Get all 15 annie bacon & her OSHEN releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Storm, Walk A Little Farther, California Heat, Harvest Moon, For A Better Life, Nothing stays the same, Two Way Street, Gallatin Pike, and 7 more.
1. |
||||
|
I put myself in the shoes of a mother of a son
Running from the guns of gangs
Armed by the CIA
Same story today and every other day
We’ve covered ground at a hurried pace
Cause I saw the fear on my baby’s face
And I’m not taking any chances
Not today or any other day
What would you honestly do?
Look your child in the eyes and tell me
You wouldn’t do anything
For a better life too
I imagine we arrive with no stars in our eyes
Cause word has traveled fast
That things are getting worse
Rumor has it they’re putting us in cages
And sure enough we’re chased down
By men in green outside the town
Thought we could get around it
But now we know the sting of tear gas
What would you honestly do?
Look your child in the eye and tell me
You wouldn’t do anything
For a better life too?
I can see the life we’re running for
Just a quiet street and a front door
Don’t want your job, don’t want your wife
Just don’t want to fear for my child’s life
It’s been three weeks and four days
Since they took my son away from me
And I still can’t breathe
I don’t feel grief, I’ve become it
But my mother always told us
There were heroes among us
Fighting every day for strangers far away
And that keeps my hope alive
What would you honestly do?
Look your child in the eye and tell me
You wouldn’t do anything
For a better life too?
What would you honestly do?
I look my child in the eyes, I tell you
I would do anything
I would do anything too
I would do anything too
|
||||
2. |
||||
|
Who do you think you are trying to re-write history
Tearing out the pages you don't wanna believe
I know our history and it ain't pretty
But learning from it leads to new beginnings
Who do you think you are
Trying to re-write history
Who do you think you are
Tearing up the family
You're blurring up the lines so we can't find
You re-write, drawing up new lines
You're tearing up the states 'til they're to your liking
Re-write, re-write, you lie
Who do you think you are
Trying to re-write history
Who do you think you are
Tearing up the family
Who do you think you are
Trying to re-write history
Who do you think you are
Goddamn, you're family
|
||||
3. |
||||
|
In the morning they wake up like you and I do
Brush their teeth and go to work like you and I do
Call their mom to say hello like you and I do
Rest their head when they are home like you and I do
Who are you to say they haven't earned their right to stay
They are more brave and just and true than any one of you
Charging forward on the front line, how do you Define American
When they were born they cried out like you and I did
Learned to walk and learned to talk like you and I did
But when they tried to learn to drive like you and I did
They were told to run and hide or say goodbye
Who are you to say they haven't earned their right to stay
They are more brave and just and true than any one of you
Charging forward on the front line, how do you Define American
|
||||
4. |
||||
|
A bottle of Bulleit
And a bowl of rice
Never drank so warm
Never bit so nice
I think of you whenever I am in this place
With a bottle of Bulleit
And a bowl of rice
The senoritas are folkloring outside
I want so much to join them
But my rhythm ain’t right
If I could only barter one song of light
For a bottle of Bulleit and a bowl of rice
We came through here just you and me
In the back of a pickup without windows to see
We held each other through the blackest pitch
They sent you back and left me naked in a ditch.
Oh God help you
If you come a-lookin’ for me
I’ll be sittin’ right here
But you will not see
I’ll be crying for you through my sightless eyes
Into my bottle of Bulleit
And my bowl of rice
Into my bottle of Bulleit
And my bowl of rice
|
||||
5. |
||||
|
They’re sleeping tonight near the border
In an abandoned big box store
Chain link cages blankets for space
They sleep on linoleum floors
They came here seeking asylum
They were torn from the arms of their moms
Now they’re sleeping tonight near the border
In an abandoned big box store
They came here from Honduras
From Guatemala and El Salvador
Their parents did what a parent should do
To escape from the brutal drug wars
They came here seeking asylum
They were torn from the arms of their moms
Now they’re sleeping tonight near the border
In an abandoned big box store
Congress does nothing though they disapprove
For the press they will all shake their head
But political threats trump moral regret
So they save their seats instead
The children seeking asylum
Who were torn from the arms of their arms
Now they’re sleeping tonight near the border
In an abandoned big box store
The President, he blames the Democrats
And demands that we build his wall
We’ll continue to separate mother from child
He could end this with one single call
Still he ramps up his rhetoric to rally his base
To enrage his old rebel core
Now they’re sleeping tonight near the border
In an abandoned big box store
Who will stand up for these children?
