D.M. Lafortune reminds us of the tragic human cost of oppression in her reissued single and video Where Are All The Children? — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The Toronto Indigenous blues artist continues to revisit her stellar Beauty And Hard Times album with her latest release. It’s a song which is wide-ranging, universal and addresses the injustices, wars and conflicts from the Middle East to Central America and beyond. But it also speaks to the tragedy involving Canadian residential schools and the horrific abuse indigenous children suffered in such institutions.
“Many miles from home, we are taught in your fine schools
Where the history books are a weapon, not a tool
In many voices, we try to understand what has come upon this land
Many good-intentioned Christians tell us children you must listen or they kill us
With their kindness in God’s name, they terrorize us.”
Written by Lafortune and found on the forthcoming 25th-anniversary remastered version of Beauty And Hard Times, Where Are All The Children? is a narrative in the vein of early Bob Dylan, a winding story which speaks to moments in history where people endured trials and tribulations at the hands of those in power, be it governments or a country’s military or organized religion. Bombings, shootings and terrorism is not a world for any children to live in. Above all, the song reminds us that all of us at one point or another were children. So, it’s imperative to “stop raising children to kill.”
Led by Lafortune’s powerful delivery, the song has a lovely slow-gallop feeling to it, thanks to drummer Rob Greenaway and percussionist Rick Lazar. Bassist Bryant Didier and keyboardist/accordionist Denis Keldie accent the song’s core perfectly. Guitarist Neil Chapman, who has known and collaborated with Lafortune for over 50 years, provides some gorgeous electric guitar solos as Lafortune speaks about the “madmen who will never tire.”
Reared by a white family after being taken from her Indigenous mother, Lafortune endured a troubling childhood, which makes material such as Where Are All The Children? so authentic and persuasive, from its vivid beginning to its sobering, haunting conclusion. The 2015 video for the song released by Lafortune captures the lyrical vivid through residential schools, the Oka crisis, the 1954 coup in Guatemala, Wounded Knee and Hiroshima among others, “illustrating the global reach of humanity’s inhumanity.”
Although 25 years old, a politically and socially relevant song such as Where Are All The Children? is bound to find a new audience given the current geo-political situation. It’s a passionate track concerning universal injustice.
Watch the video for Where Are All The Children? above, listen to the track below, and find D.M. Lafortune on her website, Facebook and Twitter.
