Collection spanning the Minnesotan’s career highlights how fighting for justice is as important now as it ever was.
When you think of americana and protest music, the striking image of Woody Guthrie brandishing his guitar with “This machine kills fascists” emblazoned on it, back in the 1940s, is surely one of the first things that comes to mind, but Paul Metsa is here to remind you that activism within the genre is an ongoing fight and not a relic resigned to history. Born into a community in Minnesota known as Iron Rangers because of their 100 or so years link to the huge open-pit mines in the north of the state, Metsa, like his fellow Iron Rangers, has a very distinct sense of right and wrong, chiefly born from his community, who have stuck together and always held true to their brand of fairness.
“And as the world goes around, all I want to ask is, / If the rich man owns the land, why must the poor man pay the taxes?” Metsa asks on Songs of Resistance & Resolve’s opener, Slow Justice, starting exactly as he means to go on: speaking plainly and pulling no punches. He further asks, “Why does justice go so slow?” before coming to the painful conclusion that “Poor means stop and rich means go”. The songs generally have a rough, unpolished quality, but it works well with the subject matter, and that’s showcased well on the 59 Coal Mines, originally taken from Metsa’s 2008 album Paper Tigers, as he talks of closing coal mines costing the men who work in them their livelihoods and futures, much to the disregard of the big bosses.
Fire of Jerusalem, recorded in 1984, is unfortunately as relevant today as it ever was: “When the war is in the east / Go west, young man, go west / Shooting sleeping children will not put medals on your chest / And the fires of Jerusalem / Why must anyone get used to them,” Metsa growls bitterly on the chorus against jagged acoustic guitar. 1987’s Ferris Wheels on the Farm and 1983’s Wall of Power both have shades of Springsteen, the latter seeing Metsa hope for a future we’ve yet to see, where “the high and the mighty will fall” and “There will be no power brokers”. Like Father, Like Son, a live recording Metsa sweetly dedicates to his mother and father at the start of the song, is the compelling tale of a waitress who falls pregnant to a soldier who goes off to fight in the Korean War. The waitress names her son after his father, but struggles to let him go as he ages, and ultimately, he gets drafted into the army in 1967 and ends up dying in war just like his father before him.
On the live recording of Walkin’ In a Woman’s World, Metsa, bravely for a male artist, puts himself in the shoes of women and the dangers they are accustomed to avoiding on a day-to-day basis: “She ain’t safe in a straight line / She ain’t safe in a round / She ain’t safe in an airplane / She ain’t safe on the ground.” He highlights the unjust nature of the tragic case of Kitty Genovese, but more personally promises not to give up the fight for equality because his “grandma was once just a girl” and assures us that he “won’t stop runnin’ ’til [he’s] walkin in a woman’s world”. 2017’s Ain’t Gonna Whistle Dixie Anymore is perhaps the most impactful thing on the album, Wee Willie Walker’s stunning voice on lead vocals only making the lyrics of rejecting the Jim Crow South even more breathtakingly compelling. No Kings (No Crown), featuring Al Spahawk, highlights the ongoing crisis in America as Trump attempts to run the country more like a dictatorship than a democracy.
“Give me liberty or give me death / Any other way ain’t worth my dying breath,” Metsa snarls defiantly on Another Man’s Chains, and like so much of the album, it’s a prescient reminder of the power of music and how its message can cut above the noise. Songs of Resistance & Resolve has a strong message for sure, but it’s also a brilliant showcase for Metsa’s 40+ years as a songwriter. Let’s hope he’s not planning on stopping penning songs anytime soon, because we need voices like his now, just as much as ever.
