“Arms bound by a flag, eyes sewn together, mouth wired shut.”

The composer, August Murphy-King, is my son and growing up we always talked politics over dinner. My late husband believed that the personal was political and the political was personal so those discussions were always part of the meal.

In the summer of 2018 Trump was the American president. He was a weak strongman but had enough support in the White House to kick over essential democratic elements like voting. Voter suppression through gerrymandering was rampant. But it wasn’t just in America, there were many other dangers to democracy going on at that time in so-called ‘elected’ governments like Poland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Italy and Hungary.

The banner on the Washington Post is ‘Democracy dies in darkness’. August and I talked about the notion of democracy dying...and since democracy is a concept that can only stay alive though people’s actions, we decided to treat democracy like a person. We wanted this piece to be both a protest and a call to arms. The first part is about vote or else voting dies, protest or else protesting dies...and the second part is a demand that comes from people who have now decided to take action.

August’s music completely captured and expressed the sense of solemnity that evolves into demanding urgency.

- Colleen Murphy