At the prompting of This American Life, the brilliant songwriter Sara Bareilles has imagined all the things President Obama would like to say about the election and turned them into a evocative masterpiece entitled “Seriously”.
The song intertwines bits and pieces from Obama speeches with what Bareilles thinks Obama would like to say if he were free to speak his mind about Trump and the #bucketofbigots who are threatening to take our country and the world to a very dangerous place.
It sounds so much like the way BHO talks it seems the lyrics are actually channeling his inner thoughts.
Leslie Odom Jr. (2016 Best Actor Tony Award winner for playing Aaron Burr in Hamilton) brings this amazing composition to life with a silky smooth vocal that will haunt your every waking thought if you are a fan (and if you are not a fan what is the matter with you LOL)
And of course I need a shout out to damn how I love him Alex Lacamoire (2016 Tony Award winner for Best Orchestrations for Hamilton) who takes a five piece string section into the sensuous place between longing and pain and pleasure and apprehension... I have long ago run out of superlatives for Lacamoire. Just listen to it.
Various fan websites are saying the song will be available for free download sometime this week. If anyone finds a link to that, please post info here!
Lyrics were posted on the This American Life website for those who can’t play video.
But reading it does not do it justice.
Just play it. Turn it up. Get lost in it. Just put it on loop—you know you want to.
It is indescribably good.
Seriously
by Sara Bareilles
*
Let’s start with hope
I threw it in the middle like a skipping stone
The ripples won, son of a gun
Some would not have thought so
But I stand here Commander in Chief
and I take that seriously
*
But along the way
A rogue ripple turned tidal wave
In reaction to what I tried to do
A rebirth of a nation’s hatred
Red, white and blue
Is black in there too? Seriously?
*
One man
Rewriting the book on bad behavior
Maybe cheats the neighbors
Feels he gets what they pay for
We can’t
Pat him on the back and send him on through
No man’s ignorance will ever be his virtue
Is this the best we can be? (spoken) Seriously?
*
Let’s talk of fear
And why I don’t bring it in here
It’s a dangerous word, it spooks the herd
And we all bleed in the stampede
Fear makes a false friend indeed
And I take it seriously
*
O hear me now
Before the truth gets drowned out
By a demagogue flexing
A demagogue flexing
He’s history repeating
*
Angry?
Am I angry?
You ask am I angry?
And I’m at a loss for words
After all we’ve done
Every battle hard won
Every hair gone gray
In the name of this place
In a history plagued
With incredible mistakes
Still I pledge my allegiance
to these United divided States
Seriously
*
Let’s end with “why?”
It’s a question I
Want to ask of us as a populace
Why not take our time or the weight of this story
seriously?