Following the tragic events at Charlottesville, Virginia, where protester Heather Heyer died during a violent demonstration by white supremacists and neo-Nazis last weekend, many people have been doing their level best to not only come to terms with what happened but also how best to help. Now Wilco have joined the fray.
The band have released a new song called ‘All Lives, You Say?’ on their Bandcamp page. All money raised by the song will go to the Southern Poverty Law Centre [SPLC], a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and seeking justice. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC “works toward the day when the ideals of social justice and equal opportunity will become a reality.”
Wilco’s frontman Jeff Tweedy had dedicated the song to the memory of his late father, Robert L. Tweedy, who passed away on August 4.
“My dad was named after a Civil War general, and he voted for Barack Obama twice,” he said. “He used to say ‘If you know better, you can do better.’ America — we know better. We can do better.”
This is one of Wilco’s more gentle, acoustic moments and is a tongue-in-cheek response to the claims that “All Lives Matter” that have been hurled at the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I can see you are afraid,” he sings at the bigots who refused to acknowledge that the problem of racial tension and disproportionate violence against black people exists. “Your skin, so thin, your heart has escaped / All lives, all lives, you say?”
You can listen to the track below. And when you’ve done that, please do the right thing and buy a download.
‘All Lives, You Day?’ is Wilco’s first new material since the release of their album, Schmilco, in September 2016.
