Brandi Carlile – “Church & State”

Brandi Carlile has been imparting her brand of candid Americana for decades now but hadn’t really reached the DH radar before. That all changed after the thoroughly accomplished singer+songwriter released her latest album Returning To Myself, a tight, ten-track opus
that connects message and movement in a meaningful manner. And while the majority of the makeup receives high praise here, there is one track that towers above the rest.

“Church & State” is a message for the moment.

A rising tide of fascism has hit the shores of American decency and instead of sitting idly by while our norms and traditions are trampled in the name of patriotism there are a growing number of creatives out there putting their dissent to song. In this instance our fearless fighter challenges the growingly pervasive idea that religion and government are intrinsically linked through a raucous, necessary energy and the pivotal words of one of our founding fathers.

Track six is pure rock ‘n’ roll edge. Agitated percussion and searing riffs build the foundation of resistance while a verse and hook littered with defiance hit that home. But it’s the recited words of Thomas Jefferson (in a 1802 letter to the Dansbury Baptists) that makes this listen a lasting lamentation:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

It’s been more than two centuries since those words were written but they are as important as ever to remember today. Thankfully we have defenders of freedom out there reminding a populace what we’re fighting for.

Stream below, snag a copy courtesy of Interscope Records | Lost Highway, and spread that social love: