Over the next wee while I’ll be writing one post every week about a song from my new album ‘The Great Divide’, as well as telling you a little bit about the stories and thoughts behind each song.
First up is ‘Arab Spring’:
This is a song I once wrote a ridiculously long essay about while I was doing my MA in Songwriting. I’ll spare you the pain of reading that by just saying this:
I originally wrote it as a diatribe against someone I knew who had radically different views from mine on a number of subjects (politics, theology, etc) – something we’re probably all experiencing in the run up to the upcoming election.
However, in an effort to be a marginally better human being, I decided to turn the song on its head and make it an exercise in empathy; to get inside the head of my so-called ‘enemy’ and try to see things from their point of view. This idea of trying to understand “the other” also fed into Yvonne and I’s writing process when we were writing ‘The Fury And The Sound’.
“From the personal to the local, through the communal, municipal, national, global and into the divine universal, the problem of loving ‘the other’ is, I believe, absolutely fundamental to the problems we face at all zoom-levels of our lives. Our internal fights with depression and doubt, our concerns for our neighbourhoods and ancient lands and our young people who carry knives and spit curses, our immigration laws, our over-zealous child protection laws that stop us taking our neighbour’s kids to football practice, our dealings with asylum-seekers, our anger that our faith is being diluted or poisoned by gays and women, our fears that fundamentalists are going to take power or, with a home-made device made from a recipe concocted in a training camp on the other side of the world, take our lives… running through all of these concerns is a common fear – that of ‘the other’”.
– Kester Brewin, ‘Other’.
You can buy it in these places:
Bandcamp
iTunes
Amazon
Here are the lyrics. Enjoy 🙂
ARAB SPRING
Listen and I’ll tell you why
If you can’t understand me at all
I’m turning everything into blacks and whites
And friends into enemies
Living in the desert is hard
A walk across the great divide
The morning prayer a call to arms
A place to define myself by taking a side
And the questions and the doubts you adore
Are a luxury I can’t afford
So can’t you see I’m living in an occupied land
Where all I know is sinking in the sand
So now I’m grabbing onto anything I can I knew before
I back up every word I say
With a force that can’t be reckoned with
My morning prayer is that the world would see
I can separate truth from myth
And the source of my authority
Is just two steps away from me
So can’t you see I’m living in an occupied land
Where all I know is sinking in the sand
So now I’m grabbing onto anything I can I knew before
And this is not a strange or futile bid
I’m thinking of the future of my kids
And the boundaries they need to navigate
This terrifying world so filled with hate
This unforgiving desert heat
And the dust that gets in my eyes
Don’t lend themselves to thoughts of grace and peace
And lovers being reconciled
So I’ll defiantly stand my ground
And dismiss you without a sound
So can’t you see I’m living in an occupied land
Where all I know is sinking in the sand
So now I’m grabbing onto anything I can I knew before
So can’t you see you’re living in a liberal land
Where all you know is safe and close at hand
So now you’re taking it for granted
And losing your integrity in whispers and in shades