The title of the song refers a common sensation I’ve been having throughout this pandemic. There is the constant wave back and forth between rage and despair. The crying jags leave me immobile on the couch. The rage is the righteous rage that demands justice. It’s what gets me up off the couch and able to move forward at all. I believe that a majority of our population right now is feeling something similar – the widespread protests all across our country and even in global solidarity seem to indicate that we are witnessing how the pandemic has exposed a vast assortment of injustices, from the continued police brutality against black and brown folks, to the vast economic inequalities being exacerbated by the pandemic, to the absurdity of deciding which jobs are essential and then not offering hazard pay or even protective equipment, to the grotesque ways the wealthiest Americans somehow made profits during the pandemic while the unemployment numbers rose to unprecedented heights. And we were supposed to be content with a measly $1200 “stimulus check.” All other industrialized nations managed to pay workers a monthly salary during the shutdown. How else do we really have the “choice” or the “freedom” to choose to stay home and stay safe or whether to go to work. When the choice is paying rent or buying food or waiting three months to be evicted, there doesn’t seem to be much of a choice. The lyrics for this song came to me right after around May 15th when the right wing gun-toting protestors descended on our state capitol to demand we re-open the economy so they can get haircuts and pedicures. Somehow, these angry citizens were not treated with the same brutality the Black Lives Matter protestors were treated a mere weeks afterward. Is it because the cops are afraid of white people with guns? Gee, I wonder if this is why the FBI didn’t want the Black Panther Party of Self-defense to have guns back in the 1960s and 70s. At the time, the death rate in the US was 50,000. We considered changing the lyrics to reflect the current numbers at the time of the song’s release, but we realized, we have no idea when the numbers are going to go down so we may as well let these numbers reflect the May 15 reality. As of July 12th, the deaths in the US due to COVID-19 are already over 130,000. That’s more than twice the number of US soldiers who died in the Vietnam War and more than the number of soldiers who died in World War I. As of the writing of these liner notes, my mother’s care facility has reported that a patient has contracted the virus. So now we wait. Here in that space between rage and despair.