Austin Cunningham Gets Political

Austin Cunningham wants you to listen up a little bit.

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Texas’ own Austin Cunningham in a live performance for the first time. I had only recently listened to his new disc, Made to Last, which is a fine album that contains Country tunes that deal with Cunningham’s love of fine time-pieces that represent something grander than just simple jewelry (“Made to Last”), Texas (“Take Me Back to Ft. Worth”), a possibly deadly love triangle (“Catherine”, which has one of my favorite lines, in any song ever with, “Mother Mary on the dash and my foot on the gas“) and his affection for the dying breed that is the independant radio-station DJ (“The Last Great D.J.”).

Given that I had enjoyed the album to that point, I figured to get a kick out of hearing the aforementioned tunes live. After it was all said and done, it was two songs that aren’t on this or any other full-length Cunningham record that left me most impressed and more understanding of the sincerity that goes into his work. The standout songs during the afternoon performance, “Guns and Religion” and “Who’s Gonna Bail Out the Workin’ Man” (which seem to only be available via Cunninghams’ website, or on I-tunes as a 3 song EP), were both prefaced by Cunningham from the stage as songs he had written as direct responses to items he had seen and heard in the news regarding the current economic crisis, as well as the political divide that we find ourselves in as a country.

Personally, as is likely the case with many Americans, I find myself in the middle politically. I often see both good and bad in the plans set-forth by the leaders as to what to do about the current state of things and therefore, I have a hard time understanding what I think the plan of recovery should truly be. Cunningham doesn’t suffer from such middle of the road positioning. in “Guns and Religion”, we find out quickly what has gotten him so riled up when in the opening line he sings, “I heard the president say campaigning that day / I couldn’t believe what I heard him say / he said people in small towns get bitter and cling / to guns or religion like that’s a dumb, backwards thing.” The song goes onto detail his, and others, need for both of the items in the title. For me, the fact that Cunningham was immediately compelled to speak out is far more inspirational and important than the actual message itself. I’m not a big fan of guns personally, no biggie, just never cared for them or really needed one. Perhaps my relatively comfortable suburban middle-class upbringing has kept me from ever truly needing a gun as is described in the song.  That said, I have always appreciated when an artist immediately rises to craft a response to something they feel is askew and simply wrong in today’s world.  A really good and thoughtful protest song beats the heck out of a letter to your congressman, in my opinion.

The other song that stood out above the songs I had expected to hear was, “Who’s Gonna Bail Out The Workin’ Man”.  With the chorus of “Who’s gonna bail out the workin’ man when workin’ don’t work no more?“, Cunningham asks as honest and straight-forward of a question as can be asked to the lawmakers of today. By not looking to accomplish anything more than to shed light on the feelings of millions of people, as well as to question authority, Cunningham is a convincing spokesperson for the ones who have truly suffered during this time.

Sincerity in a song cant be faked, and a patronizing millionaire who looks to gather angry mobs against “Wall Street” or “The Boss Man” (John Rich and Hank Jr., I am looking at you) will usually ring fairly hollow with their pandering. When an artist like Cunningham, who most likely resides in the same tax bracket as the majority of his fans, speaks up against such issues, he is speaking with the people and not falsely for the people. Regardless of whether I agree 100% on the stances he makes in these songs, I can whole-heartedly appreciate the fact that he is doing it so effectively.