Jimmy Baldwin - `Beautiful Country's Burning, Brother (Bucket Brigade)` (click on image to watch video)

 12 October 2020

The message behind the latest single from Americana’s Jimmy Baldwin, “Beautiful Country’s Burning, Brother” is not exactly subtle. 

But, then again, in the fall of 2020 – living under the most overtly racist presidential administration in generations; when simply saying “Black Lives Matter” due to the wildly disproportionate amount of violence minorities face by police is usually countered with the knee jerk nonsensical “All Lives Matter!” mantra – subtlety is pretty useless. 

This three-and-a-half-minute long track is a clarion call for this country to pay attention to the racial injustice that a segment of our society simply thinks does not exist. The president and vice president have both recently gone on the record stating that systemic racism is not real. Pretty bold pronouncement from two privileged white guys. 

The immediacy of this song is evident with Baldwin’s oft-repeated chorus, “Beautiful Country’s burning, brother/Lord we need a bucket brigade,” sung over a quickly building guitar swirl, backed by fiddle and a slew of other strings. The track, the latest in folk tradition of unwavering protest songs, is that much more impactful when paired with Baldwin’s music video for the song, showing pictures from across the country at this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests juxtaposed with various people wrapped in the American flag.     

John B. Moore has been covering the seemingly disparate, but surprisingly complimentary genres of Americana and punk rock for the past 20 years.

Blurt/New Noise Magazine/InSite Atlanta/NeuFutur Magazine

twitter @jbmoore00

To Read All of John's Reviews, Click Here

fShare

Tweet