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Word

released January 19, 2016


This 3-Song EP is being released for download only on my Bandcamp and CDBaby websites. No physical CD is planned at this time.

Bandcamp allows you to pay more than the listed price, in order to help the artist recover their expenses in recording the songs. The bandcamp site is:

Download from Bandcamp

You can read the lyrics to the songs here:

Read Lyrics


I show a different side of my musical personality here, going in character for political and social commentary using the spoken word format over a musical backdrop. The music is an hybrid of rock, folk and hip hop. So my old fans are in for a surprise here, since my previous albums have been primarily acoustic guitar-based folk or folk-rock. But on these songs, you will hear a lot of distorted rock guitar, mixed with acoustic guitar and synth. And I play more lead guitar on these songs than all his previous releases combined.

Wave the Flag and Give 'em God is spoken from the point of view of a cynical election campaign manager, instructing his not-so-smart candidate on how to get elected. Sinister-sounding electric guitars thrashing over a hip hop beat provide the musical backdrop. Obama, Bush and Clinton's speeches are all sampled to add humor and drive the point home.

Accept, Embrace, Surrender was co-written with Nancy Farmer. It is based on the story that singer-songwriter and transgender man "Coyote Joe" Stevens told to Nancy. Musically, the song goes between rock and hip hop, with me rapping the verses, and Farmer singing the choruses and backing up the rapping.

Indigenous is spoken from the point of view of an indigenous person. The surprise ending drives home the commonality of the suffering caused by European colonialism on indigenous people all over the globe. The programmed beat is unusual, with acoustic guitar and synth-dulcimer tracking licks, until the big distorted electric guitar comes in. The song fades out with an emotional Santana-like guitar solo, maybe the best I've ever played.

I recorded these songs at home over the past 9 years. I played all the instruments and programmed the drum machines. In 2015, I took the tracks to Brian Hunter at Sawtelle Studio at Swallow Hill in Denver (the engineer for the EPs Me and The Other Side of Nowhere), and we edited and remixed the songs, improving the drum programming, re-recorded some tracks, and added samples and effects.

The political lyrics will surely be controversial, and the music may not work for everybody. But this is me.

--Rob Roper
January 19, 2016