Tyler Childers "Long Violent History"...(country artist addresses systemic racism, unrest)

[Tanuki]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/09/18/tyler-childers-drops-long-violent-history-surprise-album-listen/3491284001/
."Without a whisper of notice, Kentucky country troubadour Tyler Childers debuted a new album Friday. 

Called "Long Violent History," Childers' latest work features a collection of instrumental fiddle tunes — "Send In The Clowns," "Bonaparte's Retreat," "Camp Chase," "Midnight on the Water" and more. 

The album closes with "Long Violent History," a Childers original that finds the singer addressing civil unrest and systemic racism. .


He sings, "Now what would you get if you heard my opinion conjecturing on matters that I ain’t never dreamed/ In all my born days, this white boy from Hickman, based on the way that the world’s been to me/ It’s called me belligerent, it’s took me for ignorant but it ain’t never once made me scared just to be/ Could you imagine just constantly worrying, kicking and fighting begging to breathe?" 

The song continues with the 29-year-old Appalachian songwriter offering, "How many boys could they haul off this mountain/ Shoot full of holes, cuffed and laying in the street/ 'Til we come into town in a stark raving anger/ Looking for answers, and armed to the teeth.”

Childers posted Friday a six-minute video monologue offering context to "Long Violent History." The old time instrumental tracks lay a sonic landscape for "Long Violent History," a song Childers described as an "observational piece for the times we are in." 

As multiple instances of perceived police brutality led to protesters pleading for systemic racial reform this summer, Childers called "our inability to empathize with another individual or groups’ plight" a primary cause for unrest. 

In one of the sharpest condemnations of racism delivered by a white country artist during the ongoing protests, Childers asked "what if" white, rural listeners of his music — "I don’t mean to imply that many of you aren't already doing good self-examination on this issue but I have heard from many who have not," he said — woke up to a headline reading ‘East Kentucky man shot 7 times on fishing trip'? 

He asked what if another headline read 'Ashland Community and Technical College nursing student shot in her sleep,' drawing a parallel to a police shooting that resulted in the publicized death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville earlier this year. 

"What form of upheaval would that create?" Childers said. "I’d venture to say if we were met with this type of daily attack on our people we would take action in a way that hasn't been seen since the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia." 

....

He followed a call to the polls by asking listeners to "stop being so taken back" by the Black Lives Matter movement and to celebrate Southern heritage without "lazily defending a flag with history steeped in racism and treason.".. .(more)

[Clash City Rocker]

1. Great song

I’m getting echoes of Neil Young and Old Crow Medicine Show.

[Tanuki]

2. The album is a gem. Did you hear his Bonaparte's Retreat? 🎻 ❤

[blitzen]

3. His two previous albums are fantastic as well. n/t