Filmmaker Spike Lee spent a few weeks in 2018 documenting migrants' experiences at the U.S.-Mexico border for The Killers' "Land of the Free" music video, over which he reportedly was given full creative control. (Photo: YouTube/screenshot)
Jan 14, 2019
In a powerful indictment of cruelty across the United States, The Killers' new song "Land of the Free"--released Monday with a devastating music video directed by Spike Lee--decries President Donald Trump's proposed border wall, the dehumanization and abuse of asylum-seekers, mass incarceration, institutional racism, and the nation's refusal to address the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence.
Watch:
Taking on Trump's widely denounced immigration policies, frontman Brandon Flowers sings:
Down at the border, they're gonna put up a wall
Concrete and rebar steel beams (I'm standing, crying)
High enough to keep all those filthy hands off
Of our hopes and our dreams (I'm standing, crying)
People who just want the same things we do
In the land of the free
"Incarceration's become big business," he notes, "And we got more people locked up than the rest of the world." Written partly in response to mass shootings that have become all too common in this country, he asks, "So how many daughters, tell me, how many sons, do we have to have to put in the ground, before we just break down and face it: We got a problem with guns?"
In a message posted to Facebook, Flowers recalls how his grandmother and her family fled to U.S. "from Lithuania to escape the USSR's oppression," opting to work "in dangerous coal mines, rather than endure tyranny at home." Condemning "too many examples of racial injustice to ignore," including the tear-gassing of migrants at the border, he concludes: "I see my family in the faces of these vulnerable people... you've gotta believe that we can do better."
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In a powerful indictment of cruelty across the United States, The Killers' new song "Land of the Free"--released Monday with a devastating music video directed by Spike Lee--decries President Donald Trump's proposed border wall, the dehumanization and abuse of asylum-seekers, mass incarceration, institutional racism, and the nation's refusal to address the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence.
Watch:
Taking on Trump's widely denounced immigration policies, frontman Brandon Flowers sings:
Down at the border, they're gonna put up a wall
Concrete and rebar steel beams (I'm standing, crying)
High enough to keep all those filthy hands off
Of our hopes and our dreams (I'm standing, crying)
People who just want the same things we do
In the land of the free
"Incarceration's become big business," he notes, "And we got more people locked up than the rest of the world." Written partly in response to mass shootings that have become all too common in this country, he asks, "So how many daughters, tell me, how many sons, do we have to have to put in the ground, before we just break down and face it: We got a problem with guns?"
In a message posted to Facebook, Flowers recalls how his grandmother and her family fled to U.S. "from Lithuania to escape the USSR's oppression," opting to work "in dangerous coal mines, rather than endure tyranny at home." Condemning "too many examples of racial injustice to ignore," including the tear-gassing of migrants at the border, he concludes: "I see my family in the faces of these vulnerable people... you've gotta believe that we can do better."
In a powerful indictment of cruelty across the United States, The Killers' new song "Land of the Free"--released Monday with a devastating music video directed by Spike Lee--decries President Donald Trump's proposed border wall, the dehumanization and abuse of asylum-seekers, mass incarceration, institutional racism, and the nation's refusal to address the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence.
Watch:
Taking on Trump's widely denounced immigration policies, frontman Brandon Flowers sings:
Down at the border, they're gonna put up a wall
Concrete and rebar steel beams (I'm standing, crying)
High enough to keep all those filthy hands off
Of our hopes and our dreams (I'm standing, crying)
People who just want the same things we do
In the land of the free
"Incarceration's become big business," he notes, "And we got more people locked up than the rest of the world." Written partly in response to mass shootings that have become all too common in this country, he asks, "So how many daughters, tell me, how many sons, do we have to have to put in the ground, before we just break down and face it: We got a problem with guns?"
In a message posted to Facebook, Flowers recalls how his grandmother and her family fled to U.S. "from Lithuania to escape the USSR's oppression," opting to work "in dangerous coal mines, rather than endure tyranny at home." Condemning "too many examples of racial injustice to ignore," including the tear-gassing of migrants at the border, he concludes: "I see my family in the faces of these vulnerable people... you've gotta believe that we can do better."
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