BY JOEY SWEENEY | These are empirically difficult days any way you slice them, and getting up and getting going is often at a premium. What is left in the tank for any one of us or any all of us? When the goin’ has been getting tough lately, in that bright morning of darkness, I cue up this and exactly this:

This is a track from Alabaster DePlume’s LP Gold called “Fucking Let Them,” and I would be lying if it’s not my mantra these days. If you need those words again — important words! — which happen before the track bursts into a frenetic, almost comedic sax-led riffy jam, here they are again.

If you don’t think you need these words, you are wrong. Here they are again:

I still cower sometimes
But I want to reach to that voice with love
And say:
"Fucking let them"
"Fucking let them!"
"Fucking let them!"
I have all I need
For the glory of being
I recognise you and celebrate
I am brazen
Like a baby
Like the stupid sun
And I go forward
In the courage
Of my love

By the time the landing gear pops out – like a baby, like the schtuuuuuuupid sun — the main action of this poem has already occurred; it’s that titular declaration, that dare. We need that dare simply as human beings who need to carry on, and one is in good hands with DePlume here. He’s a poet and musician in equal measure who prioritizes openness and vulnerability likewise, with a background in activism and social work. 

I don’t need to tell you that this world needs like 50,000 more of this guy, but the nice thing about words and music is that they have the power to inspire. People used to say that not a lot of people bought Velvet Underground records when they first came out, but that every one who did started a band. I’d like for “Fucking Let Them” to be the vibe version of that. So maybe that everyone who hears this “go[es] forward in the courage of their love.” Wouldn’t that be something?

Fucking let them.