It’s sometimes difficult to square the love of Americana music with what’s reported in the endless news cycle of the latest empty gestures, duplicitous lies, gratuitous fawning, snake oil salesmanship and downright adherence to wrongheaded and totally and demonstrably false ideas. But, as Billy Bragg is always on hand to remind us in a slightly different context “When you wake up to the fact that your paper is Tory / just remember there are two sides to every story.” And so to today’s song ‘Lady Liberty‘ from Rising Appalachia.
Rising Appalachia started as sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, and ‘Lady Liberty‘ is their song which tries to tease out the obscure meaning of the words written at the feet of the Statue of Liberty. What could “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me” possibly mean?
Chloe Smith explains Rising Appalachia’s interpretation of these enigmatic words: “‘Lady Liberty’ is a folk song from the perspective of the statue herself, speaking to the protection of immigrants and refugees. We imagined what the physical and poetic symbol of liberty may want to sing if she herself were given the chance. While we witness ongoing destruction of colonialism, genocide, climate migration, and extreme nationalism, we question what we’ve become in relation to the original promise of the United States as a refuge for liberty. This song is a reflection [by lifted lamp] on the promise and virtue of one seeking home.”
Alongside founders Song and Smith, Rising Appalachia features David Brown (upright bass, baritone guitar), Duncan Wickel (fiddle, cello), and Biko Casini (percussion) forging an independent, global career defined by social conscience and cultural exchange.
