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The Painful Truth

from The Painful Truth by Fold

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“Truth is an endangered space” is the phrase that opens Fold’s latest piece, once again voiced by the late bell hooks and in tribute to her. Using these delicately paced statements by hooks The Painful Truth reflects today’s society in which people’s “deep longing to avoid conflict” along with their fears are being increasingly manipulated by powerful interests to stifle dissenting voices. Yet there is hope because, as bell hooks emphasises, “people are really hungry for truth.”

That sense of hope is brought to life by a beautifully cinematic, jazz-funk soundscape with horn arrangements by long-time Fold collaborator Emma Johnson.

“We are continually amazed by the prescience & brilliance of bell hooks’ observations. With each new discovery we feel her loss more keenly. Like me bell hooks was also a New Yorker. She was a professor at CUNY where my father taught for most of his career. This piece uses excerpts from a 2002 interview that triggers memories for me of how it felt to live in post-911 New York and more broadly the USA. The environment was stifling; dissident voices were ruthlessly oppressed. Many powerful forces took full advantage of the hurt and fear that people were experiencing. What bell hooks observed at that time was the beginning of a trend that has only increased since. We are now very much, as she puts it, ‘in danger of silencing any form of speech that goes against what is perceived to be the status quo.’ This is the perspective that we want to amplify right now.“
— Fold

lyrics

Truth
Is an endangered space
Truth
Is associated with the painful
That should not be spoken

And it becomes hard to get people to value
Speaking freely

Dissident speech
The painful truth
That will to silence is growing
But I see the hope
People are really hungry
For truth
Hungry
For truth

We are in danger
Of silencing
Any form of speech
That goes against
What is perceived to be
The status quo

Truth
Is an endangered space

People are hungry for
Provocative voices
That go to the heart of the matter
Because they want answers
To the things that they are
In crisis about

Dissident speech
The painful truth
Is not valued in our nation
But I see the hope
People are really hungry
For truth
Hungry
For truth

The hope that I feel
Within my own self
And with other people
Is that hunger for truth
And for ways to live our lives
More fully

Dissident speech
The painful truth
There are things we have to say
That will be wounding
But I believe in
The outrageous pursuit of hope
A society that is full of promise
And possibility
People are really hungry
For truth
Hungry
For truth

And its that hunger
That keeps a place
For the dissenting voice
That keeps the place for speaking freely

credits

from The Painful Truth, released May 26, 2023
Written, produced, mixed & mastered by Seth Mowshowitz
Words by bell hooks (Rest In Power), edited by Seth Mowshowitz
Performed by Fold with help from…

Horn arrangements: Emma Johnson
Saxophone: Emma Johnson
Trumpet: Aaron Wood

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Fold Leeds, UK

Leeds UK group amplifying humanitarian perspectives & critical reflections on today’s world.

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