By Douglas John Imbrogno | Chris Haddox is one of West Virginia’s finest singer-songwriters and live performers. I’ve had the pleasure of co-crafting music videos showcasing his smart, passionate, often unflinching tunes. Those words accurately describe his recently penned ‘History Will Never Celebrate You,’ which you can click to hear (and follow along to the lyrics) in the video above. It’s a bulls-eye pre-judgement from the historic record-to-be — about a wannabe autocrat, a best bud of dictators, and the most fascist-adjacent candidate in American presidential history.
From his official music website, below is more on Chris, his musical mojo, and the rich life he leads as a performer, professor, and community leader:
CHRIS HADDOX IS a Logan, West Virginia born and raised songwriter/singer/multi-instrumentalist, who is now based out of Morgantown, West Virginia. He writes and sings his voluminous collection of songs about (to quote him) “religion, firearms, courthouse squares, goats on trampolines, shoes, fiddles, and hurricanes”— whatever catches his eye. He deftly combines humor, sarcasm, and blunt honesty to create songs that are accessible and relatable to a wide variety of audiences. This stellar musician is also a community leader who has directed Habitat for Humanity and worked to preserve old neighborhoods, a West Virginia University professor of sustainable design, and an amateur musicologist who researches musicians from the southern coalfields of West Virginia.
Chris Haddox in a photo from his Facebook page
‘HISTORY WILL NEVER CELEBRATE YOU’ by CHRIS HADDOX
Well, you twist your face and you beat your chest
Trying to make the case that you're the best
That you don't need anybody else
That you can run the free world by yourself
It didn't take any fake news to tell
Who you were you showed your colors pretty well
With the hateful lines that singed across your gums
Everytime you came unhinged at the podium
CHORUS:
History will never celebrate you
Wait and see I guarantee it will third rate you
The truth can set you free but it constipates you
The only thing that that seems to satiate you
Is to surround yourself with those who will inflate you
Who dare not use their air to debate you
Ain’t no tower tall enough to elevate you
No, history will never celebrate you
You could teach a master class I have to say
On being crass and keeping cameras turned your way
On double talk and incoherency
On being thinned skinned as a man can be
Well, you dream of power absolute
But it's so out of tune that broken horn you toot
Like a braying ass you try to make a stand
Spraying tear gas with a bible in your hand
CHORUS:
History will never celebrate you
Wait and see I guarantee it will third rate you
The truth can set you free but it constipates you
The only thing that that seems to satiate you
Is to surround yourself with those who will inflate you
Who dare not use their air to debate you
Ain’t no tower tall enough to elevate you
No, history will never celebrate you
FOR MORE MUSIC by CHRIS HADDOX
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: www.chrishaddoxmusic.com
FACEBOOK MUSIC PAGE: www.facebook.com/WVSongwriter
MORE ELECTION SONGS No. 2: ‘Only Up (Election Day)’
Another leading West Virginia singer-songwriter, Paul N. Callicoat, adds to our harmonic election convergence with his inspiring ‘Only Up (Election Day)’ in EPISODE 9 of NotesBeforeYouVote. The tune is an antidote to election angst and a shout-out to what lies on the other side of all of us persevering, getting out the the vote, and taking things ‘only up from here’:
‘An election referendum is just around the bend, / And if we can upend them, we can start to heal again. '/ If we organize and rise and vow to persevere, / Then hope might spring eternal when it’s only up from here …’
AFTER VIEWING THE VIDEO, SEE THIS RELATED POST
MORE ELECTION SONGS No. 3: ‘Lighthouse’
We co-opted a great tune ‘Lighthouse’ by Stevie Nicks into our ‘Election Season Song Series.’ She delivered a riveting performance of it on ‘Saturday Night Live’ recently. The song never once mentions the election or the bellicose, orange-haired, aspiring autocrat at its heart, yet it is nothing less than a call-to-arms to get into the game. To stand for rights and power that you, we, and I thought we had locked in. As she sings in the clip at the link below:
I have my scars, you have yours / Don't let them take your power / Don't leave it alone in the final hours …
AFTER VIEWING THE VIDEO, SEE THIS RELATED POST
PAST EPISODES
Click the image below or go to our homepage for prior episodes of ‘NotesBeforeYouVote’ as this most crucial election in American history comes down to the wire. You’ll find lots of inspiration and argumentation for sweeping Donald Trump into history’s dustbin. Or as Chris Haddox observes harmonically above:
‘History will never celebrate you
Wait and see I guarantee it will third rate you’
ELECTION SEASON SONGS: 'History Will Never Celebrate You'