Cash & Wonder

Legacy artists speaking of now with history in mind

Rosanne Cash and Stevie Wonder are American Icons. Their legacies are cemented. But don’t think for a minute they are irrelevant, too ‘old’ or resting on their laurels as the cliche goes.

Cash has just released “Crawl Into The Promised Land.” The music is warm and down home as you might expect but with lyrics like:

“The night is long, but no one sleeps
The grifters make us pay
Torches burn and mothers weep
Deliver us from judgment day”

And…

“Fifty years away from here
Sixty, if I run
Deliver me from tweets and lies
And purify me in the sun”

Make no mistake this ain’t no Bro country nonsense.

Meanwhile Wonder breaks a 15 year hiatus with “Can’t Put It In The Hands Of Fate,” a straight mid tempo groover that might sound like a joyous classic but with lyrics like:

“You say that you believe that all lives matter
I say, I don't believe the fuck you do”

he leaves no doubt this ain’t ear candy.

Later, guest Chika raps:

“We don't need no politics to try to justify the plight
It's a problem of the people, it's no longer black and white”

Not exactly ‘Ribbon In The Sky.’

As of this writing there is no video for “Can’t put it in the hands of Fate” but the accompanying visuals for Cash’s ‘Crawl Into The Promised Land’ is even bolder than the song. Cash herself says: “The song required a visual corollary. I wanted to connect the past and the present,” … “The Voting Rights Act, and the Women’s March of 2017, the Civil Rights movement and the Black Lives Matter protestors, Harriet Tubman and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the workers in the cotton fields and the lives of those of us who live in privilege because of them, and the necessary gratitude for the humanity we share.”

Can’t Put It In The Hands Of Fate

Crawl Into The Promised Land