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Fire (Ft. Vernon Caraway)

by Micah Bournes

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about

Fire is the first of the fraternal twin singles, Fire and Ice. Fire was inspired by and begins with the earliest known recording of A Negro Spiritual called "If I Had My Way". Black American Church music has a covert history of resistance. During and after slavery, Black people would slip revolutionary messages and sometimes secret instructions behind metaphors and biblical allusions. On the surface, "If I Had My Way" simply tells the story of Samson from the Bible. The spiritual's verses contain the narrative of his fascinating and troubled life as a warrior, but the chorus references the way in which Samson died. At the end of his life, Samson was captured by his enemies. He was enslaved, tortured, and had his eyes plucked out. One day, his tormentors were throwing a lavish party and decided to bring him out to mock him. He was placed between two pillars, humiliated, while his enemies celebrated. In that moment, Samson prayed to God for supernatural strength. He pushed the pillars down, collapsing the house, killing his enemies, and dying himself as well. Being raised in Church, I was very familiar with this story, however it was not until recently that I came across this old spiritual, and particularly the chorus, "If I had my way, if I had my way little children, if I had my way, I'D TEAR THE BUILDING DOWN." As a Black person in America, when I heard those lyrics, I instantly knew my ancestors were not singing about Samson. They were singing about themselves, their rage, their desire to tear down the pillars of racism and greed that enslaved and tortured them. They wanted this so badly, like Samson, they were willing to die for it. Many of them did. Here we are in 2020, and Black Americans are still tormented, still setting things on fire, praying to God that we might push the pillars over, tear the building down, no matter the cost.

lyrics

If I had my way little children
If I had my way
I'd tear that building down

If I had my way
If I had my way little children
If I had my way
I'd tear the building down

If I had my way
If I had my way
If I had my way
I’d tear the building down
If I had my way
If I had my way
If I had my way
I'd tear the building down, down
Tear the building down
I’d tear the building down

Lemme hit you wit a riddle
if a school get cheddar from the neighborhood tax
and the neighborhood po'
guess who get a better education
Privileged or the youth from the ghetto
If I had my way as a young kid
creativity woulda never been elective
Everybody paint
Everybody poetry
Everybody take design and photography
Home economics, Hip Hop history
How to make a supa dupa stupid hot beat
Everybody drama, Everybody yoga
Everybody meditate until the class over
Everybody plants a community garden
Everybody talks to a therapist often
Everybody got teachers that look like them
Everybody reads authors of colorful skin
Ain't nobody gotta pass standardized
test 'cause they prejudice and never measure
our intelligence
Only our ability to follow the assimilation
Try to tell us if we didn't then we'll never make it
Kids like me feelin' stupid
When the truth is
I could spit so hard
Not gettin' into Harvard
but I got a lot to offer
set flame to my report card
If I had my way I'd bulldoze a tank
straight over the schoolhouse gate
Ms. Frizzle wit da bus
everybody load up
every day is a field-trip day

If I had my way
If I had my way
If I had my way
I’d tear the building down, down,
Tear the building down
I’d tear the building down

No one with a chemical addiction
need to be in prison
just because they caught
with the drug they are dependent
Punishing the sickly (whoa)
Callin' it a justice system (nope)
If you got a mental health condition
you don't need conviction
You deserve some medical attention
Shout out the Critical Resistance
fighting for the demolition of the prison business
Rich men makin big bank
off of inmates who workin' for slave wage
Judges and the cops is playin' the same game
the more that they lock up
the more that they get paid
Black man gettin' more time
than a white man who commit
the exact same crime
Black man reachin' for his I.D. dies
White man take a dozen children's lives
Still somehow they arrest him alive
Unreal how they don't even conceal their bias
Killin' black folk like a roach or fly
Protect and serve is a joke and a lie
Skurrd for my life when the flash them lights
If I had my way every cop get fired
Every prison replaced with a safe space
for the addicts and the violent to rehabilitate
Penitentiary a deceptive name
Put you in a cage make you more humane?
If I had my way I would tear this thang
right down to its racist roots
Put ya picks to the fro and ya boots to flo'
and ya fist to the baby blue
It's the New Jim Crow
but the same Negroes
and we still bout that revolu!

If I had my way
If I had my way
If I had my way
I’d tear the building down, down,
Tear the building down
I’d tear the building down

Stubborn hope but you know I dont be runnin' from truth
Young black boy everybody gunnin' for you
Yeah I'm preachin' to the choir 'cause you livin' it too
Piss poor education in a crumbling school
State of the art prison waitin' to get full
of bodies with dark pigment they claimin' it's just law
and order but percentage of
brothas incarcerated severely exaggerated
compared to our population
I'm impatient and sick of the hatred
Make it into college they try to assimilate ya
Only black boy on my dorm room floor
What I come here for? Now I'm really unsure
Every level up, a little more isolated
from the melanated village that it takes to raise me
Woke up like, why am I stressin'
to labor at a table as the token exception
Don't want a blessin' if it's only for me
I'm dismantling the evil of american dreams
Demolition to whatever keep my people in chains
poverty and ignorance, Forget the gradual change
They been sayin' that for centuries and still we remain
on the bottom of the barrel I aint playin' they games
Tear the house down every time I step on a stage
Set the roof on flame with this African rage


If I had my way
everything would be okay
You won't have to die today
If I had my way
No more crying nor
will there be no pain
If I had my way
It'll never be no war
we ain't gotta play that game
If I had my way
we ain't gotta burn this place
Everybody love my race

credits

released July 4, 2020
Written By Micah Bournes and Vernon Caraway
Chorus and bridge vocals by Vernon Caraway
Music and production by Tim Dillon assisted by Blaine Stark
Design and art direction by Chris Cambell Creative
www.chriscambell.com

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Micah Bournes Long Beach, California

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