A few years ago, while touring with Minor Alps, we were lucky enough to be invited on a private after hours tour of the capitol building by then house speaker John Boehner’s deputy chief of staff David Schnittger. it was an incredible experience. we were the only ones in the building and it felt otherworldly, as if we were walking into the heart of the idea of the United States. the country only had four million people in it when the capitol was built, but its halls and chambers are enormous, as if the founding fathers were thinking far into the future. you can feel the high hopes and ambition. one of the rooms we were most struck by was statuary hall. it used to be where the house of representatives met and where presidents were inaugurated, but now it serves to display statues of prominent citizens from each state.
In writing the song, I tried to imagine what those statues might be thinking now about what they see. i thought about what they might want to say. i didn’t want to make it partisan, i wanted to appeal to any senator or congressperson’s sense of humanity, history and responsibility (“we’re on a bigger team than left or right”) and try to get something across about the potential for positive change, about being open to course correction when it’s needed and about the romance of possibility.
commodore Stephan Decatur uttered the phrase “my country, right or wrong” in the early 19th century, but Missouri senator Carl Shurz expanded on it in 1871, declaring “my country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Vocals and guitar by Matthew Caws, recorded at home Arrangement, cello, horns, trumpets, tympani by Phillip Peterson Violins by Victoria Parker
The Fat Angel Sings 