Favorite Songs of 2017

For me, "favorite songs" is truly a separate category from "favorite albums." My favorite songs each year tend to be fluffy-ish one-offs, things I hear and enjoy completely separate from an album listening experience. These songs can and do stand alone. That said, covers often end up on my favorite song lists, and this year is no exception. 

If I had to pick just one song this year, it would be Mac McCaughan's "Happy New Year (Prince Can't Die Again)." The song was recorded at the end of 2016 and released on inauguration day 2017 on Battle Hymns, a compilation ("it is a protest record!") assembled by Quasi with all proceeds split between Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and 350.org. McCaughan's song is the perfect combination of a "fuck you!" to the shitty year that was 2016 ("Oh, it was a year when everybody died/And it was a year when the adults and children cried/For the loss of their hope, for the loss of their youth") and a call to gather,  celebrate what we can (even if it's only that we can't lose beloved artists a second time), and organize. True, the song's dire predictions for 2017 didn't all yet come true (the sun has not yet turned us all to sand, after all), but a year later, it still feels like a bittersweet balm.

Kevin Morby's "1234" is an original song that manages to cite The Ramones' entire oeuvre  as well as The Jim Carroll Band's "People Who Died." Like McCaughan's song, Morby's is an ebullient downer, but all the more profound for that combination. 

Kris Kristofferson's "Turpentine," the stand out track on the excellent Cover Stories: Brandi Carlile Celebrates 10 Years of The Story, is quite simply crushing. Like Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt," Kristofferson takes a younger person's song about the loss of a relationship and imbues it with the profundity of age and experience. When he sings, "But I'm warning you we're growing up," your heart just cracks open.

Mountain Man's cover of "Love Hurts" on the Our First 100 Days compilation (released on Bandcamp as "One hundred songs that inspire progress and benefit a cause for change") is not terribly profound. But it does what a cover song can do best - offer a new way in to a familiar song, and open up new possibilities for it. (Grandaddy also released a "Love Hurts" cover on the solid Resistance Radio: The Man in the High Castle Album.)

In her surprise release, "I'm Better," Missy Elliot asserts in her signature flow the joy of having come through something - a physical illness? a depression? - and out the other side. When collaborator Lamb intones, "It's another day, another chance/I wake up, I wanna dance/So as long as I got my friends/I'm better, I'm better, I'm better," it's a reminder, not unlike McCaughan's, that reaching out to friends and not isolating is key to getting through whatever it is that ails you (or the country, as it were). Of course the rest of the song is full of braggadocio of the sexual and material success kind (the remix featuring Lil' Kim, Eve, and Trina elevates this even further), but ultimately the song celebrates having survived, a hope I could certainly use this year.

Mitski's "Fireproof," like Mountain Man's "Love Hurts," is on the Our First 100 Days compilation. When I first heard it, I thought it was a good pop song, and then when I heard it was a One Direction cover, I was even more intrigued. In an oft-quoted Billboard interview, the indie rocker said, “We seem to de-legitimize music that has a majority of young girl fans and think of it as having less cultural value.” Her cover mines the song for its pop gold and turns it into 1:49 minutes of fuzzy, pop bliss.

We Must Do More Than Survive

As we enter this new era of the unknown today, we must do more than survive.

We must resist, certainly. We must refuse to capitulate. And of course we must organize, continue organizing. 

But it is also urgent in this time that we live. We must laugh and make art and good food and share it with others. We must grow things, and teach and learn. We must nurture one another. We must function as much as possible in alternative economies. We must analyze our histories so we can imagine new futures. We must resist the impulse to isolate, and challenge ourselves to connect even when it is hard; especially when it is hard. We must train for strength and endurance and find joy in our bodies as we do so. We must insist on our ideals. And we must love. And turn up the volume. And write. And dance.*

Let's get to work.

*Even though Emma Goldman never actually said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution," what she did say is almost better.

2016 Albums to Help Us Navigate and Survive the Coming Times

This is not a year for the typical Top 10 music list. Rather these are the albums that I think have something we need as we head into the unknown: a way to mark our path ("Lay the breadcrumbs down so we can find our way"), a promise ("Little bird grew big wings"), and solidarity in our despairing, "What will become of us?" Here is the co-existence of our destruction and our hope, our retribution and our dreaming, our medicine and yes our lemonade, our guide to creating new and just formations.
Listen here or find these via your favorite listening channels:
Tanya Tagaq "Sulfur" from Retribution PJ Harvey "River Anacostia" from Hope Six Demolition Project ANOHNI "Hopelessness" from Hopelessness Courtney Marie Andrews "Rookie Dreaming" from An Honest Life Solange "Rise" from A Seat at the Table Y La Bamba "Ojos del Sol" from Ojos del Sol Laura Mvula "Bread" from The Dreaming Room Angelica Garcia "Little Bird" from Medicine for Birds The Julie Ruin "Hello Trust No One" from Hit Reset Fea "Feminazi" from Fea Beyonce "Formation" from Lemonade Tanya Tagaq "Retribution" from Retribution

