Larry Folk has a few things to say to our leaders with his sharply pointed new single and video Hey Politician! — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Retribution, in-fighting, stalling, personal attacks: It all sounds like an episode of Succession. But it’s just politics as usual these days. And like that hit show, it’s hard to find a likeable character among our current elected officials. Toronto composer and vocalist Folk makes that clear in his latest release Hey Politician!
Ironically, he never intended to release the song. But the atrocious incivility in today’s politics prompted him to include it on his upcoming album Lessen The Blue. In the tradition of the great protest songs of the past, Larry offers a biting statement on our divided reality. Hey Politician! is a fast, upbeat bluegrass scorcher that calls for a return to responsibility:
“Left or Right, pick your fight
It doesn’t matter you all know you know you’re right
Dark shiny suit, dirt- eatin’ grin
We’d be smiling too if we had your Wall Street friends.
Why not shut your mouth and do what we sent you to do
Look out for the nation and stop looking out for you.”
For more than 45 years, Folk has written and performed in a variety of styles, moving with ease and sustained emotion from simple folk ballads to the swinging standards of the Great American Songbook. On Hey Politician! he plays everything except for the bass playing of Pat Collins. Folk even engineered the recording, which Murray Daigle mixed.
Folk’s ability to write lyrics that create stunning visuals for his listeners is matched perfectly to his masterful guitar playing. Larry’s early songs mused about love and the beauty of the vast Canadian wilderness but didn’t shy away from more serious subjects such as the horrible treatment of North America’s Indigenous peoples. In the ’80s he performed his original song Amandla! Ngawethu! (Power To The People) on Parliament Hill and at Toronto City Hall during rallies to end Apartheid in South Africa. A new version of that song called There Is A Power appears on Lessen The Blue.
Larry’s songs continue to challenge the status quo, confronting our complex relationship with the planet, political divisions, the loss of innocence, and his response to Covid. He wrote Nunca Mas in response to the atrocities inflicted on the citizens of Argentina by the military in the ’70s. The title is the name of the committee formed to investigate what happened and translates as “never more.” Lessen The Blue includes a new version for solo guitar.
Check out Hey Politician! above, hear more from Larry Folk below, and give him a shout on his website, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
