Patriot Act
Turmoil: it makes for great art. Any songwriter claiming to be contented with life is fooling you and probably isn't worth listening to. Truly inspired work comes from a pained, all-consuming desire to release and inform; whether it's a lover or the bottle or simply the way the world twists itself incoherently at will on any given morning, getting bent out of shape for art is infectious.
Steve Earle (songwriter, author, political activist, 21st century Thoreau of sorts) has been through enough personal problems in his lifetime to write decades' worth of concept records. Mark 'em: numerous failed marriages, drugs, prison, a veritable blacklisting from the Nashville music machine. But lately that hasn't seemed as important to Earle, who never sounds as inspired as he does when his government dumbs itself down. George W. Bush is very good for Steve Earle's art. The persistent failure of our current administration fuels Earle's muse like a scorned lover never could. His contempt for the parade of talking heads on Capitol Hill and their oblivious barrage of yes-men is more addictive than the sweetest strain of any narcotic.
Earle's new album The Revolution Starts... Now is his most urgent piece of work as a proud American dissenter; so urgent, in fact, that many of the record's songs were recorded within 24 hours of being written. Earle's career has been spiked with political asides (El Corazon's "Christmas in Washington", Transcendental Blues' "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)"), eventually leading him to the shell-shocked knee-jerk of Jerusalem, his first classifiable "political" record to document the country's rampaging indulgence in post-9/11 fear pedaling (sort of a caustic underside to Springsteen's The Rising). The Revolution Starts... Now soberly ups the socially conscious ante, its music potent and release timely, a document not only of the times in which we live, but a call to stir change from the inside out.
Earle leaps for the jugular early, opening with the underfoot crunch of the title track. The urgency of the song's message is palpable in the crackling rhythm guitar, giant Ringo Starr-esque drum beat, and even exultant handclaps. "The revolution starts now / When you rise above your fear," Earle sings in his double-tracked drawl, "Tear the walls around you down / The revolution starts here." His call-to-arms is an old one, informed by countless likeminded citizens of truth before him. The song is especially poignant in its stark simplicity; lifetimes after the drafting of the Constitution (and four decades after Dylan), we still need reminding that sometimes you gotta raise a little hell to keep your country on the right track.
The sympathetic character studies house some of Revolution's finest moments. "Rich Man's War" is like Springsteen minus the subtle subtext or involved imagery. Earle cuts right to the heart of the matter, egged on by an insistent rim shot on the snare drum. First he sings of an American kid who answered his country's call to duty, and in the wake "Left behind a pretty young wife and a baby girl / A stack of overdue bills and went off to save the world". Earle knows that such unfortunate scenarios are not reserved for Americans alone, and in the final verse documents other nations' exploitations of lives to satiate the gluttony of the wealthy and powerful: a boy from Gaza "answered when he got the call / Wrapped himself in death and praised Allah / A fat man in a new Mercedes drove him to the door". "The Gringo's Tale" -- doused in Revolver production, a renegade string quartet lending a suspicious air of uncertainty -- exposes the folly of unwarranted combat for combat's sake in one mercenary's life story. Its understated relevance to our current presence in Iraq is hard to miss, even if Earle's guitar is fingerpicked into a calming fit of repetition.
Earle unapologetically unloads in "F the CC", a Ramones-as-roots-rockers freight train that launches a spitball at talk radio's dissemination of poisonous deceit. "Piss and moan about the immigrants / But don't say nothin' about the president / A democracy don't work that way / I can say anything I wanna say," Earle cries as his band battles complacency, adding in the cathartic chorus: "Fuck the FCC / Fuck the FBI / Fuck the CIA / Livin' in the motherfuckin' USA". Lest we forget how to voice our own opinions within a free society (and cease recycling the gargles of the airwaves), practice by singing along to this song. Doesn't it feel good to be raucous and passionate? Let the deprogramming begin.
One of the benefits of Revolution's quick gestation is not only its inherent candidacy, but Earle's willingness to strike off-the-cuff. "Condi, Condi" rocks a stiffed faux reggae/Caribbean groove with which to serenade (tongue planted firmly in cheek) National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice. Sure, the song's a little silly, but in getting an easy laugh at the administration's expense ("Skank for me Condi, show me what you've got"), Earle succeeds in making the "serious" songs all the more powerful. (But more importantly, perhaps all the Bush camp needs to do is loosen up and get funky?)
Revolution is a dense record for its trim 40 minutes; Earle finds time to ensure freedoms are protected, warn against an increasing sense of nationalism, reflect upon numerous past mistakes, and even toss in a couple of straight-ahead roots ballads (one a duet with the consistently charming Emmylou Harris). At times it can sound like it's trying too hard (the spoken word "Warrior", told from a god's point of view, runs on poet-speak that is initially jarring) or not trying hard enough (the aforementioned "Condi, Condi"), but Revolution is a resounding triumph due to Earle's determination to address a plague of uncertainties from a variety of vantage points. In a country where politicians are blatantly funded by deep-pocketed "special interests" (their interests, not yours) and public figures are bought and molested like puppets, the real straight-shooter/Washington outsider isn't your president; it's Steve Earle. He has nothing to lose, no corporation to please, no agenda to fulfill, no reelection to secure. He doesn't need your money or your vote.
"The Seeker" ends the album (followed by a reprise of the title track) on a relatively optimistic note. "In a world full of sorrow, hunger and pain / It's so hard to explain why I'm still travelin' / There's a new day tomorrow and maybe I'll hold / Something brighter than gold to a seeker," Earle seems to discover as he sings. In the midst of so much chaos, our brightest days could be ahead of us; whether that comes with the election of a competent president, a reimplementation of our basic human rights, or simply giving a collective damn about where we are and what we're going to do about it, the possibility is there. As Earle knows well, possibility is the sweetest thing when your world is cloaked in the foul stench of compromise.
— 1 September 2004
