A History Lesson

1 week ago by @daveescoffery

Liner Notes

As you will probably be able to tell from the lyrics, I've been reading a lot of Heather Cox Richardson (if you aren't familiar with her on-going work Letters from an American, you should read it because it is a thorough and insightful almost daily account of what is going on in this country and how it reflects aspects of our history - check her out on social media or subscribe to her Substack!). Anyway, to fit everything I wanted to say into a song, I had to lose a lot of the subtlety, but I hope you get the general gist of things at least.

Since this came out reading almost like a ballad, I decided to do something different than my usual 3-chord punk chord progression. I believe this is some kind of D mixolydian, but please correct me if that's wrong (it's what the Internet told me, though, so how could it possibly be wrong? 😂).

#fuc #protest #acousticonetake #history #HeatherCoxRichardson

Lyrics

Let me sing you a song 'bout the state of our nation.
I hope everyone hears me
Because where we are and where we are going,
I must admit, that it scares me.

How did we get here? How did we get here?
Let me tell you how.
It's called history. Don't forget it. And let's change the future now.

[Spoken] There are plenty of places where we could begin this history lesson, but for the sake of convenience, let's start right around the year 1970.

Verse 1
Nixon's advisors were worried about losing the midterm election
Cuz people were mad about Viet Nam, so they needed some kind of deflection
Plus, the corporate class wanted tax breaks and an end to regulation,
But those taxes were paying for popular things; folks love safety net legislation.

So they decided to use divide and conquer,
Give the people an enemy to blame.
Said the taxes were going to lazy brown folks,
Who were Communists, or nearly the same.

How did we get here? How did we get here?
Know your history.

[Spoken] Now let's jump ahead about 10 years and see where things went next.

Verse 2
Reagan perfected old Nixon's act by talking about "welfare queens."
He said that we were a nation of cowboys made weak by the leftist extremes.
In his second term, he gutted a law that was known as the Fairness Doctrine,
So the media no longer had to tell the truth, which opened the door to spin.

Suddenly we got right wing radio
Blasting out misinformation,
And right wing TV joined the crusade
To shake and divide the nation.

How did we get here? How did we get here?
This is our history.

[Spoken] Let's skip ahead again, past Rush Limbaugh shouting, past Newt Gingrich tying up the legislative branch throughout the 90s.

Verse 3
Marinated in lies, the right decided the left was illegitimate.
So they launched REDMAP in 2010, which was gerrymandering, the height of it.
With their candidates guaranteed to win, what mattered was absolute purity.
They got more extreme to get votes from the base by spouting the right ideology.

Not extreme enough, you would lose in the Primary,
And god forbid that you ever
Voted for something the other side proposed
Even if it helped people, no never!

This is how we got here. This is how we got here. It's our history.

Bridge
Now we have reached the extreme end of that divide and conquer strategy.
Hopefully it isn't also the end of our entire democracy.
This is all a direct result of the divide and conquer strategy.
Hopefully it isn't also the end of our entire democracy.

How did we get here? How did we get here?
Let me tell you how.
It's called history. Don't forget it.
So let's go change the future now!

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