The Power of Prince

Recently I listened to an All Songs Considered podcast about Bob Boilen's book Your Song Changed My Life. Afterwards, I started thinking about the music that has been significant in my life - and there's been a lot. If I had to write a chapter for that book, what would it be about? After much deliberation I finally settled on Prince's album 1999. I distinctly remember using a $10 gift certificate I'd gotten for my 12th birthday to buy the cassette at Dillon Music in Kalamazoo, MI. I remember feeling nervous as I reached for the cassette on one of those rotating cassette towers; it felt a little naughty, and I knew I was probably too young to buy it. But I did it anyway, feeling almost as if I'd won a dare. Honestly, the first thing that drew me to Prince was the line, "Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb?" Ever the activist, I was drawn to his matter-of-fact questioning of the arms race, even if it did inexplicably come at the end of a pretty funky song that to me was about partying despite - or perhaps because of - the impending apocalypse. Soon my friends and I were dissecting the lyrics as we sang along at the back of the bus, playing the cassette on one of those portable Panasonic tape recorders. One of my more precocious friends explained all the sex stuff the rest of us didn't understand. I loved that Prince was profound and dirty, sacred and profane, political and passionate. His was the first music I remember having an in depth conversation about, as I tried to make an argument to my friend in support of his complexity. He was himself, unapologetically and uncompromisingly so, a model I desperately needed as a painfully shy preteen. And he could DANCE! And he sang about dancing! Two years later, Purple Rain was the soundtrack of my first relationship, and first breakup. My purple vinyl Purple Rain 45 is still one of my prized possessions. He definitely helped me get through this thing called life. All of this has been rolling around in my head for the past week, so when my colleague told me today that Prince was dead, it just didn't seem real. Party in Purple, dear one.

Won’t Back Down! A Brief History of the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers

When the Refuse & Resist! Reproductive Freedom Taskforce organized the first National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers twenty years ago in fall 1996, clinics and clinic staff were under constant physical attack. Two doctors and a clinic escort had been murdered; clinics were being blockaded, invaded, and bombed; doctors had their homes protested and their children followed to school; and some doctors were even being targeted by law enforcement for prosecution. Just going to work in the morning meant crossing a picket line and being called vile names, or worse being told that they know where you live. Unlisted phone numbers, and in Massachusettes where I lived at the time unlisted license plates, were necessary security precautions. Judicially, the Webster and Casey Supreme Court decisions in 1989 and 1992 had chipped away at the constitutional protections granted by Roe v. Wade. Many had thought that having a democrat in the White House would result in a more favorable climate for abortion after twelve years of a republican presidency, but instead violent attacks on clinics had only escalated. In this context, a small group of activists who themselves had been on the front lines of the abortion battle determined that it was essential to launch a campaign of public support. Declaring “Abortion providers are heroes for saving women’s lives!” the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers was created with two aims: 1) to hearten providers with positive public support and 2) to strengthen the movement by forging stronger links between activists and providers.

Though the first NDAAP was small, the feedback from providers was overwhelmingly positive. As we moved towards the 25th anniversary of Roe on January 22, 1998, we determined to make the Day of Appreciation a major annual event. When just one week after the Roe anniversary a clinic in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed, killing the security guard and seriously injuring a nurse, standing with providers and publicly thanking them for their work became all the more urgent. With the permission and participation of David Gunn Jr., we marked the fifth anniversary of his father’s death on March 10, 1998 with the second NDAAP, and ever since then March 10 has been a day to honor the work abortion providers do.

It seems hard to imagine now, but for those first five years we organized on the phone and mailed paper organizing kits to participating organizations like the LIST. We also mailed appreciation packets to clinics all over the country with the cooperation of the National Abortion Federation, the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Appreciation packets over the years included poetry written for the occasion by reg e. gaines and Marge Piercy, original artwork, posters for display in clinic waiting rooms and staff rooms, certificates and letters of appreciation, and even a sermon and prayer for clinic workers.

By the early 2000s the Internet was becoming a viable organizing tool, and the Day of Appreciation had caught on enough that we no longer had to convince organizations to participate or call to remind them that March 10 was coming. We made the decision at that point to let the Day have a life of its own. On the one hand it makes me sad that twenty years after that first NDAAP there is still a need for the Day. Many of the situations I described above are still the daily reality providers across the country, but that kind of daily violence is no longer a news story, just the reality of legal abortion in this country. But on the other hand, it makes me incredibly happy that so many individuals and organizations have taken the day up as their own and that abortion providers are so publicly thanked each year.

Back in the early days of NDAAP, David Gunn, Jr. told us that his father’s favorite song had been Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.”

Well I won't back down, no I won't back down

You could stand me up at the gates of hell

But I won't back down

Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around

And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down

Gonna stand my ground and I won't back down

The song is still an apt theme for the courageous health care providers and clinic staff whose determination and persistence in the face of unrelenting legislative attacks and daily harassment is nothing short of awe inspiring. It is these workers, sometimes the only ones for hundreds of miles or the only ones in an entire state, who make the constitutional right to abortion a reality. Abortion funds like the TEA Fund help make abortion financially accessible, but as the old saying goes, “without abortion providers there is no choice.” You can read some of their stories here https://prh.org/provider-voices/ndaap/

So today, and everyday, I honor all abortion providers and clinic staff. Having worked at Planned Parenthood myself, I know how hard it can be to go past those protestors on your way into work, or on your way back from lunch. I hold close to my heart all the providers I’ve worked with for the past 25 years, whose courage and strength have sustained me. And I remember with deep sadness and enormous gratitude those who were murdered for doing their part to provide safe, legal abortion.

March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn, Pensacola, FL

June 29, 1994: Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, Pensacola, FL

December 30, 1994: Shannon Lowney and Leann Nichols, Brookline, MA

January 29, 1998: Robert Sanderson, Birmingham, AL

October 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian, Rochester, NY

May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller, Wichita, KS

You are my heroes.

originally posted March 10, 2016 at http://www.teafund.org/won_t_back_down_a_brief_history_of