Denver band Gilstraps wraps-up election season kind of perfectly

Disclosure: I know not a thing about the Gilstraps. They sent me this song yesterday. It was a well-timed email because the song, called “Change,” captures the end of the long, expensive, exhausting Citizens-United-era campaign season here in Colorado. The MP3 is posted below for reader enjoyment and I hope that on your browser it won’t be interrupted by a political ad.

 

Gilstraps band member Cutter emailed to say he wrote the song with band partner Jack Day after the 2012 Republican National Committee protests in Tampa, where they then lived, and with an eye toward the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and its aftermath.

“Watching cops use snatch-n-grab tactics on someone in our crew for BS charges (a bandana) and the process that followed was definitely a little disconcerting to say the least. Lawyers and Newspapers made it seem like he was guilty just for being there protesting, and watching media outlets spin the story to pin us with Anarchist groups, which is the farthest from the truth, made us realize how much bands don’t get involved anymore and simple protests are illegal…”

He added that he sees the corporate-legal-political battle that raged in the wake of the historic Deepwater Horizon explosion as an ugly cousin to the battle over fracking in Colorado.

“Change” sets off at a gallup and remains fully fed up throughout. The chorus: “Change! Things will never change. Change!”

Pessimistic. Cynical. Yes… but no. The song is really a cry for change, of course! Because things can change.

Colorado voter ballots have already been sent out all across the state. Didn’t get one? Maybe you’re not registered. So do it. You can register to vote any time up to Election Day at a Voter Service and Polling Station or you can register online before October 27th. You can vote by mail. You can vote in person.

But how exactly do you cast your ballot? Who is running for office? Which offices are they running for? And what are the different candidates likely to do if they’re elected that will change your life for better or for worse?

There are informative voter guides. Lots of them. Like, the one put together by New Era Action Fund, a Colorado nonpartisan, nonprofit, which is “not a sketchball super PAC.”