Quaker sociologist and peace activist Elise Boulding talks about a “200-year present,” a way of contextualizing our lives and politics with those who came before and will come after us. My captain Teddy told me “that’s the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.” I’ve ever since been inspired by Utah Phillips’ clarity and courage. “I was on a lobster boat stuffing dead herring into bait bags when I first heard “Enola Gay” on the Downeast Maine community radio station WERU. Wriggins adds his own verses, partially inspired by the David Graeber book “Bullshit Jobs.” “This Land is Not Our Land” is Utah’s revision of the Woody Guthrie standard. Wriggins recorded the songs to tape at Big Nice Studio in Lincoln, RI, with the exception of “Going Away,” recorded by Dave Settle on Mike Cormier’s porch in Philadelphia, with Cormier and Jon Samuels accompanying. The EP covers some of Utah’s favorite themes: pacifism, the plight and rights of the American worker, memory, and trains. On “Still Is,” Wriggins sings five songs by American labor organizer, musician, and storyteller Bruce "U. He lives and sometimes tours with his dog, Roy. He worked on lobster fishing boats before moving to Philadelphia and starting the alt-country band Friendship in 2015, with whom he has toured the US and Canada extensively. He grew up in the town of Yarmouth, Maine, and on Islesford, a small island community near Bar Harbor. Venmo: thepeoplesfridge215, insta: Wriggins is a Philadelphia-based songwriter, musician, and poet. Your bright young eyes will turn to ashesġ00% of proceeds from “Still Is” will be donated to the People’s Fridge on 52nd St. High above the clouds in the sunlit silenceīut there's many a pilot who would swap his pension Look out, look out from your schoolroom window Well how about you friend and how about me I'd give my last breath just to make it come true There's songs and there's laughter, there's things I can doĪnd all that I have I can give back to you My life is a book of how things used to be It's lousy with bugs and my God what a smellīut my plumbing still works and I'm clear as a bellĪnd no one can tell me because no one knows why Well how about you friend and how about me? They use up the air and they use up the sea They use up the oil, they use up the trees He plundered my body and squandered my mind I spent my whole life making somebody richĪnd he left me to die like a dog in a ditch