All Is Well That Ends...Well

“All Is Well That Ends...Well” is one of the last songs I wrote for my MaxQ song cycle – only “The Great Divide” came later.

As I consider humanity’s current situation, one of biggest impediments I see standing in the way of our surviving and thriving as a species is our history of permitting ourselves to be divided on the fulcrums of racial and tribal identity. To complete the MaxQ cycle I felt I needed a song addressing this constellation of issues.

Here in the USA in October of 2020 we were still very much in the midst of the epic political turmoil presided over by Donald Trump, and also very much still in the midst of a reality where people of color in the USA have a very different standing than the rest of us in the eyes of many institutions, including law enforcement.

So what was my song? I knew there was a big song to be found. I could smell it, just not touch it yet.

Over the course of 2020 I had heard mention of a book, Caste, by Isabella Wilkerson. My wife may have mentioned it. Where else? NPR? Political blogs? Eventually I heard it discussed by Jeff Daniels on David Axelrod’s podcast.

I bought and read the book. Whether or not you and I buy all of Ms. Wilkerson’s framing, we Americans need to grapple with the history and issues raised in this book, which talks about race and caste in America, as contrasted with India and Nazi Germany.

It’s not a comfortable read. Yet this difficult topic was at the heart of the song I needed to find. Where to start? I didn’t want to go in calling people names - hey, you ugly racists...!

Then one night I got the start “When the aliens arrived...” and that was it. I wrote the words first, top to bottom, all at once . Then I rewrote the lyric a lot. Over and over. I remember standing 100 feet from a polling station in Ann Arbor on November 3, rewriting as I handed out voter guide cards.

Eventually it got done. I recorded this version at the end of December, 2020.

I’ve had a couple of people really like this song a lot. I must have done something right. I hope you like it.

All Is Well That Ends Well

When the Aliens arrived they tried to break us

Divide and conquer

They played favorites from the start

They sorted us by color

Gave prizes to the chosen

They saw their chance for supper

If we were torn apart

And the sad thing is it worked for awhile

Cuz they dressed up just like us

And it wasn’t all that hard

To find a few lost souls

To sell our species - and our planet

To the goons from outer space

All Is Well That Ends...

Well – lots of folks got hurt along the way

All Is Well That Ends...

Well – things like this never really end

Do they?

It couldn’t last

Because even though we’re stupid

We human beings are also quite astute

And given time to wonder eventually we noticed

The shiny telltale zippers

On their handsome human suits

And though they smiled as they slathered on the Bar-B-Q

A few of us suspected something wrong

And as they cracked our bones

And sucked the marrow

Into their alien maws

We realized they probably weren’t our friends

We objected

We complained

We got angry

We did what we had to do

All Is Well That Ends...

Well – there’s Bar-B-Q and bones down in the den

All Is Well That Ends

Well – I don’t think we should trust that crowd again

Do you?