Hey, you.
You look pretty cute. You also look like you’d have fun at a country concert. Also you want to donate money to an LGBT youth organization. And you’re in New York City?
Looks like I’ll be seeing you next Saturday with Karen and the Sorrows.
RSVP here!
And if you can’t make it, you could totes buy the compilation CD here. Get it before May 1st!
Also, here’s some more great music.
Hank Woji impressed last year with Holy Ghost Town. I still get “Terlingua Blues” stuck in my head, which is no small feat considering how many songs pass through my ears. At first, though, I found myself not totally loving The Working Life. This album is very much a political album. Almost each song on here is a fairly blunt tool, championing the cause of — well, not simply the working man, but the working union member. As a proud union member, I certainly identified with a lot of the songs, but I like my politics swathed in righteous fury. Woji’s music is much more laid back. Here’s the first verse from “Come Join a Union!”
We’re your sons and your daughters, your moms and your dads
We’re your aunts and your uncles, all the best friends you’ve had
We’re your brothers and sisters, we’re folks just like you
We’re all union workers, and proud to be too!
We’re teaching your children, we’re the cops on the beat
We pick up your garbage, from Main to Wall Street
We’re the EMS workers, and the firefighters too
We’re all union workers, and we’re working for you
So come join a union, we’ll lend you a hand
Speak truth to power, across this great land
Cause the bosses won’t listen, till we organize
With a hand on the plow and our eyes on the prize
Sure, the writing is simple. But once I really dove into the lyrics, I realized it’s extremely fucking hard to pull this kind of thing off. Woji makes his point plainly, clearly, and all with a real rhyme scheme and meter. And this song is really long.
It wasn’t until I had my own union back me up recently that I truly came to appreciate The Working Life as an album. I don’t know what that says for someone who is not in a union. (Hey, you may be cute and into queer country but nobody’s perfect.) But for me, the songs I appreciate the most were the slice-of-life songs like “Chasing My Headlights Again.” I’m not a touring musician, but that’s the one that struck a chord with me. Funny how that works.
Hank Woji — Official, Facebook, Spotify, CDBaby, My Texas Music