Today’s song is from My Politic, the great Nashville duo of Kaston Guffey and Nick Pankey from their EP Short-Sighted People In Power. This is our second opportunity to share their brilliance, the first was in October, prior to the release of the album.
The EP was released prior to the election and focuses entirely on the travesty of the Trump presidency. Written in classic Randy Newman first-person untrustworthy narrator style, it aimed for the bulls-eye of this American moment of misinformation, fear and division, and hit it straight on.
We first premiered “Fantasies of a Fox News Viewer,” with its great refrain “I miss America, the way it used to be…” It remains one of the greatest songs written to genuinely reflect the insidious impact of the constant distortion of truth on a giant segment of the populace.
Now weeks past the election, with 18 days until the changing of the guards, these songs still are as relevant as ever. This one, “Voter Suppression” says it all. Written in advance of the reality in which we are presently engaged, it is prophetic. As of this writing, the lame-duck president is ignoring his overt lameness to challenge the reality of his defeat, which requires challenging the reality of reality. Even Fox News has admitted the truth. So Trump is no longer a Fox fan.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Voter Suppression”
By Kaston Guffey
We can’t have these Black people
We can’t have these brown people
We can’t have these poor people
We can’t have these working people
Vote cuz they don’t like us no they don’t (no they don’t)
We’ve got all this power, people
We’ve got all this Power, people
How we gonna keep this power people
We got all this power people
We can’t let em vote cuz they don’t like us no they don’t (no they don’t)
Let’s kick em off the voter rolls
Let’s force these polling places closed
It was so much easier with the fire hose
Or back when we could tax and test em at the polls
Lets make ’em stand in line for hours
Let’s keep ’em from voting
cuz we’re all a bunch of cowards
Free and fair don’t mean shit to me
We’re the GOP
Fuck democracy
We’re the GOP
Fuck democracy
From Short-Sighted People In Power: A Home Recording, released October 2, 2020 * All Rights Reserved
