In America, music means something even more special than words. It allows us to express something deeper than we can imagine or express in words. In this episode, singer-songwriter John "Five For Fighting" Andrasic talks about the power of music, and how it can speak to us when we need it most.
00:09:09.580There's a baby on the doorstep. Wailing away. There's a baby on the doorstep. Longing for the day.
00:09:23.580There's a baby on the doorstep. Would give his life to take. A flag to a pawn shop. A flag to a pawn shop. May he forget why he is crying. Someday.
00:09:52.580It's fantastic. Oh, thanks, Glenn. Just fantastic. Thank you. I mean, it is.
00:10:14.800First, tell me when you said, I wrote a song for a dead man and now I'll never die. What does that mean?
00:10:20.400Well, sometimes to what you just said, I wrote a song for a dead man and now I'll never grow old. The songs last. Right. I'll be gone, but the songs last. And I think as artists, your paintings, right, will outlive you. So we can still have an influence when we're gone.
00:11:11.300And this is the first time I'm like, you know, do we really understand how much we are blessed to have freedom? Because when you grow up with it and it's everything you know, it just becomes a fact of life and you don't, you don't expect that it could ever go away.
00:11:24.760So how did you come up with the freedom never cries line?
00:11:28.380You know, it's funny. People take that many different ways. And sometimes I hesitate about talking about lyrics because some people may have a meaning that has nothing to do with what I wrote it about, which is great.
00:11:40.800Because people, what they'll do is they'll take music and they'll apply it to their lives in the way that's best for them.
00:11:46.480So for me, freedom never cries is about the fact that freedom doesn't wave its hand and say, Hey, I'm in trouble.
00:11:53.080I'm over here. Something's going wrong. It just kind of is there. And then one day maybe it's shrinking and maybe one day it's not.
00:12:02.920And, you know, here we are probably 15 years after I wrote that song. And, uh, I think we're certainly seeing that reality of freedom, uh, shrinking and, uh, and the only people crying are folks like you and, and folks that, that are saying, Hey, this is, this is dangerous us.
00:12:22.680Yeah. Yeah. Um, the baby on the doorstep. Yeah.
00:12:27.000When I first heard those lyrics, cause I couldn't understand them the first couple of times I listened. And when I understood that the baby is crying and would give anything just to go sell a flag for a guitar at a pawn shop is, is so profound.
00:12:48.500Yeah. So profound. Yeah. I think, you know, we see so many people in countries who would give their lives so their children could experience the freedom we have. You had one on your radio show today talking about that. And, and the fact that we take it so for granted and there's a reason people want to come here. I mean, we're seeing that in Afghanistan right now. You know, we had, there were people that understood freedom for 20 years.
00:13:18.060And didn't understand a world without it. And now they're smashed back into a time warp of tyranny. Um, that really happens in the world, you know, Cuba go, you know, uh, Iran. Um, it's, uh, it's something that I think in the West, we just take for granted. And if you, if you don't stand up for it, uh, you may, uh, you may risk losing it. And I see, I see the possibility of that.
00:13:43.740But isn't, isn't, it's so bizarre that we're living in a world now where the artists are on the wrong side. It seems to me. Yeah. Um, uh, you have had, we've talked about this before. You have Eric Clapton coming out against these mandates, writing a song, singing a song and everybody butchering him. Yeah. Um, you know, your song, which we're going to get to blood on my hands in a second.
00:14:07.660Um, you're few and far between where, you know, the song by the Beatles revolution. Yeah. Was the answer to the revolutionaries coming to them and saying, we're this close. We just, if you'll join us, we can overthrow it at all, overthrow all of it. And they said at the time, if you're carrying around a picture of Mao, nobody wants to hear you. Right.
00:14:37.660Understanding. Where's the culture? Are they, are, do they actually, every artist actually believes this is the right track? They can't see it. Or are they just afraid?
00:14:49.780I think it's both. I think, uh, certainly the group think and, and the tribal nature of the arts, um, it's hard to overcome, especially when you're raised in the art schools where there's only one worldview. It takes a really brave, courageous thinking person to question the orthodoxy. Um, so I think, you know, that kind of, um, reality and, and the fact is in that community, everybody's talking to themselves and they don't listen to any
00:15:19.640outside ideas, but there are, I, um, uh, I was, um, uh, lucky enough to meet a very, very famous painter who his art is, uh, not art that I necessarily like. It's, it's very modern. Yeah. Peter max. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Peter, I was talking about something on the radio and he said, I want to talk to you. Come over to my, my, uh, studio. So I went over to his studio.
