Big box and a Ponzi scheme,
Drain everything, land of the plenty.If Reconstruction and the War
Seemed distant back in eleventh grade,
How quaint our simple lives before
Seem now in face of the coming days.Foreclosing a grand old dream—
Black motorcade running on empty,
Big box and a Ponzi scheme,
Drain everything, land of the plenty.Our furniture’s on the street;
In every church last rites are spoken.
One criminal’s soft defeat
Can’t change the fact that we’re broken.#gabrielkahane #magnificentbird #tobeamerican
