The Killers on Monday released a song about America’s struggle with issues like racial discrimination, mass shootings, and immigration.
“Land Of The Free” comes with a powerful video, directed by Spike Lee, that focuses on migrant families making their way to the U.S. southern border in search of a better life.
“We dishonour our values, our ancestors and our heritage when we tear gas our brothers and sisters seeking asylum,” frontman Brandon Flowers wrote on social media. “I see my family in the faces of these vulnerable people.
“After all, it wasn’t that long ago that my grandmother and her family immigrated from Lithuania to escape the U.S.S.R’s oppression. They chose to leave everything they knew behind to come to America, and work gruelling jobs in dangerous coal mines, rather than endure tyranny at home.”
Flowers explained that the roots of “Land Of The Free” go back to the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School – but the lyrics were also inspired by more recent social issues in America.
He sings about race (“When I go out in my car, I don’t think twice / but if you’re the wrong colour skin you grow up looking over both of your shoulders”); mass incarcerations (“We’ve got more people locked up than the rest of the world”) and gun violence (“Tell me how many sons do we have to put in the ground / Before we ... face it: We’ve got a problem with guns”).
Of course, Flowers also mentions the current debate over immigration.
“Down at the border they’re going to put up a wall / Concrete and rebar steel beams / high enough to keep all those filthy hands off of our hopes and dreams,” he sings. “People who just want the same things we do / in the land of the free.”
In his social media post, Flowers acknowledged the issues around immigration are complicated – “but whether you stand to the left, right, or straddle the line, you’ve gotta believe that we can do better.”
Watch “Land of the Free” below: