"Witness," the title track from Benjamin Booker's second LP, was a remarkable statement for this chilling time. The gospel-heavy track featured Mavis Staples on its chorus, asking, "Am I gonna be a witness? / Just gonna be a witness?" In his essay accompanying the track, he drew from the Bible before quoting James Baldwin: "No society can smash the social contract and be exempt from the consequences, and the consequences are chaos for everybody in the society." So Booker settled on two questions that he wanted his art to ask: "'Am I going to be a Witness?' and in today's world, 'Is that enough?'"Where "Witness" asked its questions through rich church harmonies, "Right on You," the album's second single, released this morning, is more direct. It's an urgent track that calls on Thin Lizzy and The Buzzcocks, even catchier than Benjamin Booker cuts like "Violent Shiver" and "Have You Seen My Son." By the time it's snapped out of it's feedback intro, there's less than two minutes for Booker to get his lines across "So I start selfish on my own / I'll be damned if I don't get what I want." The Fader reports that "Right On You" will open Witness; it's not hard to see why.Listen to the track above.Follow Noisey on Twitter.
Advertisement