Cascadia Calling, 2025.06.16

"we want to thank you for flying with us"

As I’m writing this, the feds and fascists are assaulting Los Angeles and seem to be ramping up to invade other cities across the country. Masked, unidentified men are disappearing innocent people into unmarked vans, some of whom will never be seen by their families again. I wonder if L.A. is like Seattle where even our local jackbooted cops are invaders, with approximately none of them actually living in the city itself.

Anyway, I’m starting to realize why I’ve spent the last several weeks obsessing over protest music, political music, “dangerous” music, etc. It’s what my therapist might call a “sign.”

I’ve been obsessed with this Rain McMey track since it crossed my feed a few weeks ago. McMey’s thin-but-confident voice is somehow perfect in the role of the devil. Their delivery is coy, but certain, which is exactly what I’d expect from Satan. The drive that McMey gets out of the rhythm line is impressive, given how simple the composition is. The guitar work is understated, but melodically interesting. Combined they make a good blend of driving and chill that is extremely engaging and feels new.

The lyrics are great throughout, but I especially like the selective use of specificity in the “fuck it Elon, sign my chest” line. Timely references are dangerous. They’re necessary for good satire, but used poorly and they can date the piece too easily or come off as simple axe-grinding. Here it absolutely lands. It’s a delightful, almost giddy aside, tossed off in the same lyrical cadence as the rest of the tune, and is in perfect service of the theme.

I even like the bridge into the slow, sultry ending chorus, and I’m not normally not one for “la la la” bridges. It’s just such a well-crafted gem of a tune.

I think one key to making political music that hits is that you have to skin in the game. It’s not sufficient, but it’s definitely necessary. If you someone can point to someone of immense privilege who made great protest music about issues that don’t affect them, I’m happy to amend the rule, but I haven’t yet found a counter-example.

Part of this effect is probably that you have to be able to do something I mentioned in passing in my last column: speak credibly to people who are suffering to give them words and art to crystallize their experience around. David Graeber pointed out that people lower in a hierarchy always have more empathy than those above them. (Empathy here, I think, in the narrow sense of being able to accurately understand the inner lives of others.) This includes empathy for their oppressors. There’s an inherent asymmetry in which the underclasses know the upper class well and the upper class know the less powerful not at all.

This empathy is a core building block for class consciousness. As Graeber says: “the ultimate bourgeois virtue is thrift, and the ultimate working-class virtue is solidarity.”

I’ll spare you a complete Graeber-ian analysis of “The Guillotine”, but I actually think it’s got exactly this kind of class empathy. It’s also, of course, just a banger track. Boots Riley is a genius lyricist and groove is impeccable.

My only complaint is that it’s cursed me with wanting to sign off my emails with “May all your guns go off if it’s time to bust.”