13th Floor New Song Of The Day: Mavis Staples – If All I Was Was Black

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Here at the 13th Floor, we believe that when Mavis Staples has something to say, you should listen. 

The 78-year-old force of nature has just released a new song, produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. If All I Was Was Black is the title track to her new album, due out on November 17th and inspired by the current political climate in America.

Here’s the record company blurb:

If All I Was Was Black is Mavis‘ third collaboration with songwriter and producer (and Wilco frontman) Jeff Tweedy. Their first partnership in 2010, You Are Not Alone, won a Grammy Award for Best Americana album. Their second effort together, One True Vine, was a Grammy nominee. But If All I Was Was Black marks the first time Tweedy has composed an entire album of original songs for Mavis’ legendary voice and a nation she’s uniquely poised to address.

In the wake of the current race-baiting and rhetoric of exclusion appearing not just on the streets, but issuing from statehouses and even the White House, Mavis and Tweedy found themselves completely in sync and wanting to say something about the fissures dividing the country. “We’re not loving one another the way we should,” Mavis confided, as if sharing the secret to happiness, or something better. “Some people are saying they want to make the world great again, but we never lost our greatness. We just strayed into division.”

Explaining why he decided to tackle the state of the union, Tweedy said, “I’ve always thought of art as a political statement in and of itself—that it was enough to be on the side of creation and not destruction. But there is something that feels complicit at this moment in time about not facing what is happening in this country head on.”

The lyrics are occasionally shot through with anger.  “I have a mind to bury them whole, when they go low,” Mavis sings on We Go High. “There’s evil in the world, and there’s evil in me” opens the first verse of “Try Harder.” “Oh, they lie, and they show no shame” adds a harsh undercurrent to Who Told You That, an anthem against accepting the status quo. Unsettling musical elements wind their way through the record, too, from the abrasive guitar distortion of Try Harder to a descending bass line that signals danger on Little Bit.

Despite all this, the mood ring on Mavis‘ 2017 outing is set to love, which runs through and over the fury and despair. The songs move less like a hammer and more like the tide, with Mavis countering the anger with an eye toward the work that is required to bring change. She is singing the world as it is, but also a way forward. Mavis is sure that the answer is to lift each other up. She’s not embracing the anxious hesitation of respectability politics but the possibilities of love.

IF ALL I WAS WAS BLACK TRACK LISTING:

01. Little Bit
02. If All I Was Was Black
03. Who Told You That
04. Ain’t No Doubt About it (feat. Jeff Tweedy)
05. Peaceful Dream
06. No Time For Crying
07. Build A Bridge
08. We Go High
09. Try Harder
10. All Over Again

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