Music review: ‘What of Our Nature’

Heynderickx, a Filipino-American, and Conover, a Puerto Rican-American, intended to write the album “in the spirit of Woody Guthrie”

I was already a fan of Haley Heynderickx. Her latest album, What of Our Nature, made with longtime collaborator Max García Conover, spoke to me both musically and politically.

Heynderickx, a Filipino-American, and Conover, a Puerto Rican-American, intended to write the album “in the spirit of Woody Guthrie,” a legend in the world of country and folk, famous for songs like “This Land is Your Land,” with a sticker on his guitar that read “this machine kills fascists.”

While never a formal member of the Communist Party, Guthrie was favored by its press and then-substantial cultural institutions, and some of his most famous pieces fit right in with the 1930s-40s CP strategy of the “popular front,” adopting overtures to the capitalist leadership in Washington (e.g., “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt”) alongside commemorations of the class struggle (e.g. “1913 Massacre”). Consequently, his songs are almost as likely to be heard at right-wing events as they are on the left (although Guthrie’s listeners on the right will omit uncomfortable stanzas that identify with the working class and the poor).

I wouldn’t say Heynderickx’s and Conover’s tracks are as anthemic as Guthrie’s, but they dig deep into topics such as immigration, the toils of capitalism, and labor history.

Folk music comes from workers and small farmers. It often derives from work songs, which workers would sing while on the job or in prison chain gangs. African-American “hollers” (work songs) formed a basis for the birth of the blues, which became a major influence for U.S. folk music. The idea of “folk” as a distinct musical category didn’t really start until the 1920s and ’30s when Alan Lomax, an American folklorist, began to record Southern folk songs. Work songs largely died out with the last of the “Gandy dancers” by the 1970s. These were railroad workers known for singing and dancing while laying down tracks. Folk as a genre, however, took off.

It feels more appropriate to compare What of Our Nature to folk artists such as Lead Belly (Hudie William Ledbetter), Phil Ochs, or Joan Baez. Lead Belly was a Black folk and blues artist who sang about racism, prison life, cattle herding, and was discovered by Alan Lomax and his father, John. Phil Ochs and Joan Baez became known as protest singers, performing at anti-war demonstrations during the Vietnam War, civil-rights demos, and organized labor events. These are artists whom I would say reflect a little more closely to the way Heynderickx and Conover write about politics.

“They’re just making money off of us fighting” is a line from the song “to each their dot.” What of Our Nature contains beautiful and poetic lyrics to express what it’s like living in a world where capitalism has failed the worker time and time again. Where people are locked up with “no trial or charge or conviction” (“Song for Alicia”). Where it feels like we have to sell our soul in order to succeed in the art world, and in a world of “cop-killing, coal-mining starvation wages” (“Cowboying”). These topics aren’t new to the folk genre, but to the indie music scene that they come out of, they’re a breath of fresh air.

Heynderickx and Conover express these feelings of woe in a way that is both catchy and oddly comforting. As ICE continues to kidnap people off the street, and people are fired because of their political beliefs with no due process, it’s important for music and art to reflect the goings on of real life. The only aspect I felt was missing from their album was the question of how we should fight and organize. Nevertheless, even if they do not directly impart lessons of political strategy, Heynderickx and Conover eloquently give plain-spoken voice to the oppressions we face and the struggles we fight.

First published here by Workers’ Voice

Photo: Haley Heynderickx