“Hell yes!”
“Just something off the top of your head, about country
over party, and bringing people together.”
“I’ve been wanting to do this anyway. Let me take a shot
at it.”
I’d known Ammar Campa-Najjar for nine years, first as a
student in my philosophy class at Southwestern College, and then as a friend.
We’d stayed in touch through the years as he finished his double major in
philosophy and psychology at San Diego State University, and as he ran the
San Diego office of the Obama re-election campaign in 2012. The following spring he
was working at the White House. Lori and I flew out to visit him. He spent the
next few years in Washington, first at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
then at the Department of Labor, getting the education of his life in both the
private and public sector. We talked often on the phone. I could hear it in his
voice. He wanted to come home and find a way to serve the region that had given
him everything he had. And when local congressman Duncan Hunter came up for
reelection, Ammar saw an opportunity.
It’d been a long, exhausting week. It’s hard to cook up a
decent dinner on Friday night. After Ammar’s text I hopped in the car and headed
over to the neighborhood taco shop. On the way over a chorus started rising up
in my mind. At a stop light I grabbed my phone, opened a voice memo, and hit
record. When the leaders lie it’s hard to
swallow, may the people lead and the leader’s follow, to that shining city on
the hill, I believe we will. The beginnings of a chorus. The next morning,
guitar in hand, the rest of the song spilled out. Some songs come fast like
that. By 9:30 I was texting a voice memo recording of the finished song to
Ammar. “I LOVE IT!” he wrote back.
I Believe We Will
America belongs to you and me
America’s a promise we can keep
If we sweep away the lies that say
That there is not enough
To make a place, full of grace for
all of us
When the leaders lie it’s hard to
swallow
May the people lead and the leaders
follow
To that shining city on the hill
Yeah I believe we will, yeah I
believe we will
Underneath the mask we’re all the
same
So no more keeping score and placing
blame
Yeah I believe that we’re the ones
That we’ve been waiting for
So sail with me and we will reach the
other shore
Of the shining sea and waves of grain
To the mountains high across the
plains
To that shining city on the hill
Yeah I believe we will, yeah I
believe we will
Yeah I believe we will, yeah I
believe we will
Yeah I believe
Later that same day I reached out to Jeff Berkley, an old friend
and brilliant producer. He texted me right back. “I’m in,” he said, and we
huddled up on who the best players might be. I’d handle all the guitars but we
needed bass, drums, and organ. Soon I was tracking down Larry Grano, Rick Nash,
and Sharon Whyte, who all jumped right in. The first opening in everybody’s
impossibly busy schedules was Wednesday evening. We booked it. That meant I only
had four days to put the song through all the many rewrites, revisions, and
refinements that usually take weeks or months to unfold in any normal
songwriting process. But this wasn’t normal. The election was in three weeks
and we had to move fast. I sang the song a thousand ways until every note of
every line settled into its forever home. (You don’t control this part of the
process – the song tells you what it
wants to be). I re-jiggered the ending over and over until it finally felt
right. It was done. Then Ammar’s text came in.
“Can you add something about the 50th district
or the campaign? And the phrase ‘country over party?’ Just so people can
identify it with us specifically?”
Ugh. A rewrite? Now? But I had to try. I let go of what I
thought the song should be. This song wasn’t about me. It was for Ammar and his
all-important efforts to bring real representation to California’s 50th
congressional district. I needed to make this song into whatever the campaign
needed it to be. Collaboration is hard – I’m used to writing songs by myself.
But I love and trust Ammar. So I wrote another verse and chorus and put it in
the middle of the song.
Country over party
every time
We’re going door to door and
changing minds
El Cajon, San Marcos, Escondido,
Temecula
We’re digging deep, lifting up the
best of us
Duncan Hunter’s lies are hard to
swallow
When the people lead, the leaders
follow
To that shining city on the hill
And I believe we will, I believe we
will
I didn’t want to make the song this specific – I wanted
it to be more universal about the broader themes of Ammar’s campaign – but he was right
and I was wrong. Now it was the fight song we were looking for – big ideas and concrete details – something his thousands of followers,
hundreds of volunteers, and crackerjack staff could rally around and feel
inspired by. Something Ammar, a talented singer with a beautiful voice, could
sing at events. Something to keep us all fired up and ready to go. There was
still a lot of work to do. Long hours, endless phone calls, unrelenting print
and television interviews, thousands of doors to knock on, long hard days and
long hard nights. The good people of the 50th district deserve to
finally be heard and have a real voice in Washington. This is all for them. We
can sleep after November 6.
No
matter how this election turns out we know we changed the lives of thousands of
people. Win or lose, Ammar will be fine. He’s a national figure now. Millions
of people know his name and his story. He’ll be thirty years old in a few months.
He’s just getting started serving this great country that gave both of us, the sons
of immigrants, everything we have.
Together,
we’re stronger than we are alone. There is nothing wrong with America that
cannot be fixed by what is right with America. It is from our union that our
strength comes. We will weather the darkness that sometimes sweeps across the
landscape obscuring our greatness. We will gather in the clearing, and we will
walk together toward that shining city on a hill. I believe we will.
Here's the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_iIVUMHo04
Here's the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_iIVUMHo04
2 comments:
When and where can we hear this?
Thanks for asking! I just added the YouTube link to the end of the piece. Enjoy!
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