The Time to Act (Song for Will Van Spronsen)

Time to share another track from my new album, Strangers & Friends -- which launches on streaming platforms on January 19th, and is available now to patrons. I wrote this song in July, over the course of the couple days following the death of Will Van Spronsen, who was killed by police, in the bus yard behind the ICE prison in Tacoma, Washington, where Will was trying to destroy as many buses as he could. This song features some of the more complex vocal arrangements from Lorna and Kamala to appear on the album, which, in my humble opinion, totally transform the song. They're what will make people listen to it a second time -- along with the urgency of the question presented by the song, by Will Van Spronsen's actions that July night. I explore this a bit more in an article in the current issue of the Fifth Estate, in the print edition, incidentally. It's a question that has caused Will to become an iconic figure for many, immediately following his death. A series of questions, really. When you see this familiar pattern repeating, of a corrupt democracy being eaten from within by the rise of a fascist movement, at what point do you decide, under the circumstances, that nonviolent forms of resistance have become futile? Will Van Spronsen had his answer to this question, certainly, which he demonstrated himself in his prose, his songs, and his actions.