Citizens of the United States: It’s Election Day and your vote is needed. If you are one of the millions of Americans who already early voted, thank you. Everyone else, get to the polls and let your voice be heard. This is an updated playlist originally created for the 2018 midterm election. The songs here reflect our anxiety and nervousness from that election and the steps needed to change the course of history before it’s too late. Our work is never done. Get involved and vote like your life depends on it.

Songs for this playlist were culled from decades of artists speaking out for and against certain beliefs, ideologies, and principles. A new addition to the playlist is R.E.M.‘s “I Believe” from the 1986 album Lifes Rich Pageant. The new lyric video was released specifically to raise awareness of the need to state your beliefs in the voting booth. The band sings, “Trust in your calling, make sure your calling’s true / Think of others, the others think of you,” with Stipe beseeching fans to show compassion, look out for their people, and vote (writer’s embellishment on that last one). 

Kansas City’s father-daughter duo Bob and Una Walkenhorst recorded a terrific ode to voters in 2018 titled “Get On the Bus,” a plea for voters to arrive at the polls by any means necessary (“If last time you voted in hate, come on down / Open your heart it’s not too late, come on down”). Two songs specifically included for each candidate are “KAMALA (it’s not a matter of if)” by Big Freedia and the Living Colour classic “Cult of Personality.” A couple of dead ringers.

The Drive-By Truckers‘ “What It Means” delves into America’s gun problem. In a strained and emotional voice, Patterson Hood sings, “And if you say it wasn’t racial / When they shot him in his tracks / Well, I guess that means that you ain’t black / It means that you ain’t black.” New release “We The People” by Colin Hay and Derrick ‘SolPowa’ Rice deserves instant entry into the voting playlist hall of fame.

“Hope the High Road,” one of three Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit songs here, challenges us to take the high road in a world of political arguing and mudslinging. “But I ain’t fighting with you down in a ditch / I’ll meet you up here on the road.” These are but a few of nearly three dozen songs which seem ultimately tied to our right to vote. Let’s hope for an early night and good results. The whole world’s watching. Let the healing begin.

#Vote