BY STEVE HUNG
Editor’s Note: Steve brings us an insightful essay about his music writing process, covering two songs written in response to the racial violence seen in America against Black and Asian Americans in the past twelve months. Here, creating music becomes a vehicle for him to cross borders of violence and white supremacy that plague people of color, and create a space of racial solidarity. We’ve included links to the tracks mentioned, as well as to Steve’s BandCamp page for an interactive reading experience.
Header Image: Liberty Scorned by Nico Gozal | Painting on silk using stop-flow technique
As a musician, I am influenced by life circumstances, and the situations going on around me. It eventually gets reflected in the music I write and perform. It was inevitable that I would write music based around the events of the 2020 pandemic. I did such, releasing an album recently called Pandemic Blues, which is an acoustic and electric blues album chronicling the events that unfolded in the year 2020.
There are two tracks worth highlighting, which are “Good Man Down,” a song about the murder of George Floyd, and “Ain’t Gonna Burn Us All,” a song about the Cantonese grandmother who was set on fire in Brooklyn, NY and the series of marches afterwards led by rapper China Mac. I’ve decided to highlight these two tracks, because they document the struggles that African and Asian Americans endure during this pandemic.
“Good Man Down” was relatively easy for me to write. It took me only one or two weeks to come up with the music structure and lyrics. Musically, it follows a common blues chord progression. The lyrical writing style is modeled after past blues songs about unfortunate incidences against African Americans. I intended “Good Man Down” to be a modern take on an old blues song like “Hellhound On My Trail” by Robert Johnson (a song about lynching recorded in 1937).
Growing up in Texas, blues music has always been prominent, and a part of my upbringing. I was accustomed to hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan, ZZ Top, T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, Albert Collins, and Lightning Hopkins on the radio, and occasionally participated at local blues jams during my college years. Throughout my music career, I have always fingerpicked a hybrid of folk, blues, and country music on acoustic guitar, similar to Texas artist Shakey Graves. However, for this album, I decided to strictly record blues. Blues music was historically created by African Americans as a response to slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. Pandemic Blues is my response to climate change, the coronavirus, police brutality, hate crimes, shutdown of the economy, and the feeling of loneliness during quarantine.
“Ain’t Gonna Burn Us All” took me a long time to write. In fact, this was the last song I recorded for my album. I eventually came up with the music, but it took me a long time to pen down lyrics. Perhaps, it’s because that even though this hate crime did not happen to me, and it occurred 221 miles away in Brooklyn, NY, the incident still sort of hit home for me. That could have been mine, or my friend’s grandmother who was set on fire. It is harder to write things that are personally tragic than writing from a third person perspective about incidences you hear on the news.
This realization reminded me of a Gary Clark Jr interview, where he said that you don’t see a lot of young African Americans playing the blues these days, because to them, the blues is an icon of pre-Civil Rights oppression.
It also made me realize that different artists respond differently to the same incidence. For example, “Fuck Tha Police” by N.W.A. takes an aggressive and militant stance against the police brutality on African Americans throughout the 1980s. “After The Storm,” a composition also influenced by the murder of George Floyd, written by D.C. fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams, is a calm, peaceful, and harmonious song. Perhaps “After The Storm” was written in this style to be therapeutic. There are multiple ways to process, react, grieve, and both of these are valid.
When I finally penned down lyrics to “Ain’t Gonna Burn Us All,” I didn’t want this song to be tragic and woeful. I did not want to frame Asian Americans as victims. Although in the first verse of the song, I referenced hate crimes such as Asian Americans being pushed in New York City subways, and the Asian American man who was stabbed at a Sam’s Club parking lot in Texas, but then quickly responded to these incidences with “but they ain’t gonna burn us all.”
I also did not want “Ain’t Gonna Burn Us All” to be angry, aggressive, and militant. This is a Woody Guthrie style folk song recorded on an acoustic guitar, not a heavy distorted type song. I am not Public Enemy, Rage Against The Machine, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, or Yuri Kochiyama. However, the second and third verses are sort of a call of action for Asian Americans, especially since a large majority of Asian Americans are apolitical, not involved with politics, don’t speak up, and perpetuate the stereotype of the silent minority.
The repeating lyric in the second verse is “but we’re still gonna show up and vote,” despite the obstacles. Asian American voter turnout has been historically low, which is why Asian Americans are often ignored by politicians and the media. The second verse is also influenced by efforts led by Stacy Abrams and Beto O’Rourke to increase voter turnout and overcome gerrymandering in their respective home states.
The third verse is about the series of marches called “They Can’t Burn Us All” led by rapper China Mac in various cities after the Cantonese grandmother was set on fire. It encourages Asian Americans, particularly those who have been disengaged, to gather collectively, march, make our voices heard, and our presence known.
Rhythmically, the song starts off with light foot tapping. Then by the second verse, tambourines and shakers are added to the mix. Finally by the third and last verse, a marching snare drum and an audio clip of group marching are added on, which mirrors the repeating verse “but we’re still gonna show up and march.” The culmination of the different percussions stacking on-top of each other is intentional, and representative of movements such as the Black Lives Matter, They Can’t Burn Us All marches by China Mac, or even the #IAmNotAVirus social media campaign. These movements start off as an idea, with only a few people at the beginning, but eventually snowball into something much larger as more people get involved.
I hope this mobilization of Asian Americans to the voting booths or to rallies and marches continues in 2021. This is the year for Asian Americans to make our voices heard, whether through a megaphone, microphone, musical instrument, pen, paintbrush, wallet, or keyboard. I have personally chosen music, especially guitar playing, as my outlet of expression. What I lack in public speaking and community organizing skills, I make up in my studio recording and stage performance abilities. Growing up in this country and overlooked as a silent minority, my mastery of the guitar has instilled in me a sense of confidence, as well as social recognition. Even if music, public speaking, or community organizing is not your thing, there are other avenues to make your voice heard, such as writing, blogging, posting on social media, holding signs at rallies, creating pamphlets, artwork, volunteering or donating to organizations.
Listen to “Good Man Down” and “Ain’t Gonna Burn Us All” at https://stevehung.bandcamp.com/
“Ain’t Gonna Burn Us All”
by Steve Hung
Verse 1
They’ll try to start a brawl
But they ain’t gonna burn us all
Stabbings at Sam’s Club Mall
But they ain’t gonna burn us all
They’ll push us up a wall
But they ain’t gonna burn us all, no
No they ain’t gonna burn
No they ain’t gonna burn
No they ain’t gonna burn us all
Verse 2
They’ll block us from the polls
But we’re still gonna show up and vote
They’ll try to kill our hope
But we’re still gonna show up and vote
We’re gonna rock the boat
Cause we’re all gonna show up and vote, yeah
Yeah were all gonna show
Yeah were all gonna show
Yeah were all gonna show up and vote
Verse 3
They’ll try to tear us apart
But we’re still gonna show up and march
They’ll try to kill our spark
But we’re still gonna show up and march
We’re gonna raise our voice
Our message loud and sharp
We’ll meet at the park
Before it gets dark
Cause we’re still gonna show up and march
About the Author:
Steve Hung is a fingerstyle guitarist who was born and raised in Texas, but has been living in the Mid-Atlantic for over a decade. He plays a mixture of folk, blues, and country. Pre-pandemic, you could find him playing local venues and touring regionally. www.SteveHungMusic.com
Images provided by author or used under creative commons license.
