Iris DeMent: “I Hope These Songs Go Out and Help People”

metroweekly.com:

Workin’ On a World, released earlier this year. “The world I took for granted, was crashing to the ground,” she sings in the defiantly upbeat title track. “And I realized I might not live long enough / To ever see it turn around.”The song evolves into a call to action, advocating making changes now for the good of generations to come.“I’m joinin’ forces with thе warriors of love, who came beforе and will follow you and me,” goes the chorus. “I get up in the mornin’ knowing I’m privileged just to be workin’ on a world I may never see.”The new album, DeMent’s seventh, features 13 exquisite tracks that take the listener on a powerful journey.

It evokes the folk icons of the sixties, such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger, whose calls for social change were baked into their songwriting.“With this record more than any record I’ve ever had, I felt an intense need to clarify where I stood on things as an act of love, to have solidarity with so many people that continue to be under attack,” says DeMent of Workin’ On a World. “I didn’t feel like it was optional for me to not make it really clear, with the microphone that I have, who I was standing with.“I’ve always said this, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart,” she continues, discernable humility in her voice, “but I hope these songs go out and help people.

We need a lot of help right now. We need encouragement. We need something to make us dance, or something to make us sing, and something to make us resist and fight and carry on.

And I really, really hope that I’ve accomplished that with this album.”An ally of the LGBTQ community, DeMent admits it wasn’t until she left behind her Pentecostal roots that the world opened up to her.“I was so naive [growing up],” she.