And would you stand up for your own?
If they had been torn away from you
For the crime of not having a home
They came here seeking asylum
They were torn from the arms of their moms
Now they’re sleeping tonight near the border
In an abandoned big box store
|
||||
6. |
||||
|
Steal them from the border
Peel them from their mothers' arms
Feed them to the fire
And watch them burn
With eyelids open wide
Beat them if they clamor
Teach them not to holler out
Feed them to the fire
And kiss our wives
With eyelids open wide
Swarms they came
With names unknown
In their cages
They’re calling out for someone
And when they go home
They’ll tell their mothers
That they were broken
By the cowards
With eyelids open wide
|
||||
7. |
Audrey Ryan - Coyote
03:26
|
|||
|
I’m just a kid in a bed
It’s not my country, not my language
Did you poison my food?
Do you see me?
Do you pity me?
Came across my coyote
Riding hiding like a refugee
Just another illegal
Fleeing gangs and poverty
I was working a job
When they put me into custody
I don’t trust you at all
You’re not my family
It’s not my home
Came across my coyote
Riding hiding like a refugee
Just another illegal
Fleeing gangs and poverty
I’m just a kid in a bed
It’s not my country, not my language
|
||||
8. |
||||
|
In memory of Jakelin Caal Maquin
Hallucinations
And a tired kid
The next three weeks
Will be the worst of it
Snow is coming
And we need new shoes
Some clean water
And just a bit of food
It's a beautiful trip
The closest I've come to death
Won't you spare my kids
Don’t put them in a cage
Violence rose
In a tidal wave
A cartel’s cleansing
Of their enemies
Questions came
About a month ago
Stay and die
Or make the long walk north
It's a beautiful trip
The closest I've come to death
Won't you spare my kids
Don’t put them in a cage
|
||||
9. |
||||
|
What’s your country done for you now
Is it making you feel that you just don’t count
Even if you know your way around
You better watch out when the sun goes down
Bankers lawyers collecting their fares
While the sick and diseased are left to despair
Each of us knows what another can’t bear
Being cheated and lied to treated unfairly
Sometimes I wonder if everyone sang loud as they could at the top of their range
All of the glass would come shattering down
To litter the streets of this American town
What’s it take for some folks to see
What it’s like to have never been free
Watching you waiting for one little slip
Do you know what it’s like to be treated like this
Sometimes I wonder…
Rivers of blood have begun to flow
Each of us caught in the undertow
The hardest rain has yet to fall
When high on the hill there’s a clarion call
Sometimes I wonder if everyone sang loud as they could at the top of their range
All of the glass would come shattering down
To litter the streets of this American town
|
||||
10. |
Jimbo Scott - Live Free
04:13
|
|||
|
She came across the water with her brother and her daughter
in a boat they called a coffin on the sea,
They left their home in Dublin when the landlord killed her husband,
said the land was going to another lease,
And there at Ellis island they misspelled her name O’Brian
sent her brother to the railroad company,
Everywhere she went the so called natives cursed her head
but she determined that she wasn’t gonna leave,
Oh Mama! All I wanna do is live free!
Oh Mama! Piece of the American Dream!
He came to San Francisco and was greeted with a pistol
and was told to take a trip across the Bay,
They put him in a room and told him he’d be leaving soon
and then for months he had to watch the weather change,
Released into a culture that would label him a vulture
and restrict where he could make a decent wage,
He held on to a hope that one day he could make a home
and then his kids would get to see a different age
Oh Mama! All I wanna do is live free!
Oh Mama! Piece of the American Dream!
