I often receive messages from US soldiers from over seas. Sometimes they tell me how they feel like they were tricked into the service. Mostly they tell me about how they can’t wait to get home. Some of my friends from school have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It always makes me wonder how they perceive my music or my message. Ever since 9/11 I’ve been on an anti-war crusade, and that reflects in my music. However, art is always left to interpretation and sometimes people interpret my lyrics in ways I never intended. That’s not “right” or “wrong”…that’s just how it goes.
That being said, I’m very careful about the type of energy I throw out into the ethersphere when it comes to my art. I know that ambiguity can work against me, but sometimes there just isn’t any plain way of saying something without it being a 30 page term paper that no one would ever read. For the record, my song “Slow Down Gandhi” is about fly-by-night activists who get caught up in political fervor every election year and then they fall by the wayside when the party is over. Those people annoy me to no end and it’s a big reason why Knowmore.org meant so much to me. At the risk of being a broken record, the motto stands true…”You vote with your wallet every day.”
Recently I received these photos from a soldier in Iraq. I assume it was meant as some sort of homage to my song or the idea of my song, but I can only hope that the homage is for the intended purpose of the song.
Dear Barack…bring ‘em home.