Words & music by David LaMotte
©2004 Lower Dryad Music/ASCAP
December, 2004, Black Mountain, NC
Tuning: D A D E A D
This song is from David LaMotte’s 2006 album “Change” and from his 2006 album “This Is My Song.”
To buy this song from CD Baby, click here: Change
To buy this song from iTunes, click here: Change
To listen to this song, click here: Power of Pride
She’s in an old long sleeve t-shirt
On a sunny summer day
But I can see the bruises in her eyes
She tells me someone hurt him
A long, long time ago
Says it’s not for me to judge or criticize
Look at all these hand-me-downs
What are we supposed to do with all this history?
And the power of pride
The power of pride
Her granddad was a small boy in 1938
His family disappeared, he was alone
That railroad ran to nowhere and he ran for all he had
Now tanks roll through other houses and other children throw their stones
Look at all this broken glass
What are we supposed to do with all this history?
And the power of pride
The power of pride
September came with smoke and flame
No one could believe the scene was real
Now by our own hands the children of these foreign lands
Will know the way we feel
Look at all these bitter tears
What are we supposed to do with all this history?
And the power of pride
The power of pride
And by the way…
… In 2004 I went to a concert by my friend Billy Jonas, and he introduced a song of his by saying “I guess every singer/songwriter has a 9/11 song…” It occurred to me that I didn’t, and that set me thinking about what I would want to say if I wrote one. I was pondering that on the way home when I pulled up behind a car with a bumper sticker that read “Power of Pride” with a stylized American flag behind it. I still don’t quite understand what that sticker is trying to say. It seems to me that pride tends to get us into further trouble. Our holy books have warned us against it for millennia.
The song that came ended up being about cycles of violence, and the ways in which we justify that violence as inevitable because of earlier violence. At some point we need to challenge that inevitability.