00:15:49.640And he showed me a painting and he said, you like that, don't you? And I said, it's stunning. I mean, it was photographic in its quality and it was this beautiful, I think it was a woman, beautiful, beautiful painting. And he said, I hate that painting. And I said, why? And he said, because I could never get it to look the way I wanted it to look. Everybody else will look at it and say it's beautiful, but I only see the flaws.
00:16:15.860Yeah. Then he told me, you know, Peter max is known not for photographic painting. He said, I used to go to time magazine. This is back in the sixties when they never took photographs and used them for the cover. They were always paintings. Yeah. And he said, I would bring my painting every week because the guy at time who was in charge of the cover liked my work, but he never bought any of it. I never did one. He said, and then one day, uh, he said, quite honestly, it was after a weekend of me getting high and just having fun.
00:16:45.860Doodling stuff. Yeah. He said, I was doing spaceships and a bubble writing and everything else. He said, uh, that Monday I went into his office and I had all my artwork ready for him. He said, and he opens it up and he pulls it out and I'm on the other side and he pulls it up and he looks at it and he says, Peter, this is genius. And he's like, what are you talking about? I've been showing you the same crap every week. Right. And he said, hold on. And he goes and he gets all the artists on the floor. He said, you guys come in here.
00:17:15.860He's like, what is there's nothing different. It's the same photographic quality. He realized when he pulled it out to show all of the artists. Oh my gosh, this is the stuff I did over the weekend just for me. Right. And he said, and the guy said, this is the language of a generation. Wow. And that came to the yellow submarine kind of wow. You know, all of that. Wow.
00:17:41.780And so I wonder in a, in a, um, world of artists where you're, you're, you should be encouraged to break the mold, encouraged to go another direction. How does that not translate?
00:18:03.440You know, again, I think there is a fear, uh, you know, most artists are not financially, uh, independent. Um, many of them have families, um, and they're afraid that if they go against the status quo, that this passive blackballing, it's never, oh, you're canceled. You just don't get hired or people don't, you know, they don't, uh, give you a, uh, a showing.
00:18:29.660And it's a livelihood thing. And it's just, it's scary. Uh, I do think folks are getting a little bit more, um, brave when a few more folks speak out and they understand that it's not just threatening maybe the political worldview. It's threatening their ability to make art because, you know, we've moved from a place where it's about the battle for the battle of ideas to the battle for ideas.
00:18:57.660Yes. And I think so many of us, like I started following all these people on Substack who I don't agree with. Barry Weiss, Matt Taibbi, um, Glenn Greenwald. Why do I agree with what they say? Usually not, but you know what? They've been canceled by their own tribe and those people need to be able to speak out and they understand the danger of it.
00:19:21.760And I have become friends with many of them. Yes. And we don't agree on everything, but we found that we agree on a lot more than we ever thought. And we have basic principles.
00:19:34.680And we agree that we should have a conversation and we agree that, you know, to solve issues, we have to have the argument of ideas. And especially Barry Weiss, when the times, you know, I thought the times thing with cotton was, uh, was an illuminating moment because we've, we've always heard about, you know, the indoctrination of colleges, the indoctrination of colleges, but we really haven't seen it, um, in the real world beyond kind of our kids coming home and, you know, hating their parents.
00:20:01.200Um, but when we saw the kind of Lord of the flies, take over the New York times, it was, uh, it was, to me, it was not only scary. It was like, Oh my God, it's now the fruition of this indoctrination is coming into all of our media powers. And that to me was, and our offices and our offices and our government and the people who give us the news who, uh, who, uh, we elect to Congress. Um, so I think that to me was a big wake up call.
00:20:30.440And, and how else are we going to fight it? You know, the arts has a way of breaking through that wall. I mean, we saw it today. What have you been talking about on your show today? Chappelle, blood on my hands. Um, let's go Brandon song. We're not talking about some speech by Pelosi or, you know, whatever, you know, the Republicans are whining about today. We're talking about artists and it transcends. It goes around, it goes over, it goes under.
00:20:58.320I know that that that's, that's the left has cornered that market. Yes. Long time ago. Yes. I was talking to a very famous painter in New York who will remain nameless at least until he decides to. Yeah. And he's close.
00:21:11.540Um, but he's, he's one of the best artists, uh, known in America today. And he said, you know, it has been systematic. He said, there's a reason why, uh, conservatives have deer paintings, paintings of tanks, planes, and the American flag.
00:21:29.660He said, because that's what you've been dealt. Everything else, uh, has been pushed over to the other side. You, you, they began to ridicule great masters. Yeah. And that's relegated over here and they've encouraged all this other.
