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Your Right To Kill Me? (social contract sinkin')

from Songs From the Crux by Walter Ehresman

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Click here for the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=psqwM5N0pyU

This one was written in May of 2020, deep into the pandemic, as Ehresman watched with dismay as right wing (overwhelmingly white) yahoos all around the US stormed state capitol buildings, city halls, etc. to protest mask and other public health requirements (never facing the heavily armed pushback that Black Lives Matter peaceful protestors were about to experience).

Consider the song a lament for the death, in America, of the social contract.

Musically, the song harkens back to Bob Marley & the Wailers, with the organ prominent in the mid-tempo reggae groove. The guitar solos were inspired, Ehresman says, by the jazzy island approach of Jamaican legend Ernest Ranglin.

lyrics

Your Right To Kill Me? (Social Contract Sinkin’)
(© 2020 Walter Ehresman)

You think you got the right to kill me (you red-hat bastards);
Just to satisfy your latest whim (oh no);
Overcompensation with your gun so long;
“Ooo, such a bad man with no mask on!.......
All the ladies run to him.”

You think you got the right to kill me (you red-hat bastards);
And so you march to the capitol (oh no);
You froth and rage, and you cough and spray
every little notion that you had today;
A vicious child will shake the rattle

Don’t you live in our society?
With some for you and some for me?
But if you are just our parasite (oh no)
then we must cut your from our sight.

You think you got the right to kill me;
‘Cause you never learned how to live, now (oh, no);
Craven politicians throw more meat to the base;
Bloody-eyed stare as you blow smoke in my face;
Got no empathy to give, now.

credits

from Songs From the Crux, released April 1, 2021
Walter Ehresman--lead, background & vocoder vocals; guitars, 5-string electric bass, keyboards & key percussion, vocoder, drum machine programming.

Special guest--Mike Duncan: background vocals.

Snipe Bog Records.
p. 2021 Walter Ehresman

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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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