Today’s song is a powerful condemnation of small town judgement and an unwillingness to accept redemption, the taking of new chances and the leaving youthful errors behind…no matter how hard it might be to do so. What makes it even more strange to reconcile with is that the judgement is coming from the same people who “said I’d turned my back on Jesus / They went and turned their back on me.” It’s a story that rings very true.
‘Buzzards on a Powerline‘ is taken from My Politic’s tenth album ‘Missouri Folklore : SOngs and Stories from Home’, which features a blend of musical stories which are in part auto-biographical and are all set against the backdrop of the Ozark Mountains, which served as the landscapes of longtime friends and bandmates Kaston Guffey and Nick Pankey’s early years.
Kaston Guffey says of the song that it “has become kind of a ‘fan favorite’ on the road. It’s a character song about judgment. I’ve always been fascinated by the evangelical ‘godliness’ of the Ozarks while all this darkness is right under the surface. I wanted to write from the perspective of someone struggling with addiction while the folks around them never stop reminding them of how badly they fucked up. I remember being very taken by the idea of never being able to escape a label no matter how much progress you make.”
