For this week’s Easter Hymn I invited my man Adam to write the first ever guest post for the site. You should check out his site and follow him on the Twitter. There’s no official video for Walk Alone, but you can check a fan video here.
In the late 2000s The Roots crew took a turn from their usual upbeat and jovial tone to a more harsh and political one. Their 2006 and 2008 albums, Game Theory and Rising Down, were overflowing with criticism and frustration with the Bush administration, and the story their albums told became dark and angry.
But in 2010 they had somewhat of a resurrection – not a resurrection in the sense that their careers were dead and suddenly they were successful again, but more due to their musical sound. Last June, they released their aptly titled How I Got Over which brought back some of their older vibes, but kept their social justice driven mindset. The first three tracks on HIGO are the transition from dark to light; the dark feel is still somewhat present in the minor chords and soft brushed percussion, but the harsh political lyrics have begun to morph into curiosity, philosophy and theology.
This feeling of a “resurrection” is reinforced through the subject matter during these transitionary tunes. Track two is titled “Walk Alone”, and it begins the conversation on the other side of darkness. The song features verses from Truck North and P.O.R.N. and a chorus by Dice Raw, but it’s The Roots’ own front man, Black Thought, who brings it home in the third verse. It starts:
The longest walk I’ll probably ever be on
The Road to Perdition, guess I’m fin’ to get my plea on
I pray these wings strong enough to carry me on
I promise every second felt as if it took an eon
Walking like the lost boys of Sierra Leone
The trail of tears what they got me like a Cherokee on
Between the ears something I require therapy on
For working to the bone like my name Robert Guillaume
I go above and beyond, the duty called, truly y’all
Even though they kind of blew me off like a booty call
Asked me if I’m just another moolie or a movie star
Forced to face the music like a graduate of Juilliard
Walk alone, talk alone, get my Charlie Parker on
Make my mark alone, shed light upon the dark alone
Get my sparkle on, it’s a mission I’m embarking on
A kamikaze in the danger zone far from home
If How I Got Over is a resurrection for The Roots, then “Walk Alone” is their Good Friday. In Matthew 26, we find Jesus and his disciples at Gethsemane. Jesus is fully aware that Judas is about to show up and betray him into the hands of the Romans:
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while i go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
It is in Gethsemane that we hear Jesus singing Black Thought’s lyrics as he leaves his disciples behind to watch. His prayers to God are desperate. We are allowed a rare glimpse into Jesus’s humanity here. Jesus is praying for God to take his cup from him: I pray these wings strong enough to carry me on.
Never has there been or ever will be a more unjust execution. A man with no sin is about to be brutally beaten and marched to his death. In Black Thought’s lyrics we get images of child soldiers and displaced Native Americans as people unjustly forced to walk. But Jesus can relate:
Isaiah 53:7-8
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
We even get a glimpse into the triumphal entry. Jesus was just celebrated less than a week before – people thought he was the dude who would save them from the Romans – but now he’s about to be arrested and murdered for nothing. Comparing Jesus to a booty call? Sketchy territory here. But the concept is a valid one – treasured one day, tossed to the curb the next.
“Walk Alone” finishes with a nod to God’s plan: Jesus is on a kamikaze mission to shed light upon the darkness of the world. The Roots (knowingly or unknowingly) have mimicked the story of holy week in this verse. Jesus alone is the one who saves us from darkness. While the Roots are working their way out of the darkness themselves, they do so in the same way that God does it for the world: through the journey of Jesus Christ.
-apc.
