The latest song from Icarus Phoenix touches softly on the endless cycles of change – whether that be in the realm of the personal or on the larger canvas of political changes and upheavals. When contrasting differences over a period of a year there is a reflection that in some ways it is only the world immediately around you that really matters: “I believe in myself and not some broken oligarchy.” It’s a cry somewhat of desperation, that liars get elected and what is the individual supposed to do against an overwhelming wave of support from the interested already wealthy – the establishment if you will, who enjoy so much funding the “anti-establishment” who are on even cursory observation actually the deeply embedded establishment. It can feel like banging your head against a wall. And why the alluded to shock? Well, it’s all there in the song as Drew Danbury emotes “rather than engage in powerless worry I wrote the next three words you’ll hate I did not vote.”
Speaking of the song Drew Danbury explains that: “The Oligarchy is pretty self-explanatory. It’s about staying present in the here and now with the ones you love. Changing the world around you the best you know how, in the small ways. Not letting the oligarchal overlords bring you down. I’m not gonna preach about how the rich rule the world and how it’s all pointless. It isn’t. But maybe it’s about spending energy in the ways we can control rather than drown in the never-ending ways in which our voice isn’t heard in this modern world.”
Drew has an upcoming date in the UK at the Americana 25 Festival in Liverpool, which you can read all about here.
