Traveling overseas in 1980 and '81 had opened my eyes about how Americans are perceived by the rest of the world. We are not automatically separated into lawyers and doctors and coal miners and guitar players and Republicans and Democrats. To most of the world we are just Americans. We are judged by what people see on television, by our movies, our records, and how our foreign policy directly affects them.

I had never thought about this before and suddenly I wanted to know what we as Americans had been doing around the world. For the first time in my life I felt the urgent need to see myself through the eyes of a non-American.

Rock music had opened doors I never knew existed and I was feeling a dramatic change in the way I saw myself. I was no longer just a guy from New Jersey or even America. I was a citizen of the world and never knew it. And I did not feel qualified to pass that citizenship test.

So I got every book I could find on our foreign policy. Among them were "Bitter Fruit" by Stephen Kinzer and "The Real Terror Network" by Edward S. Hermann, and some book by a guy named Noam Chomsky, I forget which one. Chomsky struck me as a man with an amazing mind and a reaffirmation of what patriotism should be all about and I got all his books.

The more I read about what was going on in Central and South America, the Philippines, Haiti, South Africa, and all the other countries our foreign policy affected, the more the Holocaust kept forcing itself into my mind. Millions of people murdered for their religious beliefs or ethnic background or things they said or thoughts they had is inconceivable. One is too many. But somehow it was happening again. And with American involvement. I was doing this.

This led me to wonder about what went on in the mind of the average German citizen in the 1930's. How did they feel? If they didn't know what was going on, their ignorance is a sad excuse. If they knew what was going on, their silence, for reasons of political expediency or simply social comfort, was an endorsement of what happened, let's face it. I felt a combination of pity and anger for them and their circumstance. Anger won. I was not going to be silent about this.

Now the number of deaths we were directly or indirectly responsible for didn't approach the horrors of the Holocaust. Tens of thousands rather than millions, but we, "we the people," were buying the bullets and training the death squads that were slaughtering thousands of union organizers, teachers, farmers, and everyone else that opposed the military dictatorships that ruled most of our hemisphere at the time.

I was obsessed and certain sacrifices had to be made.

The lyrics of a song can be conversational or they can be poetic, metaphorical. Occasionally there can be a mixture of the two but usually not. The first sacrifice would be the poetry. Not that I'm inclined to be particularly flowery or have the talent to be a poet anyway, but most of it had to go. There is a hint of it in "Among The Believers" on this album and in the bridge of "Pretoria" on the next album, but not much.

Most artists are afraid to say too much. I was afraid to not say enough. The trick was writing about politics while never crossing the line into rhetoric. Rhetoric compromises the emotional communication for more information about some issue or subject and the art form of rock is really not built for that. "Sun City" and "Vote!" were the only two songs I've written for specific political purposes and were designed to be rhetorical. But they were the only exceptions and they were deliberately not on any of my albums.

No more love songs for ten years.

The second sacrifice would be any hope of commercial success. I tried not to think about that so it wouldn't affect my saying what was most important to me. I could have helped myself by spending a little more time crafting the records but I had no patience at all at this time of my life. Political music was death at radio and I knew it. When I first started recording with the Jukes the radio consultants sent a memo to the stations saying do not play anything with horns. Now I was doing it again with politics.

All of my closest friends tried to talk some sense into me but I wouldn't listen. I let my passion overrule my common sense and my career would suffer the consequences of my actions for almost 20 years. But that same passion would lead me to contribute to the successful war we waged against apartheid in South Africa in 1985 and would force me to educate myself a little bit. So it kind of balances out. Knowledge is easy, it's everywhere these days. But wisdom is tough. It takes time and you pay a price. You can look back and think one thing or the other but in the end, I did what I had to do and that's all you can say. We'd all like wisdom to come a little easier but when you're as slow and stupid as I am at learning anything, with 20 years I got off cheap.

Musically, this album would be more rock than 60's R&B generally. I felt a sense of urgency and a lot of anger so the horns had to go.

The subject of this record would be the family and how government policies affect it. The themes would include taking responsibility for our government's actions and foreign policy and accepting the responsibility of what was happening in the world community.

Other themes explored in this record would include the idea that everything we do or don't do has a political consequence. If you are marching in a political demonstration, that is obviously a political act. If you are watching the demonstration go by from your window, that is an endorsement of the status quo and that is a political act.

