Rob Taxpayer

New Taxpayers Song and Video - I Am One Thousand

Added 2025-03-05 15:29:35 +0000 UTC

Hi folks. Today we’re releasing the song “I Am One Thousand” from our new album Circle Breaker. Link to all Taxpayers stuff here.

Some of you might remember the original demo for this song from right here at the Song of the Week Club. At the time it was one of the few demos that I knew would probably be a Taxpayers song at some point; it was built for Noah's drumming. Just listen to those drums in this Circle Breaker recording! Like gunshots and bombs.

Some context for the song:

I teach free Adult Education night classes in my city’s public school system - GED classes, English language classes for folks new to the US, job training, basic math, literacy, and so forth.

A few years ago, in one single class for English language learners, there were students who came from:

Afghanistan, where there is war.
Burma, where there is war.
Somalia, where there is war.
Eritrea, where there is war.
Ethiopia, where there is war.
El Salvador, where there is war.
Honduras, where there is war.
Ukraine, where there is war.

To suddenly have war thrust upon you - unfathomable. But a reality for so many. One in a thousand, one in a million, both solitary and part of an entire people.

As part of a writing assignment, we were discussing the places we come from. A student from Burma was describing escaping the violence, and feeling guilt when thinking about family and friends who were not able to leave.

She said, “I left for my children. I live for the future.”

As I sit here writing this a few years later, now with my own child, I wonder if I would be so brave if thrown into such horrors. I hope so.

As the forces of callousness and cruelty accelerate here in the United States and around the world, we hope to be reminded of what we must fight against - not against other humans, but rather, against the ideologies that warp humans into violence and cruel disregard for human life.

“I Am One Thousand” is for her and others like her: courageous and utterly human in the face of the inhumane, kind in the face of cruelty, resilience incarnate.

-rob

#peaceorbust #circlebreaker #thetaxpayersband #iamonethousand