Producing a protest song was pretty challenging at first, coming up with initial ideas was tough. We didn’t know what we wanted our song to be about, we weren’t sure what we were protesting against yet. Gradually we threw around some ideas and a couple stuck. We decided there are too many people talking about how America is so much better than the rest of the world, and we personally felt this wasn’t true, so why not write a song that attempts to dispel this fiction? As a result, our song sort of became “lets list all the things wrong with America” Obviously we didn’t cover everything, but we fit a decent amount of content into our song. We didn’t focus in on any one topic, just the fact that there is an unhealthy amount of nationalism in America, and we shouldn’t be blind to our flaws.

                I would consider our protest song to be both “magnetic” and “rhetorical,” but if I had to pick one I suppose I’d choose rhetorical because it was, in my opinion, meant to change people’s viewpoints more than draw them to a particular movement. We didn’t have a super defined political message, but we were essentially trying to change peoples’ opinions about America. The first amendment allows us to write whatever we want without fear of the government punishing us, and we took some pretty clear and direct shots in this song, we called some people out. There were instances where we were pretty blunt and direct with our criticisms, and were it not for the first amendment, that wouldn’t be possible.

As for a reaction from the general public… I don’t know if we would get a reaction beyond cringing at the terrible singing, I think that’s a huge distraction from the lyrical content. If we got someone who could actually sing to record our song and then distribute it, I think we would offend a lot of people. I know there are tons of people who take criticism of America very personally and become angry. One of the things that first inspired this song was an image circulating Facebook where an image of a neo-nazi stomping a person of color’s face into the pavement in response to an image of people of color standing on the American flag in protest. It’s those sorts of people, who are so blindly nationalistic, that this song is meant to target and prove wrong. It’s meant to say “your beloved America that you foolishly worship is incredibly flawed. You try to deny it but here are some examples.”