I cannot stop thinking about this interpretation of the Civil War era “Battle Cry of Freedom.”
Bon Iver was not really on my radar (except for Justin Timberlake’s SNL impersonation with Maya Rudolph as Beyonce intoning “Oh no! Bon Iver sang himself to sleep!”) (And supposedly Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom features a singer character with the same Wisconsin woodsy vibe) but I knew enough of Justin Vernon’s signature falsetto to identify the band after I heard the opening chords on the news coverage of the Harris/Walz rally in Eau Claire.
And ever since I heard the three-man stripped down version of George Frederick Root’s 1862 marching tune, I’ve been swept up in its quiet power. Recordings of the song by military choirs and the such pound on the one and the three, as strident and white boi as “Uptown Girl,” but here, on this outdoor stage, in the late summer sun and breeze, the tune is slowed and caressed until it grooves.
The vocal swoops from Vernon’s high falsetto into the aching stretch of his head voice, his fist in the air at “the Union forever!“, the rapt faces of the audience, the ALS interpreters at his feet: It’s all so moving, serious and genuine, so gentle and so real, and so so unlike the rabid frenzy and sour artifice of those other rallies, the red hat ones we’ve turned away from now these many years.
The bitter memory of Trump contorting his voice and body into a vicious caricature of a disabled reporter flares once again, along with the anguish of our inability to fight back against this one unnecessary public stabbing, this one cruelty of the thousands by what became the most powerful man in the nation.
No more. We are not going back. We are moving inexorably toward care and justice, with the strength of a massive army, but this time with a conscience and integrity and the mission to protect the most, not the wealthy few.
“We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave/…and although he may be poor, not a man will be a slave/Shouting the battle cry of freedom”
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