Lance Cowan
Dec 20, 2022
"Call This Done" From Acclaimed Artist Rees Shad
Is Examination Of Country's Divisions
GREAT BARRINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS – On January 6th, 2021, singer-songwriter luthier Rees Shad was handcrafting a new dreadnaught guitar: “I was working with Elm sides that just did not want to do my bidding and I was becoming increasingly irritated…I turned on the radio to distract myself.”
What he heard shocked him. His creativity shifted into another mode. The Capitol building was besieged and then President Trump remained silent. As he sat among the piles of wood shavings, disheartened with how low our country had fallen, Shad roused himself, sat at his grandfather’s piano, and did what musical artists do best: turn his thoughts and emotions into a song— “Call This Done.”
"The song is steeped in the sorrow that day produced in me," Shad explains. "I have a ton of very conservative and very liberal friends, and I feel our dialogues are open and productive in the way they allow us insight into each other’s views. I’m afraid, however, that most of our fellow citizens are unable to do the same, and this song was written as a cry for reason and change. "
Even if you don’t know the back story, the song is an eloquent examination of a relationship’s original intentions and its resulting failure. When you listen through a political lens, the disappointment and heartache engendered by January 6 come to the forefront. It’s nearly impossible to ignore the divided state of political discourse in our country today; a forum where, as the song says, people seem to be “just throwing accusations, rejecting basic decency as the world looks on ashamed.”
“Call This Done” appears on Shad’s newest release Tattletale.