Anyway you look at it, I had become politically enlightened and, beginning with this record, I was determined to politicize everyone I came in contact with — be it friends, journalists, or the public.

Voice of America  (lyrics; audio)

The first line of the opening song says it as clearly as I possibly could say it.

This was no time for subtlety, people were dying.

This song was Ramones/Punky type of thing which was the only musical trend (other than world/ethnic type stuff) that I would really like and actually be influenced by past the 1960's.

I took the European police siren in the middle from the Yardbirds' "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago."

Justice  (lyrics; audio)

This one talks about our insane Defense Department expenditures (something like 300 billion dollars a year in the 80's) to fight "communists" around the world and pay for "military preparedness" in case the Sandinistas started landing in force on Miami Beach.

Meanwhile our entire infrastructure was disintegrating by lack of attention and funds. Our schools were becoming academically ineffective and physically run down (and still are), our hospitals were becoming third world (our emergency rooms still are), our roads and bridges were collapsing, and crime and poverty were rampant.

Our soldiers were being sent to misconceived police actions or volunteering as mercenaries all through Central and South America, among other places, and dying or killing for all the wrong reasons. Some Vietnam vets were being screwed by the government they trusted for the third time. Once in Vietnam, again when they got home, and again in the third world fighting on the side of corporate interest and usually against democracy.

Jean plays a hell of a bass part on this one.

Checkpoint Charlie  (lyrics; audio)

The Berlin Wall was both literally and symbolically the ultimate example of governments dividing the people to better control them. People suffering and families divided because of bullshit politics.

Checkpoint Charlie was the transit area between East and West Berlin. I went through to see what the other side felt like and it was an intense experience. The West Germans were not much friendlier than East Germans at the checkpoint and they did everything to discourage you from going in, including taking your passport and limiting how much money you could bring in. Not that there was much to buy, if that was your motivation. It was a very cold, bizarre environment in the East and the fear in the people you tried to interact with was palpable. It was also the first time I ever missed advertising on billboards. There was no color. It was all grey and threatening. It was a dramatic reminder of how lucky some of us are with that roll of the dice that determines where you're born.

Even though I was optimistic in the song about the ability of our unified will power to bring the wall down, I was still shocked when it actually happened. As enthralled as I was watching it that night (November 9, 1989), thinking about it later I thought a once in a lifetime opportunity was lost.

What a legacy Gorbachev could have left had he used the wall as a bargaining chip to begin the demilitarization of the planet. The wall comes down, Germany is united, but Germany becomes a demilitarized zone, a "buffer" between East and West. No military, no military bases of any kind, no weapons of any kind, and no production of any kinds of products with military use.

Now the last point would have been tough to get but the entire Western public would have rallied to the cause and I believe it's a deal that could have been made, had the Soviets been so inclined.

I don't know if we'll ever know what the Soviet intentions were, but allowing the wall to come down was most likely a necessary economic decision and the Soviet government probably didn't mind what chaos or economic burden subsequently ensued. It's a similar sensibility I refer to in the song about the possibility of the Western world tolerating the wall as a punishment of Germans for their father's or grandfather's crimes.

The song is an R&B throwback to the last album and I'm singing in Smokey Robinson style. The mix ended up with a little too much echo for me and in fact I wanted to remix the whole first side of the album but I ran out of money.

It's no big deal though, I still like it.

Solidarity  (lyrics; audio)

I discovered Reggae music sometime around late '72, early '73 when my friend Bruce Springsteen played me the "Harder They Come" soundtrack. It was perfect timing because the most fertile period in rock history had just ended with The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and the Stones' "Exile on Main Street" album. That song and that album pretty much put the exclamation point on what had been an incredible 7 year renaissance and I personally felt both Rock and Pop music had seen their best days. I referred to this half jokingly in the induction ceremony of Gary U.S. Bonds at the R&B Foundation dinner but I really did think that. And unfortunately, history proved me right.

So here comes Reggae, combining a whole new rhythm with doo-wop singing group harmonies and classic early pop chord changes. It was exhilarating. Just at the moment you felt it had all been done, you felt like you were hearing music for the first time all over again.

Soon after that, in July 1973, Bruce was playing Max's Kansas City, a club in Manhattan, double-billed with a new reggae act and I went to see the show. They were supposed to alternate headlining but the reggae group was always late. I caught 2 or 3 of the shows and finally they showed up. They were too minor key/dark for me at the time with the bright "Harder They Come" reggae still in my head. I saw a few songs and caught the bus back to Jersey. It wouldn't be until about six months later that I would become a Bob Marley fanatic and laugh about what I walked out on.

