Republican Death Cult Blues (Part 1)
Here comes the red wave
The worst of the worst days
The holes growing under your shoes
Here comes the last breath
Here comes the sad death
Republican Death Cult Blues
Here come the long clubs
Here come the young thugs
This gauntlet we’re all running through
Here comes the same shit
Here comes the same split
Republican Death Cult Blues
At the end of this road
There’s a door that won’t close
And the snake is sliced up
Into parts
At the end of this day
There’s nothing to say
That we haven’t all said
From the start
Here comes the same rage
Here come the same names
McConnell, Rubio, Cruz…
The killers in white sheets
The assholes with nice teeth
Republican Death Cult Blues
Here comes the same fear
Here comes the nightmare
There’s nothing to say or to do
You know this feeling
Say a prayer for your children
Republican Death Cult Blues
Yes, you know this feeling
Hold on to your children
Republican Death Cult Blues
Republican Death Cult Blues (Part 2)
Birds say “tweet”
Puppies say “woof”
And Republicans
Murder police officers
Babies like milk
Children like sweets
And Republicans
Murder police officers
Fish jump in the summer
Love blossoms in the spring
Republicans smashed the doors
Of the Capital Building
The sun rises in the morning
In the evening it will set
Who will
Republicans
Murder next?
Republican Death Cult Blues (Part 3)
I'm on a
Quarantined ship
And we're stranded
In the harbor
You think you're used
To all this shit
But then it just keeps
Getting harder
We said goodbye
To all our friends
Who we used to
Know as lovers
It gets lonely
When it’s quiet
But at least we’re
All together
We’re a crew
Of loyal patriots
Who can’t understand
Our fathers
We chose the
Loudest ones to lead
And we silenced
All the others
We’re sliding back
From where we came
The shore is hidden
By the weather
I thought that we
Were close to land
But then the tide
Pulled us out further
I wrote a letter
To my mom
But then I ripped
Apart the paper
She doesn’t need
To know what’s up
It’s never really
Worth the bother
I might be killed
For my beliefs
But I’ll look good
When I get murdered
We built a trampoline
With fishing net
And each day
I’m jumping higher
Yes, each day
I’m jumping higher
And I can hear
My sad heart sing
But then they shut down
The whole thing---
Cause someone had a seizure
On that motherfucker
What’s Wrong with Your Ears?
They're speaking
To you straight
But you block them
Off with fences
Then you
Dig down
Deeper in
Those trenches
You know about
The troubles
You know about
The fears
So, tell me
So, tell me
What’s wrong
With your ears?
I ask you
About water
You say it
Runs uphill
I ask you
About time
You say it
Just stands still
You know
About the violence
You know
About the tears
So, tell me
So, tell me
What’s wrong
With your ears?
I ask you
About the world
You tell me
That it’s flat
I ask you
For the truth
You go on
The attack
I don’t know
What’s confusing
I don’t know
What’s not clear
So, tell me
So, tell me
What’s wrong
With your ears?
What’s wrong
With your ears?
What’s wrong
With your ears?
Republican Death Cult Blues (Part 4)
There will always be Republicans
So do the best you can
There will always be the hatred
There will always be the Klan
Every night is Kristallnacht
It’s always January 6th
There will always be the lies
There will always be the tricks
There will always be a Donald Trump
There will always be a Nixon
There will always be the men
Who spread fear and drive division
There will always be Republicans
I know it’s hard to understand
So do the best you can,
My love
Do the best you can
Bio:
Benjamin Adair Murphy’s music will soon be heard in the film ‘Nine Bullets’ starring Lena Headey, Sam Worthington, and Barbara Hershey. His lyrics have been published in Fevers of the Mind, Headline Poetry and Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Rabid Oak, Coven Poetry, Goat’s Milk Magazine and others. His last album 'Let’s Make a King' was named one of the best albums of 2020 by multiple publications. He lives in Mexico City.
benjaminadairmurphy.com
Stolen Equipment
In 1969
Someone broke
Into a van
And they stole
All the
Equipment
From a
Rock and roll
Band
They stole
The Vox
Amps
And they stole
The Tone
Benders
They
Stole the
Box Fuzz
And they stole
The Stratocasters
But the band
That owned
That van
Had a certain
Kind of
Sound
Because the band
That owned
That van
Was the
Velvet
Underground
And under
Screaming lines
Of feedback
Was the way
They always
Played
Sometimes
For thirty
Minutes
When the
Song was
Sister Ray
But stripped
Of all
That gear
The band
Sounded clean
And sweet
So they
Went back to
The studio
And recorded
I’m Set
Free
And they
Recorded
After Hours
And That’s
The Story
Of My Life
They recorded
Candy
Says
And Beginning
To See
The Light
And ain’t that
Just the way
It goes
With possessions
And with
Noise?
Sometimes the
Things that fill
The space
Can also
Cover up
Your voice
And don’t all of us
Get robbed
Sometimes
And have to
Work with
Less?
