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--from the Walter Ehresman album "Monkey Paw Situation" (2009).

Download the whole album here: walterehresman.bandcamp.com/album/monkey-paw-situation

See video here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DajJKhafyWQ


Ehresman painfully recalls: "Back in the run-up to the 2004 election, when all the hateful clubs were being pulled out of the bag to ensure a Bush victory, Rovian politics were working hard to make being an intolerant, angry bigot a badge of honor in this country.....At that time, I had a group of guys that I used to get together with (ostensibly to go carp fishing but actually to drink beer and tell lies with while lounging all night on a boatdock) that included some older retirees I had previously worked with.......As the Right Wing got meaner and nastier leading up to that November election, I had the traumatic experience of seeing a couple of these older guys 'come out of the closet,' as it were, with some very hateful Rush Limbaugh-type views. Things deteriorated in that social group, and friendships ultimately ended. And so I wrote this song to deal that traumatic experience. Some of you may have had the experience of having to decide at what point staying silent when hateful, corrosive views are spoken acts as an enabling of those views....even when friends are doing the talking."

lyrics

How Can You Believe
(© 2004 Walter Ehresman)

The words we had flew through the air like acid darts of blame;
It seems I couldn't help myself, now things can't be the same.
For you to cling so deeply to those ideas dark and wrong--
I don't know if you are the one I thought I knew so long.

You know you are my friend, my friend--I value who you are;
But tell me how to reconcile the lucid with the snarl.
I'd thought of you as much too smart to fall into that trap--
and seeing that hurts more than hearing your propagandized rap (and then you go).

[break]

The world today is up for sale--a thing you can't deny;
One thing I know is that I've never seen the stakes so high;
With freedom in the balance and their thumb upon the scale,
our friendship cannot be the spear on which the truth impales (and so I go).

credits

from The Best of​.​.​.​.​.​.​.​Hard Rockers, released May 1, 2017
--Walter Ehresman: vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, 5-string electric bass, keyboards, sequencing. Special guest: James Rader--trap kit.

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Walter Ehresman San Miguel De Allende, Mexico

Called "the quintessential Austin DIY artist" by famed local disc jockey Charlie Martin , Walter Ehresman was an eccentric presence in the Austin music scene from the '80s until his 2015 move to Mexico. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist...and a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, expressed with fearlessly honest, socially-conscious lyrics. ... more

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