Seattle-based songwriter and activist Erika Lundahl delivered a captivating performance of her original songs for Half Wild on June 19. Backed by her bandmate and traveling partner, Doug Indrick, Erika performed "Aim for the Center," "Brambles" and other powerful compositions to a spellbound audience at Oakland Oasis House. Thank you, Erika, and may you continue to ground and inspire us with your songwriting.
[Scroll to the bottom to hear the full concert]
Brambles by Erika Lundahl
Brambles was written after a storytelling pilgrimage I took in 2015 along the Trans Mountain Oil Pipeline, which runs from the tar sands of Northern Alberta to Anacortes, Washington. The fight to resist this pipeline expansion in Canada and the Pacific Northwest is ongoing. This song is a musical remembrance of the people we met along the pipeline route —pipeline workers, native activists and elders, teachers, parents, scientists and farmers. Everyone has a stake in the land they live on, and just as the pipeline runs from Canada to the United States, so to does water, air and earth connect us all. If a spill happens on one place, all of us will experience the impacts and thus we are all tied together by our shared home. We are wedded to the work of overcoming differences to find deeper stories of interdependence, shared sense of place and resiliency in the face of climate change. - Erika Lundahl
Rain barrels full, the gardens wild with brambles
Kettles on, the stories we tell ramble on and on
On your feet there’s so much to unravel
On your feet, there's so much to unravel
Salted streets and skin heads with their bibles
Water’s rising, and the houses and rivers are rivals
January come and gone
Up north our neighbors are burying their stillborns
The air is dirty and the land is torn
But we’re still breathing so we’re stitching up a love song
Stiching up a love song
Help me to believe that we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for
Smoky skies bring me to my knees
The orchards filled with apple trees
Go down to the river, thank you please
I’m scared I don’t know what this means
What this means
I've been asleep but morning is breaking into dawn
No time to weep, all of us broken still belong
Grave Digger, Oil tanker
Law Maker, heart breaker
Aren’t you tired of selling this as dignity?
Aren't you tired of selling this as dignity?
Air is dirty and the land is torn
But we’re still breathing so we’re stitching up a love song
Air is dirty and the land is torn
But we’re still breathing so we’re stitching up a love song
Rain barrels full, the gardens wild with brambles
Kettles on, the stories we tell ramble on and on
and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on
Aim for the Center by Erika Lundahl
"Aim for the Center was inspired by a cross-country tour I did just weeks before the 2016 election. It was a potent moment; the historic Standing Rock resistance to colonization and climate disaster was activating public consciousness while national politics looked ever-more foreboding and full of despair. As I drove through Wyoming and Colorado, past fracking fields and stunning mountain vistas, I was overcome with the natural beauty that prevails in the face of extraction. Somewhere amidst the clamor of this chaotic and destructive culture, we must find those threads that return us to consciousness and an intentional relationship with the land that supports all life on this planet. We choose every day what kind of people we are going to be on this planet." - Erika Lundahl
Follow me follow, into the hollow
huntress, hero of the underground
you carry in your collarbone
a wisdom i will never know
so go, go go, go with the caribou
wade into, into the ocean
follow the cry of the lonesome canary
on down the mine shaft, flare of the car crash
read of the epitaph, read of the end
aim for the center again
aim for the center again
aim for the center again
There are worse places to be,
than stuck in a traffic jam, driving through mountains
sky blue and gold rush, radio reports on secret prisons
white helmets and unsung saviors, valve turner
and corporate favors
I'm wondering where I can put my trust in,
in a world so broken and busted, oh turn it off
you said just enjoy the scenery, when else will we be here,
we might as well be here, come back to me friend
aim for the center again
aim for the center again
aim for the center again
Our car passed over the 45th parallel,
drew a line between Equator and the North Pole,
it's raining hard now, raining hard
the weather man says, please try to stay in,
please try to stay home
well we're trying, we're trying, we're trying to get there
we're trying, we're trying, we're trying to get there
we're trying, we're trying to get there
but this storm's got me worried
for my friends and my family
father he tested the generator says it works fine
call me later now, when you arrive,
oh, oh, oh
so go, go go, go with the caribou
wade into, into the ocean
follow the cry of the lonesome canary
on down the mineshaft, flare of the car crash
read of the epitaph, read of the end
aim for the center again
aim for the center again
aim for the center again
The oil trains pass, black snakes on the sunset
the cows eating grass they got pipelines on under them
river beds, truck beds, oil and grain
what it takes to feed this growing machine
will be buy, barter, steal or lend
will aim for the center again,
aim for the center again.
Full Concert: Erika Lundahl and bandmate Doug Indrick (backing vocals and percussion) perform at Half Wild on June 19.