Click here to watch The Dirty Clergy’s new music video “Born To Lose” via American Songwriter.
The Dirty Clergy Are “Homesick” For An America They’ve Never Known
By Matt Wallock
Today–just days after it was reported that March 2020 marked the first March without a school shooting in the United States since 2002–Alabama indie rock trio The Dirty Clergy share a harrowing new cut that was written in the wake of the single deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.
“‘Homesick’ was written after the Parkland school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School,” Dirty Clergy’s singer, songwriter, and guitarist Brian Manasco tells American Songwriter of the track, which premieres below with a bone-chilling video. “I believe we, as a country, are better than this. It is a shame that students can’t get an education without the thought of this happening. It is also a shame that this has almost been normalized–they practice drills for this kind of thing. Nothing should be off the table to prevent these acts from occurring.”
Musically, “Homesick” is a soaring synth-rock number that unfurls in slow motion. What begins as a mournful remembrance of the Parkland shooting eventually transforms into something devastatingly universal.
“When they told seventeen dead / Nothing left that can be said / Broadcast news and cigarettes / You close your eyes and turn your head,” Manasco sings in an early verse before turning his attention to the politicians who’ve opposed gun safety legislation: “Send your thoughts and send your prayers / No action means that you don’t care.”
