lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: tear it down

2020-11-01: amy ray - tear it down, daemonrecords.com:

the new single, "tear it down" from amy ray and her band is out 11.1.2020. inspired by nina simone and billie holiday, as well as the activism of project say something and black lives matter, amy ray band takes a deep dive into new musical territory to portray a relentless battle to evolve and become truly anti-racist. "tear it down" hopes to encapsulate the struggle and evolution of a die-hard white southerner coming to terms with miseducation about her homeland; the iconography of "the old confederacy" that she unwittingly embraced; and the dire need to dismantle the historical symbols, songs, and myths that perpetuate and nurture racism.

"tear it down" was recorded remotely by her stalwart band of 8 years now, with special guests, eric eagle on drums, and julie wolf on piano. brian speiser (goodnight tender and holler) produced the song, and bobby tis (tedeschi-trucks band) brought the mix together.

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2022-11-28: the beauty of promise: amy ray on 'if it all goes south' - the creek 100.9 fm

we talked a bit about the south and art. your song "tear it down" deals with dismantling the southern cultural institutions, including gone with the wind, song of the south, and the "celebration" of all things dixie. were you quick to find this iconography problematic, or did that realization come over time? i ask because i never experienced that one galvanizing epiphany. my journey was much more gradual. for instance, i grew up with my family reading the uncle remus stories, and i was slow to understand these weren't just stories, that they carried some serious baggage, to say the least.

no, i had the same experience. i mean, even in college, i thought the confederate flag was cool. i thought it was badass, like, "we're southerners, and we're rebels." i had no idea; i just did not. i even thought that even while i was thinking about how bad racism was. it took me to probably even after college. i took an african american lit course in college at emory, and the professor was amazing. and the atlanta child murders had just happened. she was an activist and was on the inside and knew a lot that had gone on during that. and i think her class is the thing that changed me and made me understand that i needed to start thinking about things differently.

it took me a while to separate myself from those symbols. and i think of my grandparents, too, because i'm from five generations of my mom's side of southerners, of georgians. and my dad's side was florida, georgia, and alabama, and that's in kentucky. so that's a lot, and i didn't want to let go. we always went to see song of the south at the fox theater every year, and i loved gone with the wind. it was so hard for me to not fall in love with the romance of that. and i'm still obsessed with the civil war. i'm still obsessed with the history of this area, right? and so for me to separate the bad sort of symbolism from just the sheer interest in history is still hard.

did you ever bristle at being labeled a southern artist?

no. in fact, i always love that. when i think of southerners, i think of punk and danielle howle and the rock*a*teens and kelly hogan and all the great southern atlanta artists and kevin kinney and rem. and then atlanta has a super rich hip hop scene. to me, it's a great thing to be a southern artist. i've never minded it.

i love the south- but i don't like the racism, and i don't like the classism or any of that stuff. i don't like that people from other areas belittle southerners and think that we aren't smart and make fun of the accent and distill us down to this caricature of who we are.

at this point, i think each state or region has its own fringe group and figurehead- a lauren boebert, for instance-who reduces their state to an instant caricature, so maybe that southern stereotype is losing its relevance.

yeah, that's true. no, you're right. you're right. everywhere you go, there's a character.

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2023-02-22: amy ray on how her southern roots informed the songs on her new album, arts atl:

artsatl: "tear it down" is a really powerful song. what compelled you to write that one, and how did you decide to collaborate with canadian singer-songwriter allison russell on it?

ray: i was brought up with the same prejudice as everyone in the south was brought up with. we had racism flowing in our blood without even knowing it, you know what i mean? so, for me, it's like this idea of healing racism is so important. i think it's important to let go of some of these symbols. we cannot heal until we do that.

i wanted to put something out during black lives matter, because it really resonated with me. this was a song i had worked on for a long time. i wanted to see allison russell play, because i'm a fan of hers, and i was listening to her sing, and i was like, oh my god, i have to ask her to do this song for me! just having her on it has meant a whole lot to me. it's very powerful for me to sing with her. i feel it in my whole being, because i know her life, and i know what she thinks about and how important for her it is for us to heal as a country.

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2023-03-22: shine's catchup with amy ray: the south, her new album, and brandi carlile - louisville public media

allison russell also recorded at another studio-she was in la rehearsing for the grammy's and shooter jennings overheard her talking on the phone with me about how to get the vocal done for the song, "tear it down"...he jumped in and emailed me, and told me he would make it happen....so he did and she sang a killer vocal.

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2024-01-15: roots rednecks and radicals podcast (amy ray)

will houk: yeah, that's interesting about the punk rock thing because when i was listening to tear it down, um, that's one of the thoughts that came to my mind. i was like, this is punk rock man. like this is taking on some hard, hard issues, you know. and i think that's awesome. so, yeah, so we can we talk about that song, that collaboration with allison russell one? she's fantastic. love her, love her voice, love her, her songwriting and all that. but um yeah, it's super introspective. it's a song about race relations in the south. and yeah. can you just tell us a little bit about that song?

amy ray: yeah. well, that song, i wrote that song actually during the pandemic when a lot of the demonstrations and protests were going on and i had gotten involved with a group called project say something out of uh florence alabama, which is uh by muscle shoals. and they were, they have a great group that was just had a history of working on dismantling racism and they were working on a specific issue around monuments at the courthouse in their little town. and i got hooked up to that, the activist that leads that group camille bennett through a friend of mine and went to, i had been going to like george floyd, you know, marches and stuff in atlanta and black lives matter things. and, and then i started following them because they were doing, you know, multiple days in a row of demonstrations and sit ins in this little town. and it was quite amazing the strategy they had. and so i started like, really, like following them and wrote this song really for them. and then we went to, emily and i went over to alabama to do one of their protests with them and ended up playing as well. and, that songs sort of kind of about them really. and i, and i put out a digital single of that with just me.

amy ray: and then when we were working on this record, which seven of these songs were brand new and they went to tape live to tape and then three of them had been songs we put out as a band during the pandemic that we did, you know, virtually together through emails and everybodys so studios and tear it down was one of them. but i wanted to rework it because i was on a panel with alison russell about racism and just listening to what she was saying and, and she played too and i was like, oh, man, i wanna have her sing this song. uh and do like a different version of it. so that's what happened is i just sent it to her and we're friends and, and i just said, you know, would you feel comfortable singing this? because some of it is, you know, from my perspective as a white southern kid growing up and sort of having like a romanticized, sort of love affair with the rebel, rebel sort of flag and all the symbolism. i was really into that when i was young because i had no idea, you know, what it was about and, and i had to really learn and i had to like, you know, pull myself away from that, you know, and, and kind of de demystify it in a way and, but she, you know, she, she's had a very interesting life and experience with actually in a family that's mixed race where she ended up being raised by people that were white nationalists. it's incredible, like her life. and so she was really perfect for this song. and, um, yeah, so i sent it to her and she was out in l.a. and just kind of made it work and done. and, uh, and then we, we put her vocal in there and transferred it back to tape and, you know, made a whole new mix and stuff. so i'm, i was really down and appreciated. i, i was down with her doing it. appreciated it so much.