Genocidal Love Songs

It’s a genre I feel a strange sort of pride for creating. Humanity is fascinated by its extremes; feast and famine, rich and poor, rural and urban, love and hate. I like figuring out ways to blur the lines between historical events, to point out how we repeat ourselves doing wonderful things and doing simply awful, evil business. To each other. Like “Burning Grounds”, off my 2011 solo LP, Strip The Lanterns. That song was inspired by Yevtushenko’s Holocaust poem Babi Yar. “Burning Grounds” took place in the American South, but the hatred, the fear, the violence, and the guilt are the same. “Talkin' To A Pretty Blonde Girl” is the same way, only flipped, and only a love song. It was written about the love of a Jewish boy and a Christian girl in the time of the Holocaust, but it could be about the love of a black boy for a white girl.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.