TPTB Fight the Power

This image is from the Smithsonian.

I wrote this song for our Rock Opera, "The Powers That Be". I couldn't believe I needed to write it. It's a song that's been written at least twice already. But, there I was. Needing to say it again.

I remember hearing Public Enemy in the '80s or '90s. And, the Isley Brothers before that. I sat with this for a while. A few different artists helped me develop this. Alan, of course, wrote the music.

I couldn't believe I was in a place where I felt like I was still being erased. After all of the movements I assumed were behind me. I wasn't feeling that they were behind me. And so, "Fight the Power!" was circling in my head from beyond the ethers.

Mixed with that was what seemed to me to be ridiculous things to complain about. Ridiculous because I had acclimated to this normal and who was I to complain? Who was I to complain about the hand-shaped bruise wrapped around my arm because a guy at one job kept grabbing me to get my attention? Who was I to complain about the verbal reprimands and humiliation that came from being a woman working in a cubicle? Who was I to complain about the manager who wept and secretly revealed that the higher-ups told her she needed to drop 15 pounds if she wanted to keep her job but said nothing to all of her other peers who were men. I mean, who was I to complain? Who was I to have remorse when a female owner of a business I worked for took her own life on the side of the road with a champagne toast and a bottle of sleeping pills? Women were meant to be beautiful and then disposed of. Who was I to feel helpless that the only person I could possibly save was myself? And, how would I learn to get angry, which was an assignment my therapist had given me. "It' human to feel anger." OH! But, is it? If I felt all of that anger, maybe I'd never be released from it. I'd told the story. Who was I to complain about it now?

Once I turned the table...in the song it says, "permission taken, from my own experienced life. LET ME OBJECTIFY YOU FOR A MINUTE"... I began to realize that I was actually someone. Someone with a right to complain. And, I started laughing. Yes, laughing at THEIR expense. It was a balm.

There are two things I can definitely tell you about racists and sexists. Two things they have in common at all times I have found. And, I have discovered this by writing this show.
1. They cannot laugh unless it is at someone else's expense.
2. They are universally stupid people. And, I mean that sincerely. They do not run deep. There's nothing behind the eyes. Forget about love and compassion, complete thought is a stretch.

So, this is what I did.

[THE POWERS THAT BE]
Inari:

Somewhere around 1983
They said
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power’s That Be

They said
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power’s That Be

But we didn’t know
How could we know
That we would
Fight to be free

I laughed at them
And that’s how I won
I laughed at them
And they crumbled

They said
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power’s That Be
They said
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power
Fight the Power’s That Be

Inansi:
I laughed at how
Their tongues thrum thrum
I laughed at how
They waddled

With that thick fat ass
Yeah the thick fat ass
That thick lard man ass
Where ya been son

With an ass that big
I bet you feel grounded
I bet you feel like you’ll win
But let me objectify you for a minute

Permission taken
From my own experienced life
Let me objectify you for a minute
Because with a face like that

You’re gonna need a Mother’s Love
With a face like that
How do they make glasses to fit that face
Those eyes
That nose

You’re revolting son
And we’re supposed to sit here
And praise all of THAT
Naaaahhh, I don’t think so

I say instead of fighting the powers
We should right the hours
The ones you took from us
The ones we can’t get back

Yeah, all that time you stole
Because you were the boss
The boss of what,
UGLY???

Yeah, how’s it feel
Horseface?
How’s it feel now.
Remember

Sticks and stones
Might break your bones
But these words are gonna
Make ya weep

Oh, Mary watch him weep