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. (more…)
