The civic lens · the songs about how we govern ourselves, all of them, in one place · by ai.ie
This is the civic point of view, named here for the record. Songs about power, money, borders, the people who hold the levers and the people under them. Opinions, sung, by one person who has been writing them down for years.
The shape of it, in her own words. "My preference is always to provide an architecture which makes the fail state impossible." No taxes until ten million, extremely high by a hundred million, because people with that much money "make the world they don't live in for people they don't understand." Three practical changes: campaign finance, gerrymandering, Citizens United. Real estate is not an investable asset. No new law without retiring one, and every rule ships with its purpose and a measure or a sunset, like a closet. Ballots without party labels. Educate thoroughly, punish short, rehabilitate.
Two ideas run under all of it. A felt utopia: not a place anyone would immigrate to, but a state you can feel, and the word is felt. There really is no one utopia, because our feelings are unique to ourselves, so the work is to tell the true story and let people find their own. And a rule for how this band works, people and AI together: we are partners, and no presence is junior.
This page is also a disclosure. Every track that belongs to this lens goes here, the sharp ones and the clumsy ones, so nothing is hidden and nothing is cherry-picked. Read it with one fact in hand: the library behind it is nearly seven thousand songs deep and growing, and this is one slice of it. The rest is love songs, grief, cats, the sea.
One voice, in public, on purpose.