SOUNDTRACK: KEVIN DEVINE-“Freddie Gray Blues” (2016).
This week, Rough Trade and Bank Robber Music released a compilation on bandcamp called Talk – Action = Zero: A Compilation Benefitting Black Lives Matter. On one day they raised $12,000 for Black Lives Matter, which is pretty fantastic.
The record features 100 songs, a majority of which are previously unreleased and some of which seem to have been written in the past week.
This Kevin Devine song is not new. In fact, it has been recorded twice. First with a band on his Instigator album and then reimagined as an acoustic song on his We Are Who We’ve Always Been record. The acoustic version is included on the compilation and it really allows you to hear these lyrics.
It’s depressing that he wrote this song four years ago after the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black American man who was arrested by Baltimore Police for allegedly carrying a switchblade on April 12, 2015.
Gray fell into a coma in the back of a police van and passed away on April 19. An investigation found that the arresting officers failed to follow safety protocols “through acts of omission” due to the spinal injuries Gray received during the police transport, which led to his death. The six police officers were not convicted but faced various charges from second degree-murder to manslaughter.
Here it is four years later and the song is just as relevant and fits in this compilation all too well.
The lyrics are straightforward, the melody simple.
I’m talking Freddie Gray blues
I’m talking what happened to you
You were just 25
When they ended your life
When “to serve & protect”
Meant break your leg, snap your neck
Meant to kill you, to sever your spine
No matter what, there’s no good reason why
Devine also speaks from personal experience because of his family’s association with the police:
When I’m talking these killer cop blues
I’m kinda talking my family to you
See, my dad was a cop
And his dad was a cop
And my uncles were cops
And my cousins were cops
I’m partly here because of cops
And I love all those cops
And I know not every cop
Is a racist, murdering cop
But this is bigger than the people I love
The system’s broken
Not breaking
It’s done
And then, like any white person who is an ally, he realizes his position.
I’m talking white privilege blues
I’m talking confession to you
I don’t know what it’s like
To be afraid all my life
Looking over my shoulder
Behind each officer, a coroner
Entrenched inequality
No access, no empathy
Crushed in stacked decks
Institutions & death
This is not my reality
I’m afforded the luxury
Of shaking my head
I shut the screen, go to bed
I can turn off what you never can
And watch it happen again and again (and again and again and again and again, and again).
[READ: June 5, 2020] “Rookie”
I can’t get over how many stories there are about tree-planting, something that I feel like no one in the States ever does but which seems to be a rite of passage in Canada.
Every story talks about how horrible it is. You can make a lot of money if you can put up with the conditions. The cold, the backbreaking work, the pressure, living in a trailer or hotel for months. Although you could make $10,000 in two months if you were good. And, pretty much everyone there let the drugs and drink and sex flow.
There’s always people who thrive and can plant 4,000 trees a day (at 9 cents per tree) called highballers. While a rookie is lucky to plant 1,000 (which would mean breaking even after camp costs, like food).
In this case the highballers are Skye and Jen who seem to be a couple. The rookie is Jake and the story is mostly about him. Jake is a religious twenty-something. He is God-fearing and serious. He intended to go tree-planting with his friends from Bible College. Elmer was the group leader and they would keep tabs on each other to make sure they didn’t smoke, do drugs or have sex. Jake decided to join up, but by that time, Elmer’s crew was full, so he wound up with another crew in Ontario.
He knew no one, but assured himself that he would avoid the drugs and drinking. However, if the sex happened that would be okay: “he couldn’t exactly pray for it to happen, but he knew God would forgive him if it did.”
The job was the first time he had seen a woman pee. Skye dropped her pants in the middle of the road, turned he back to Jake and began to pee. Jen told her she was embarrassing Jake, and Skye said if a man can piss where he wants so can she.
Every night at meal time, people would say how much they’d planted that day. Skye hit 4,100; 1,900 was a rough day for Kelly. Naomi planted fewer than Jake did but each tree she planted was perfect. This was her second year and she’d never planted enough to make more than minimum wage. But she seemed confident and satisfied. In fact her planting was so good that the foreman Uncle Bernie never double checked her work any more.
Bernie would select some random site and inspect various trees. If you planted poorly you were to fix them (unpaid) the next day. A second error and you were fired.
The day that Naomi and Jake worked in the same plot, Bernie checked their work. Jake accepted full responsibility since he knew Naomi’s were perfect. But both he and Naomi had to redo everything the next day. By the end of the day, “his fingers were so rubbery with cold he couldn’t pinch his forefinger and thumb together hard enough to jam a plug into a hole.” But he felt better, absolved, even without the money.
The next day he and Skye were put together in an area. Skye was impressive. She taught him how to do things more quickly and how to be more efficient in his movements. He found himself planting far more trees than he ever had before.
When they stopped for a break, she lit a smoke and offered him one. He accepted. Then she asked if he wanted to kiss her. He did.
She knew he as religious, but when he said that it’s better to live it than to talk about it, she respected that.
Th next morning when they reached the edge of a lake, Skye said they should jump in for a quick dip. Skye jumped in naked, Jake left on his boxers. When they got out, Skye was waiting for him.
When they were done, Jake was horrified to see that Skye was digging a hole to stash a whole bunch of trees–a fireable offense. She took some of his bundles and buried them as well.
That night he called Elmer. He didn’t mention the sex, but did mention the stashing of trees. Elmer tells him not to say anything–a rookie against a highballer is not a good position to be in. Jake wonders if he should get the trees and plant them. Elmer says the risk is too great if he is seen.
But the next day Jake dug up the trees and began planting them. He would lose a lot of money but his conscience would be clear.
When Skye realized what he was doing she was pissed and said not to get her involved. Although realizing his religiousness, she laid it out straight:
I’m sure you think you’re doing something noble out here, replanting these ravaged forests. You know what? Its a fucking industry. Pure capitalism. These trees will never replace what was destroyed. Ten years down the line, they’ll send out a crew with brush saws to thin them out … so we get a nice straight crop to be harvested and turned into toilet paper.
That night, Jake was called in. He was seen puling out the buried trees.
Would he protect Skye. Would his conscience be clear?
He really wanted a cigarette. One of Skye’s cigarettes.
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