On and off for the past several months I've been working on something new.
This past month I dove in and dedicated myself to finishing this super secret special project for realz this time. And after several weeks of exhausting, confusing, frustrating, exhilarating, yet still quite enjoyable work I present to you the official music video for Pigs on Patrol (Cardboard Cut).
It's taken a lot of work, and I've learned a whole lot about a creative process I've never really had much practice in before. I had something like this in mind from the start, but felt like it had been so long since I released the track, I should record a new version just for the video.
If you'd like to download the first version of the song from 2014, click here.
If you'd like to download the audio for this new version, click here.
As a note on content -
I am very much against the vial treatment of real life pigs. Their lives, the environment, future generations, and your own health could benefit from remembering to eat food, not friends. For more on the wonder of the real life animal, check out http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/animals_a_z/pig/
From the start of this project, I struggled with questions of respectability and appropriateness. Whether it be the lyrics or the imagery associated with them, I thought at times that I'd gone too far in the name of making fun of an institution meant to serve and protect people. As some of you know, I've had my fair share of interactions with the police, and as with any large group of people, I can attest that some seem altogether not half bad.
However, over the past almost two years since I sat down and wrote the original song, any doubts I have had about my position have been shaken away. Though statistical anomalies and oversimplified trends can confuse the issue, what is clear is that every time I thought maybe I shouldn't keep going, another report would pop up of a police officer killing an unarmed civilian. These killings were most often against people of color and many were of children.
A reality that I as a cis white male have rarely, if ever, had to even see in the least is that there is a vastly and horrifyingly incompetent level of policing going on. Further, the standard of serve and protect has been flipped entirely to the complete dismissal of the value of human lives.
You know I've seen some injustice where police are concerned, in how they've treated me or others around me. What is far worse than any of that, though, is the continued devaluing of POC lives by those who have sworn to protect them. Too many lives have been ripped away at the hands of someone who decided to shoot first and think never. Afterwards, these officers are often given paid leave, transferred but not fired, or at best publicly reprimanded while privately cheered.
A change in policy is necessary. A change in society is crucial. A change in what we pay attention to and what we speak up against is the key to changing our world for the better and saving lives.
After all, this is only some silly music video from a practically unknown songwriter. But for the moment, this is something. Hopefully it might keep our thinking in a direction of change.
Stay woke. Don't forget.
thanks for listening,
Odist Abettor
#blacklivesmatter
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