Art Imitating Activism

"So come back Woody Guthrie

Come back to us now

Tear your eyes from paradise

And rise again somehow"

-- Steve Earle, "Christmas in Washington"

Steve Earle, country-rock maverick and death penalty abolitionist, bemoaned the lack of political activism in popular music in Christmas in Washington, a 1997 recording. But Earle doesn't just sing about the issues close to his heart. He lends his time, money, and creative energy to a number of causes, most notably stopping capital punishment. While many rock stars sing from a soapbox, very few have the goods to back it up. Earle's commitment to his convictions has exposed the complicated and emotional death penalty debate to an audience that may not otherwise take a position. By infusing his art and public statements with activism, Earle may have single-handedly brought the "protest singer-as-instrument-of-social-change" back from the dead. Woody Guthrie may finally get to smile from his grave.

"Welfare rights, opposing the death penalty -- Earle doesn't fit the Nashville stereotype," wrote David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation. "Hell, he's done more on-the-ground activism than most legislators. Not bad for a guy who five years ago was imbibing $800 worth of coke and heroin a day. (He's been clean for four years.) [Six years now --Ed] Earle deserves as much notice, if not more, as your average congressman."

Though Earle may deserve the notice, he doesn't necessarily want it. The singer-songwriter -- who has half-jokingly described himself as "to the left of Mao Zedong" -- uses his audience, his bully pulpit, to express his views on capital punishment and raise awareness. After piquing their interest, it is incumbent upon the listener to take a side, and hopefully, pick up a placard. Earle thinks that his anti-death penalty concerts -- in cooperation with Journey of Hope, Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing (TCASK), and other anti-capital punishment organizations -- will connect with his audience.

"The whole thing with these shows is to stop it before it starts," Earle told The Commercial Appeal last year. "I know from personal experience -- from seeing it -- that once this gets started, once the first killing happens, there develops this really dark, hard-to-overcome momentum. It's much easier to stop this now, before the first killing. Once it gets going, the state has blood on its hands, which means we have blood on our hands -- there is no 'they.' Once that happens, we have to start rationalizing it. And it'll be much harder to put an end to it."

The "personal experience" of which Earle speaks is the execution (by lethal injection) of Jonathan Nobles, which the singer witnessed in 1998. Nobles was convicted of brutally killing two Texas women. The experience obviously changed Earle and increased his already strong commitment to the abolition of capital punishment.

"Jon was guilty of an incredibly heinous crime," Earle told The Toronto Sun recently. "He spent the last 11 years of his life trying to understand why he did what he did. He changed. It was a huge waste, 'cause when the system manages to foster in any way, even by accident, a change like that, we need to keep those people around to find out what the fuck we did right.

"I can name you a hundred intellectual reasons why I oppose the death penalty. But really I object to the damage it does to my spirit, because if my government takes a life in what's ostensibly a democracy, then I'm taking a life. I'm not okay with that."

The most tangible evidence of Earle's friendship with Nobles is Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song), from his latest CD, Transcendental Blues. The song takes no side on the death penalty, but instead tries to humanize Nobles. Earle, whose narrative lyric writing gets stronger with each new album, places himself in Nobles' shoes. It joins a strong canon of Earle songs that are political in nature, but Over Yonder represents a personal, rather than intellectual or political, perspective on capital punishment.