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Jon Lort Nelson - Gated Community

from songladder march 2019 by various artists

/

about

Full Woody Guthrie mode: three chords (OK, four), and the truth as near as I can tell it. I'm writing from another person's perspective here, pure imagination, but there's a history behind it. After we left Venezuela and before moving to England, my wife and I lived five years in Colorado and spent a lot of time in the Hispanic (mostly Mexican) community. Our Spanish church was in the poorest neighbourhood in the city. Many well-off people from more prosperous areas sent donations. I got to know their gated communities too. People from both communities are still my friends. This song grew out of that, and of course the current American mood...

lyrics

I'm here in my Gated Community
In the place where I sit every day
I smile at the faces that enter
And wave to those going away.

Here in my Gated Community
I read Hemingway in paperback
My radio's tuned to rancheras,
In the cool of my gate-keeping shack.

Olé, olé, América

My parents came up from Honduras
In the 80s before I was born,
They worked in the meat-packing factory
And sweated de-tasseling corn.

Now I'm here in my Gated Community
In a place that is mine but it's not,
And I watch the old men go for breakfast
And a ten o'clock teeing-off slot.

Some are kind and they're mostly all friendly,
And I don't really hate them at all,
I just wish I could tell them politely
They don't need to live behind a wall.

Olé, olé, América

It's not really a question of politics
And I'm sure they don't think that it's race,
It's a question of keeping their money
And of other folks keeping their place.

And they're sad that their country's divided
But they're all Red and White against Blue
They forget that the colors they're waving
Are the colors of brown people too.

So tonight they go out to a rally
And will cheer for the Great Leader who
Has promised to make the whole country
A Gated Community too.

credits

from songladder march 2019, released February 28, 2019

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