The song is a general statement of international common ground.

I originally wanted to help publicize Lech Walenza's struggle in Poland but he ended up winning the Nobel Peace Prize so I figured he had it covered.

This is the first of a different style of writing for me, assuming the character who is speaking in the songs. The guy in the song is a typical working man in any third world country who, by circumstances he can't possibly understand, is caught up in some political struggle.

In the 80's we were directly or indirectly waging war against anybody opposing any military dictatorship and justifying it by calling them "communists."

Someday when you’re really bored, sit down and read Karl Marx's "Capital" and try and picture some Latin American farmer lying down after 12 hours in the field to read that book by candlelight so he could learn to be a "communist." I am exaggerating to make the point but essentially that is what our own government was asking us to believe.

I told my record company to send the song to Chris Blackwell at Island Records in Jamaica with the hope that he would put it out on his label as a joint venture with mine. We never heard back from him and I forgot all about it until I bought the new Black Uhuru album and there it was! It was alright through because they did a nice job with it and had a hit and won a Grammy I think.

Out of the Darkness  (lyrics; audio)

Another general-theme type song. On every album I will stray a bit from the specific theme and throw a song or two in that are more big picture — philosophically broad and usually more generally optimistic.

This is one of those lyrics that use the device of non-romantically speaking to a woman that I referred to on the last album.

It's basically saying love is more productive than anger. I knew it was true at the time philosophically, but I didn't feel that way. I was still really pissed off. Sometimes you write with your emotions, sometimes you write about them.

Musically it's the first song I ever wrote built on a dance rhythm, a genre I would embrace on the next two albums. Actually "Trapped Again" on the Jukes' Hearts of Stone album is the archetype of my whole dance thing.

Los Desaparecidos  (lyrics; audio)

Another song where I assume the character in the story. This time it's a Central American mother trying to explain to her young son why his father isn't coming home.

Death squads that used terror to control the people were rampant all through Latin America in the 60's, 70's and 80's. The additional horror is we trained them and/or helped finance them and/or made it politically possible for them to exist.

The death squads would break into a home at night, usually masked, and forcibly remove a man who was a union organizer or just a worker who opened his mouth to complain about the slave labor conditions, or anybody the government considered a threat. The person grabbed would be "disappeared," killed with no arrest or trial, and the body would only rarely be found.

This song is one I am most proud of. Not only is it one of my favorites, but the recording of it is one of the few that sound exactly like what I wanted. It's also the best mix on the record.

I particularly like the integration of Spanish in the chorus and the touch of salsa in the solo which I thought served the subject matter nicely.

Fear  (lyrics; audio)

Kind of says it all in the title. I love titles like that.

It permeated the political environment in the 80's. Us against Them.

Left against Right. Conservative against Liberal. Haves against Have Nots.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of "communism." Nobody could define "communism" but we were ready to kill anything that looked like it.

Of all the fears in the world, fighting on the wrong side of a war must be one of the worst.

I like the combination of African rhythms with the big guitar riff.

I Am A Patriot  (lyrics; audio)

I stared at that title for two years.

I knew I had to say it because I wanted to make it crystal clear that criticizing one's government that is compromising its ideals is a citizen's patriotic duty.

It's a general/main theme of the album song.

Don't call me names and put me in your convenient, politically expedient categories. I'm just a man trying to make a living. I'm the same as you.

Jackson Browne does a nice version of this one.

Somebody told me Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam have been doing it live also.

When you're not writing pop songs and your songs are really personal it's especially cool when other people do them.

Among The Believers  (lyrics; audio)

A bit of innocent optimism to keep things balanced.

A hope that prejudice, ethnic warfare, and age-old hatreds get diluted generation to generation.

Will we allow our children to live in a better world?

Or will we scar them in a permanent way with our own anger.

The second deliberate dance rhythm of the album, pointing toward the future.

Undefeated  (lyrics; audio)

Your basic anti-war song.

From Vietnam to Lebanon and on and on.

War has never been the obvious, heroic, good guys-bad guys thing since World War II.

As horrible as war is, I would imagine it's even worse if your ethics are constantly challenged or the military goals are ill-defined or misconceived.

Little Steven
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