Hope transcends palpable anger.
In Eliza Gilkyson’s world, shadowy politicians, warhawks, and chauvinists are Shakespearean in their destruction, pride sealing their fate and dooming them to repeat the past. In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq, Gilkyson penned ‘Man of God’ about George Bush, evoking biblical imagery in the context of false idols and hubris. “Startin’ up wars in the name of God’s son / Gonna blow us all the way to kingdom come”, she sang, an oracle prophesying the new age of hyper-surveillance and imperialism.
Twenty years on, the stage is laid out with much of the same fear and violence, but with new players. On “Dark Ages”, Gilkyson turns her smoky-voiced fury at the Trump administration into radical hope. The title track is a mise en scène with Trump’s minions looking down on the populace “down to the dregs of history pages, sending us back, all the way back to the Dark Ages”. She calls them out by name: JD Vance, Peter Thiel, a reference to Elon Musk (“the X boy clown”) and the self-proclaimed ‘Alpha males’ — a new generation of misogyny, oligarchy, and fascism. In the third verse, she breaks off from metaphors and unleashes a stream of curses: “They all bow down when the big dog barks / F*ck those little f*ckers, they can f*ck right off”. There’s also a censored version available, but who’d want to miss out on this?
When things seem at their worst, Gilkyson argues, solidarity can flourish. In ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, a Guthrie-like ballad reminding us to “keep the bells of freedom ringing ‘til the walls come tumbling down”. On the personal side, she uses the darkness as a moment for reflection and a reason to live unabashedly. “I don’t want to cry about it / Wanna try to live without the might-have-beens”, she sings in ‘Impossible Dreams’. She finds joy in the stillness, her dogs running through the grass, and storm clouds in the distance.
In the closing track, ‘Este Salida del Sol’, Gilkyson imagines herself carried through the darkness by remembering her strength in community. “Mis queridos y mis sueños me llevan por la noche”, she sings against a quiet guitar. The present is too precious for despair; now is the time to keep faith.
“Dark Ages” on Realiza Records is out now.
