Lives in the Balance 2020

On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered. His death was caught on video and shared around the world. Outrage rightly followed. Protesters took to the streets demanding action — DEMANDING JUSTICE! The following weekend, as I tried to come to grip with another life lost in a system of institutionalized racism, I turned to music as a way to help answer the questions that were screaming in my head. I recalled a Jackson Browne song from the 1980s — Lives in the Balance. With pen and paper, I sat down and reimagined Mr. Browne’s song as a response to the current events of 2020.

Lives in the Balance 2020

I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear

You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you’ve seen it before
When a government fails its people
And our country is drifting to war

There are smirks on the faces
Of the men who abhor
Oh the wars that are fought in places
They’ve failed and ignored

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
Except when we consider our kin

What of our neighbors and countrymen
Who fear when they walk alone
Then the people who finally can’t take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

Hate infects our places
And a man who fans the flames
It’s a war against certain faces
And every American know their names

They ask Mr. President, what do you say
Your words are leaving pain and scars
Your very fine people seem to have their own way
Now it’s time they’re placed behind bars

I want to know who’s in charge of it all
I want someone to be asking them why
People keep losing friends and family
But we never punish the ones who caused them to die

And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

And there are lives in the balance
People, we must do more
America deserves much better
We can no longer ignore

I previously published this in the Medium Publication - The National Discussion