It is very easy to be enraged by world events; the fractures and entrenchment in America at the moment are perhaps the most conspicuous example of just how divided things are becoming. And for the songwriter, it is all too easy for that rage to come out in the music you make. But Charlotte Morris shows us another way. She shows us that even protest songs can be deft and delicate, composed and calm affairs.
“Make America” certainly comes from one side of the political divide, but rather than advocate for one party or the other, it asks for healing. It is a reminder that people can have different worldviews, different opinions, different dreams and still co-exist. Reading between the lines, it perhaps suggests that it is not the man at the top that is the problem, but the America that lets him get into power! It is also a song that cleverly doesn’t offer any simple solutions; rather, it makes the listener think, just as Morris’s own musings on where the world is at right now birthed the song in the first place.
There is something Joni Mitchell-esque to be found in her gorgeous vocals and gentle acoustics, and that is not a reference I throw about lightly. Something compelling in her argument of empathy and understanding, education and compassion; after all, no matter which side of the debate you come from, making the world a nicer and less reactionary place isn’t something any rational person could have a problem with, is it?
It’s the perfect protest song for the times, a protest song that puts up little protest; it whispers rather than shouts, is compelling rather than caustic; it doesn’t rage against the machine; it sings it a lullaby…one that dreams of better times to come. It seems that finally, the adults have entered the sonic conversation.
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