They come from all directions but the reasons always fit the same themes,
And if we’re the greatest country, what have we to fear from those in need
She came up to the border and encountered standing orders
it’s against the law for her to cross a line,
They said she’d be a burden and she might commit a murder
so we have to keep her on the other side,
She left the old republic ‘cause the violence was ugly
and she had to find a way to stay alive,
Every step she takes she knows she’s found a better way
and so she keeps her steady eyes upon the prize,
Oh Mama! All I wanna do is live free!
Oh Mama! Piece of the American Dream!
Oh Mama! All I wanna do is live free!
Oh Mama! Piece of the American Dream!
|
||||
11. |
||||
|
I don't know how to get ready to be ready for this
this is my only home
taken away and taken back to a country I have never known
she said,
I imagine Mexico as someone would who had never been there
because I have never been there
my mother and father died a thousand times
just to give me a better life
they're my inspiration, taught me love this nation
now we’re all being criminalized
I don't know how to get ready to be ready for this
this is my only home
taken away and taken back to a country I have never known
on this stolen land of immigrants
who work hard, pay in full but get no benefits
yes on the stolen land of immigrants
who work hard pay in full but get no benefits
he said,
it's hard to focus now when you're a dreamer
your life is used as a scape goat, a political punching bag
I got to watch my every move got to watch my back
I don't know how to get ready to be ready for this
this is my only home
taken away and taken back to a country I have never known
living in between the shadows of two worlds
If you took the time to look into my eyes
see your reflection in my soul
If you took the time to look in to my eyes
you might realize we are each others only home
|
||||
12. |
||||
|
We ran out the backdoor, then sailed to the north shore
In the cover of night, moonlit seas
The tide, it was grasping from the edge of a new world,
Inviting a change like a seed
And with eyes sparkling at the tangerine dawn
I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s home but i feel new beginnings
We know love carries on, no matter what….it remains
Through the burning flames and the ice parades,
Carries on…whoahhhh
What once moved so slowly
Now the arms they’re unfolding
To everything that we are meant to be
Though the words are unspoken
We know it’s not broken
And we can’t give up yet, that’s the key.
And with eyes sparkling at the tangerine dawn
I don’t know I don’t know if it’s home, but it feels like we’re winning
We know love carries on, no matter what….it remains
Through the burning flames and the ice parades,
All the love…whoahhhh
Let us work, let’s not worry
though the light can seem buried
In the cover of night it is free
We Grow stronger and wiser
And everyday kinder
Climb higher and higher to see
These are diamond days,
We are free, we are brave
In the cover of night we are seeds
And we bloom in the rain
and we learn from the pain
Carry on…whoahhhhh
And with eyes sparkling at the tangerine dawn
I don’t know I don’t know if it’s home, but it feels like we’re winning
|
||||
annie bacon & her OSHEN Ann Arbor, Michigan
Annie Bacon is a songwriter musician in Michigan. She aches for a more empathic humanity + her creativity orbits around this. She also composed a Folk Opera.
More at www.anniebacon.me
If you like For A Better Life, you may also like:
Echo Dancing
by Alejandro Escovedo
The legendary Alejandro Escovedo returns with another country-rock scorcher.
go to album
Spare bedroom folk songs from this North Carolina musician that evoke a host of emotions with lovely, tender melodies.
go to album
Downey to Lubbock
by Dave Alvin
Soulful guitar interplay form the heart of this lovely Americana collaboration from Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
go to album
24th Street Blues
by Tom Heyman
Tom Heyman documents life in San Francisco circa 2023, refusing to succumb to easy characterization & instead capturing the city’s nuance.
go to album
Soulful indie pop with an ambient twist, the latest from Deau Eyes is ghostly and bewitching.
go to album
Forward, Children: A fundraiser for Durham Public Schools students
by Hiss Golden Messenger
Hiss Golden Messenger transforms from a solo songwriter to a full-band on a record benefiting Durham Public Schools.
go to album
Terms of Surrender
by Hiss Golden Messenger
Psychedelic folkster M.C. Taylor taps Jenny Lewis, Phil Cook, and others for his latest as Hiss Golden Messenger.
go to album
