Are You an Alien Tumbleweed?

Plus the premiere of “Algorithm Ghetto” for #FreedomMusicFriday

Happy Friday all!

Rather than get started now with Chapter 3 of The Distributed Nation, I have decided to start fresh on Monday. This gives us an opportunity to slip in a quick #FreedomMusicFriday. It’s been a while!

I have about nine songs in my playlist from our fellow Substacker

Tesstamona

, and I was listening to one a couple days ago that struck me as a good choice.

(My commentary will be brief, A) because the lyrics clearly speak for themselves and B) because I have to keep working on Chapter 3 of the DN.)

Tess’s intro to the song on Bandcamp says this:

This is a summertime freedom anthem,
dedicated to everyone who never traded their soul for conformity-
to everyone who was the black sheep, the outcast,
to every sovereign being seeking to build something new,
no matter how hard the journey gets..
You deserve to be celebrated,
and this is for you!

I am a “sovereign being seeking to build something new.” There is a good chance that you are too. That is all we’ve been talking about for the last few months here at the Freedom Scale. And in our last installment of The Distributed Nation, we specifically discussed anthems, the need for more classical-liberal protest music, and the importance of art to a movement. Thus, our ears perk up at the words “freedom anthem.”

Tess dedicates the song “to everyone who never traded their soul for conformity—to everyone who was the black sheep, the outcast.” I know a lot of the people reading this fall into that category—a category that was put into stark and blinding relief by Covid restrictions and the general public’s servile compliance with them. If you didn’t know for sure that you were a black sheep before then, you do now.

First, she speaks to the fact that even though we are aware of our status as black sheep, and proud of our resistance, the road can still be hard.

You're still running
Feeling Crazy
Search for stability
but grounds always quaking

Then, she introduces the title metaphor. We aren’t just black sheep—we are tumbleweeds, bouncing through the arid conformity of Normie Town.

Alien tumbleweeds dont need it handed we'll make it
gonna get this land off the grid and out the matrix

Tumbleweeds, of course, are rootless.

Just speaking for myself here—at first blush, I do not feel rootless. I am a husband and father living in a house with my wife and child. I have lived longer in this house than any other place in my life.

Yet I do feel a little bit of that tumbleweed vibe, and Tess puts her finger on it: I badly yearn to own land that is “off the grid” and thus, to whatever extent possible, out of the matrix. And I bet I am not the only one.

Covid taught us to be afraid of our neighbors. (Learning that half of Democrats wanted to take our children and put us in camps certainly didn’t help.) As a social species, this did serious psychic damage. It made many of us feel alien and rootless to realize just how dangerous the “social group” really can be. (That is one thing I hope to alleviate by finding and building a new modern tribe with the distributed nation. YOUR tribe. People you don’t need to fear.)

Here’s a great line:

if you're feeling alone
you’re in the majority

That is a nice message and important reminder. We all feel lonely from time to time, and bouncing through the parched landscape of Normie World certainly does nothing to make any of us feel less so. And she wants to make sure you know that you’re not alone:

so come join the legion of
alien tumbleweeds

Continue to resist…

we dont listen when they tell us how to dream
we know this simulations not to be believed
came up being the ugly duckling
so we trust our alchemy
self made swans never cut their own wings

Don’t look for strength and validation from without…

we live a free life yes its unpredictable
so we find the anchor we need
within our soul

I really like it when musicians send messages of strength and empowerment. Of being the best that we can be. Of not waiting for anyone else to fix our lives for us.

We’ve spoken about a lot of them on #FreedomMusicFriday, and “Alien Tumbleweed” is another fine addition. Enjoy!

Bonus: Tess also reminded me earlier today that her song “Algorithm Ghetto” is having its YouTube premiere at noon Eastern. That video is below as well. Its lyrics require little commentary, since nearly all of us have experienced some form of censorship over the last nine years.