A Tale of Twin Cities

Apropos of the cold-blooded, and absolutely needless and senseless murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by the ICEstapo, I thought it would be a good time to share a song I wrote after the fizzle-out of the 2020 protests that popped off in that city in response to the police murder of George Floyd. The song is called "A Tale of Twin Cities," and borrows from the famous opening passage of Charles Dickens's classic "Tale of Two Cities" to reflect some observations on the inevitability of violence to maintain the status quo of extreme economic inequality, and on the role of the spectacle in steering protest into the dead-end of electoralism.

This version of it was produced by a friend I met on Twitter who used to go by the moniker of "Compost Ghoul." The lyrics are below. Hope you like it, and I really hope that "we" can learn from the past and avoid making some of the same mistakes that have hamstrung past attempts to leverage righteous indignation into revolutionary action.

LYRICS:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
When the ones accusing keep on doing the crimes.
They have the best of plans and the worst intent,
And believe you me things'll get worse yet.

it was the age of wisdom and of foolishness,
When there was so much knowledge yet so little sense.
We had a whole free market of ideas to choose
We had some scraps to gain but our souls to lose

Chorus: It’s another tale of two cities;
Two parallel societies;
One's selling out to keep on buying cheap
And the other one is burning to get free.

It was the spring of hope, the winter of despair,
When there was rage in our hearts, rebellion in the air
And every murder sanctioned by the slave patrol was just them telling us they’re still in control.

It was the season of light, and plenty darkness too,
When we chose to fight but we knew we’d lose--
Divided up ourselves, unable to agree, and our differences became commodities.

Chorus: It’s another tale of two cities;
Two parallel societies;
One's selling out to keep on buying cheap
And the other one is burning to get free.
I said that the other one is burning to get free.

Much love,

Don