But maybe
On the
Other side
We’ll find
Pale Blue
Eyes
Or
Jesus
A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Benjamin Adair MurphyPoetry/Songs inspired by Leonard Cohen from Benjamin Adair Murphy
Bio: Benjamin Adair Murphy’s album ‘Let’s Make a King’ was named one of the best albums of 2020 by multiple publications. His lyrics and poetry have been published in Fevers of the Mind, Headline Poetry and Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Rabid Oak, Coven Poetry, Goat’s Milk Magazine, and others. He lives in Mexico City.
Bio: Benjamin Adair Murphy writes blues and country songs. His last album ‘Let’s Make a King’ was named one of the best albums of 2020 by multiple publications. His poetry and lyrics have been published in Fevers of the Mind, Headline Poetry and Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Good Ear Review, Ophelia Street, and others, and are forthcoming in Rabid Oak and Coven Poetry. His plays have been performed in New York, Boston, and Chicago. He lives in Mexico City. Songs | Benjamin Adair Murphy Songs | Benjamin Adair Murphy
Q1: When did you start writing and first influences?
Benjamin: I started writing songs when I was about 13. Around that time, I was listening to a lot of early Pink Floyd – the records with Syd Barrett. I was also listening to a lot of delta blues guys like Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Blind Willie Johnson. That music is haunting stuff, and can stick with you forever – it sure stuck with me…
Q2: Who are your biggest influences today?
Benjamin: I have three equally important influences: Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen. Obviously, all of them are incredible songwriters, but they’re also all artists who kept getting better as they got older. That’s pretty inspirational. John Prine should also probably be on that list.
Q3: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing/art/music?
Benjamin: My parents split up when I was in elementary school, and my older brother and I used to spend summers with our dad in Northampton, Massachusetts. Northampton is very hip and expensive these days, but back in the eighties it was pretty run down and had a lot of empty storefronts. My dad rented a tiny apartment above a Mexican restaurant. The place was a dump, but I loved it because it was right across the street from a famous music venue called the Iron Horse. The stage in the Iron Horse is right at the entrance, and on summer nights we used to sit out on our fire escape and watch whatever was happening. Everybody came through the Iron Horse back then – Kris Kristofferson, Stan Getz, Townes Van Zandt…I was able to hear a lot of great music. I didn’t know who half of them were at the time, but their faces, their names, and their songs all entered my consciousness in an abstract kind of way. I was able to get a bird’s eye view of the romantic side of live music, but I was also able to see the business side of working musicians out on the road – loading and unloading equipment and that sort of thing.
Q4: Have any travels away from home influence your work/describe?
Benjamin: I’ve lived out of the U.S. for the last 10 years, and I’ve recorded albums in Rome and Mexico City, but most of my songs aren’t really tied to any city or region. I only remember a few instances when my lyrics came out of specific places. I wrote a song called ‘Upside Down: A Spell for Traversing the Land of the Dead’ after seeing a papyrus at the Egyptian Museum in Torino. My last album has a song called “The White Man Gets Things Done” which was influenced by a mural in Mexico City by Diego Riviera of the Spanish conquistadors forcing indigenous Indians to work in the silver mines.
Q5: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Benjamin: Writing songs is just something I’ve always done. There have been plenty of times when it didn’t make any financial or logical sense to be an artist, and I’ve just pushed on. I don’t really have a single ‘pivotal’ moment, I just have a lot of small moments when I persisted and endured.
Q6: Favorite activities to relax?
Benjamin: I like to go for long walks by myself. I’m happy in the city or in the woods, just as long as I don’t need to speak to anyone for a few hours.
Q7: Any recent or forthcoming projects you’d like to promote?
Benjamin: I just signed a music licensing deal with a company called Artlist: Let’s Make a King by Benjamin Adair Murphy | Royalty Free Music Album – Artlist.io. It’s a good place for filmmakers to get royalty free music, and hopefully I’ll start hearing my songs in some films or TV shows. And my new EP will be ready at some point this year, but my producer got into a motorcycle crash a few months ago and hasn’t been able to work on it very much recently. In the meantime, all my other music is on Bandcamp: Let’s Make a King | Benjamin Adair Murphy (bandcamp.com)
Q8: What is a favorite line from one of your poems/songs?
Benjamin:
I like these lyrics I wrote for a song called ‘Wake Up When the Train Stops’: Don’t worry about the ride / Don’t worry about your watch / Close your eyes / You’ll wake up when the train stops
Q9: Who has helped you most with writing?
Benjamin: I’m pretty confident in my own songwriting abilities, and for the most part I instinctively know what works or doesn’t work. I don’t need much help with the writing, but I need a lot of help with every other aspect of music production; the recording, the mixing, the mastering… I don’t have the patience for a lot of that stuff, but I have some friends who are masterful at it. Luckily, I have been able to work with good people, and without them my songs would never leave my own living room.
Fevers of the Mind 