00:21:49.280And so this other realm that is the popular art, he said, that's all indoctrinated. And if you like realism, you'll generally get the red, white, and blue, and it's all pushed over there. And he said, that's by design. It is not by chance.
00:22:06.240Well, I'll, let me tell you a story that I think maybe illustrates of you. I have, um, because you're right. We have seeded the arts and my dear buddy, Andrew Breitbart would always talk about politics being downstream of culture.
00:22:20.480The Republican party and the conservative movement, especially the leaders have zero understanding of the power of the arts. Zero, zero.
00:22:28.940I was asked to play, uh, the Republican convention, uh, when, uh, when McCain was running and, uh, this was, you know, uh, when W was the devil, you know, he was, his approval ratings at 12%, but I love McCain. I, uh, I wrote a song about him last great American. Um, and I said, okay, I'll, I'll play. And they say, all right, we want you to play right after W.
00:22:57.780I'm like, Oh, geez, really? You really want to throw me in the fire? I said, okay. And this was, um, the time that Obama was having. Remember the Greek column rock concerts with every star in the world. And it was just like, you know, the production, it was like the most amazing concert of the decade. And just like the biggest stars with the fireworks and everything. So I said, okay, guys, um, I'll do it. Uh, uh, I believe in the cause. Uh, I'll need a piano.
00:23:27.780Uh, and they came back and the RNC came back and said, well, we have budget for a keyboard.
00:23:33.520And I said, guys, you're asking me to basically throw my career in the toilet. I'm going to play freedom. Never cries. I just need a piano. Um, cause it needs, you know, it needs to have the piano. It can't be sitting and got a keyboard. We just came off Obama's like concert for the gods to say, no, no, no, we have budget for a keyboard. And I go, nevermind.
00:23:52.000But that reflects the complete, even with blood on my hands. It's a song that most of the country agrees with. It's a song, frankly, that plays very well to the base of our side. It certainly wouldn't if I wrote about Trump, which I would have.
00:24:05.780But even the, um, our, our members of Congress, they don't understand the power of the arts and they don't understand the tools that we have, uh, that can change the narrative. They like to hear themselves talk. They like their brands on Twitter.
00:24:20.000But when you actually give them content, they wind their whole careers about, Oh, we have nobody in the arts. Nobody's on our side. Nobody understands the worldview. And when you give it to them, not only do they not know what to do with it, they don't understand the power of it.
00:24:31.940So I think we need to elect people, you know, elect people that understand that nobody wants to hear your speech. They really don't, you know, they don't really, really, you know, it's great. You have 2 million followers on Twitter, but if you want to move the needle of the culture, you got to embrace, embrace the artists, um, who are willing to sacrifice their careers for your worldview.
00:24:52.120It's, it's amazing to me because I've always felt that there, uh, there's front of house and back of house and both are important. If conservatives, generally speaking, were back of house, it'd be a disaster. Okay. Let the artist do what they do, but the artists need to understand if they're running the finances and they're running everything else, it's a disaster.
00:25:19.560Right. And, and that's what we've forgotten. The two wings of the Eagle left and right. Yeah. The back of house, front of house. Right. We're both necessary. Yes. We're both necessary. Yes. And we don't have to seat it to the left, especially now, especially when we see parents rising, we see the country rising up. Uh, uh, you know, you get it cause you're an artist, right? You're actually an artist. You understand how someone walks in and sees one of your paintings and has a reaction that you could not get by talking to them for 10 years.
00:25:49.580Yep. You see that. Okay. Our, our, our side doesn't get it. I shouldn't say all of them, but most of them don't. And I'm actually having some conversations with some who I think do, but I think that's really a powerful, um, it's a powerful arm of this culture war is don't seat it to the left. Call them out. Yes.
00:26:09.280Call them out. And especially on something like Afghanistan, which we all know in our hearts, I guarantee you, you know, the, the people that write the songs about oppression and, and, uh, civil rights and humanity and, and write much better songs than I do. They know we're right on Afghanistan and they need to be encouraged or pushed to join this cause. Cause it is not a political cause. It is a moral cause. Um, and I hope they do.
00:26:34.460Play this song. Play this song. Sure. It's, it's amazing. It has given me a great deal of hope that, um, while what I saw on television just horrified me, horrified me.
00:26:49.980Yeah. Also at the same time, the response, all of us still know that's dishonorable. Yes. That's dishonorable. And as long as we have that in our hearts and that in common, we can come back together. I think you're right.