I started writing this song in New Orleans. Our band was attending a music conference and we also got a club date, which was very cool. I wrote about two dozen verses, some on the airplane home and these are the survivors. I worked out the music in D minor open tuning blues format. It’s my take on New Orleans, the vibrancy of the place with it’s troubled history and inequalities. God Don’t Live in New Orleans was added to our Evening From Hillcrest album with special guest Joey Landreth. It was recorded during Covid with all it’s challenges.
This week’s poem, Pawns and Rooks, is from my third book Horizon. It chronicles one of those events from my early education were the students stood around the church aisles emulating the rosary. I felt like we were chess pieces placed in order of height and gender. Above us stood the Cardinal, the overseer and the fixed stare of the wooden Saints hovered over us. It was a surreal event that has stayed with me for decades.
Fredrick Brooks - Lead Vocals/Acoustic Guitar
Joy Brooks - Harmony/Percussion
Robbie Grunwald - Keyboards/Bass
Joey Landreth - Electric Guitar
Chris Pezzarello - Drums/Percussion
Recorded and produced by Robbie Grunwald - Raven Tape Music Room and Union Sound - Chris Stringer and Darren McGill
Mastered by Justin Gray - Immersive Mastering
<Click here to listen to God Don’t Live In New Orleans>
GOD DON’T LIVE IN NEW ORLEANS
There’s no bread on my table at the end of day
Bad moon is rising here - No sight of relief
My life’s laid open - More naked than grief
Won’t somebody help me - Somebody please.
Chorus
From ashes I’ve heard a flower may grow
But it’s more deadly than sin - More lightning than soul
I’m down to my last dime broken and rolled
Just a man on his knees
When God don’t live in New Orleans.
So I carry this weight and it follows me home
As poverty wails - I curse it’s load
I long for new eyes - ones that shine with hope
When shame is at the heart of it - You’ve got no place to go.
Chorus
We’re just shadows of this city - It’s forgotten soul
As floodwater’s recede - The mercy goes home
There’s justice for the rich man but not for the poor
Something is lost here and I can’t take it no more.
Chorus
From ashes I’ve heard a flower may grow
But it’s more deadly than sin - More lightning than soul
I’m down to my last hour broken and rolled
Just a man on his knees
When God don’t live in New Orleans.
Just a man on his knees
When God don’t live in New Orleans.
©Fredrick Brooks
Rear facade of the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans' French Quarter.
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PAWNS AND ROOKS
We circled the pews
An imitation of the rosary
Before the Cardinal
Like pawns and rooks.
He stood as a King without a Queen
Before lines of boys in black and red cassocks
Our white surplice garment beneath bowed heads
Hands clasped
Thumbs right over left.
We stood in anticipation,
Our black polished shoes firmly rooted on gleaming marble
Before the fixed stare of wooden saints.
© Fredrick Brooks