The Keening Post Benefit Single “Hell is a Mirror”
Watch out for the screams here, which really should be everybody’s response to the ongoing Palestinian genocide. The world should have already stopped. General strike. Nobody goes to work/school/shopping until a ceasefire. Everything. Stops. But we’re not that caring a species or a people. My country, the USA, where I was born, raised and live, is supporting the systematic eradication of an entire people. This is not the first time I’ve been ashamed to be American, but it is the most ashamed to be an American that I’ve been in my lifetime, and that includes the 2003 invasion of Iraq, sundry extrajudicial killings, and other wars of aggression.
That is to say, what’s happening now is worse. Is the worst. And we, as a people, are letting it happen every day, ongoing. No terrifying video is enough to stop it. No outcry from whatever well-meaning news reporter. No earnest Tiktokker with ‘breaking news’ is going to fix it. We are living through horrors sadly not unprecedented. And if you’re here and alive, you’re complicit in it. It’s all of our genocide now, and we’ll carry the shame of it for the rest of our lives. Incredible how little the moral implications matter in the face of rampant state-sponsored murder, though.
The Keening made a song about it. I would call the lyrics, which you can see below, justified in their disgust and disdain.
The following comes from Bandcamp:
Hell is a Mirror
“Let Gaza live.”
In the last 20 years I’ve been writing music, there are two songs that mattered more than any others to me because I wrote them with a specific purpose. One was “Troubled Cells,” written in 2018, to raise awareness about suicide rates among LGBTQ youth in Utah. The other is this song.
Two million Palestinians are being deliberately starved to death in Gaza—the natural outcome of a long, grueling, drawn-out genocide set in motion 75 years ago by an entitled nation state bent on the destruction/ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population it dehumanizes and massacres, culminating now in this modern-day Final Solution.
This song goes out to the leaders of Israel, whose humanity has been crippled beyond recognition; all the world leaders who have done nothing to stop this live-streamed genocide; and all the weapons manufacturers and other corporations making billions off this bloodbath.
To the Palestinians, I’m sorry we have failed you. I hope you and your remaining families survive. I hope the world changes. I hope you’ll be able to return to your homes soon. Above all, I hope that I live to see a free Palestine.
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Andy Patterson recorded, mixed and mastered this song May 24-June 2, in the Boar’s Nest in Salt Lake City. Lindsay Heath wrote and performed the chants and screams. Thank you so much to both of them.
100% of all proceeds from the sales for this song (minus PayPal fees) will be donated to Gaza Mutual Aid Solidarity (GMAS), a group with loved ones in Gaza providing direct aid to those in need. A direct link to their Give Butter donation page is here, with a little more about them: givebutter.com/c/GazaSolidarity.
I list the song for $1, but you are welcome to donate more, of course.
Love, Rebecca
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Hell is a Mirror
White fire falls from the sky
Another child burns alive
And in the East, a dreadful sound
Pale buildings cascading down
In the night, she comforts her son
Of her children, the last one
There is no brimstone below
Hell is right here and right now
And in the morning
She’ll be running again
In the morning
She’ll be running
She’ll be running again and again
Fat cats on Bethesda lawns
Clink cups while they grease palms
Greed is like an infectious disease
An endless, putrid shriek
But when the arc of justice turns
You’ll be caught in the crosshairs first
There is no lake of fire below
Just a quiet, reflecting pool
And like Narcissus
You’ll drown
In your reflection
And like Narcissus
You’ll be paralyzed
By your reflection
And one day you’ll be running
You’ll be running from yourself
Chorus
Then how you’ll burn
How you’ll beg
For one drop to cool your tongue
How you’ll bleed
Then how you’ll beg
To banish the mirror from your face
Interlude
What you justify in the present
Will be condemned by your children
What you justify in the present
Will be censured by your children
What you excuse in the present
Will be hissed at by your children
And what you justify in the present
Will be condemned by your children
And your children’s children
Chorus
Then how you’ll burn
How you’ll beg
To banish the mirror from your face
How you’ll burn
How you’ll beg
For one drop from Lazarus’ hand
Then how you’ll burn
Then how you’ll beg
For one drop from Lazarus’ hand
For one drop from Lazarus’ hand
For one drop from Lazarus’ hand
Another notch in the belt of the West
We do mass slaughter best
There is no lake of fire below
Hell is to see yourself as you are
History will look on you unkindly
History will look on you unkindly
History will look on you unkindly
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