Artist
Joe Salant
featuring John Ryan Cantu
Listen to other tracks from Recon Records
Video
Read the Press Release for the Music Video
Lyrics
Listen
VERSE 1:
All he wanted was a better life
He would stay awake in bed all night
While his wife slept
He schemed how he would get it right
Watching TV with the stories of American hype
He was so tired
Watching for the cartels
Since he dodged their offers
He knew that he was marked well
Scared to leave for work and come back and find them slaughtered
Wondering what they did to his wife and daughter before they died
He had to find the remedy
But three times he had been denied by the embassy
So he packed up the food and filled the jugs with water
Paid a couple thugs to get him up across the border
His daughter almost died up on the journey but they made it
And everything they had in life he had to pay it
But there they were in the land of their dreams
With the statue that reads “Give me your poor huddled masses yearning to be free”
CHORUS:
Oh we see the banner waiving free
But it should be upside down
The blood is crying out
As it rises from the ground
They say let freedom reign
But the freedom’s not for all
It’s time for justice now
Rise and stop the fall
VERSE 2:
He hit the fields picking berries
Grateful for the job
Hot sun, chemicals in his lungs, he’s working hard
But it’s 8 times what he’s used to making back in Juarez
And not a day spent shaken about the cartels
His daughter started school and they found that she was gifted
200 IQ, disciplined, she was a whiz kid
Wife had a baby almost soon as they were settled in
His firstborn son and he was an American
And he was so thankful
On his knees every night
In efficacious praise
To Jesus the Christ
He’d been delivered from hell
And the future looked bright
All his prayers had been answered
Dream come true overnight
He had to make a trip for work and they said he could take his daughter
To Arizona in the truck with crates that had been ordered
What a huge mistake
Cause they got caught up at the border
With the guns in their faces, put in cages and deported
(When they got back to Juarez they were slaughtered)
CHORUS:
Oh we see the banner waiving free
But it should be upside down
The blood is crying out
As it rises from the ground
They say let freedom reign
But the freedom’s not for all
It’s time for justice now
Rise and stop the fall
VERSE 3:
The wife and son were left alone there were no churches by her side
In fact she learned where not to go this nation’s Christians hate her kind
She was told she was a criminal
That they were “not a victim”
She fell into addiction and her son went in the system
He grew up fast
With a hatred for police
In the streets of LA
