Journey back to the American South of the 1930s. This album shares the powerful, honest stories of working people, capturing their lives, struggles, and hopes in every note.

Empty Pocket Blues

Juke Joint Stomp

Woman Don't Treat Me Right

The album closer reimagines the classic 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike song "Bread and Roses" for 2025, honoring the tradition while updating for intersectional struggles. WikipediaWMNF Opens with solo acoustic guitar and voice, traditional folk style, singing the original verse about hearts starving as bodies starve, about beauty and art being necessities not luxuries. "Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses."
But then each verse adds a contemporary struggle: Trans people demanding not just survival but joy and celebration (gender splendor for everyone); disabled people demanding not just accessibility but full participation in society; reproductive justice meaning not just legal abortion but comprehensive care, childcare, paid leave; workers demanding not just living wages but dignity, democracy, and control over their labor; housing justice meaning not just shelter but community, culture, and homes that don't displace; immigrants demanding not just legal status but belonging and freedom from persecution.
Each verse builds instrumentally—first bass, then drums, then electric guitar—until the final chorus is a massive, soaring anthem with all the themes united: "We're fighting for our bread, our roses too / Trans liberation and reproductive rights / Labor unions and a place to live / Disability justice, immigrant freedom / All of it together, all of us alive / This is our time, this is our fight."

Bread and Roses (2025)

Based on the Daimler Truck workers chanting "tick tock" as their contract deadline approached, and the Boeing strike of 33,000 machinists who voted down the first contract offer by 95%. labornotes Heavy, mechanical beat mimics factory sounds. Verses tell stories of workers forced to work weekends despite record profits, automation threatening jobs, executives making 300 times what workers earn. Chorus is the relentless "tick tock" chant building in intensity. References the ILA dockworkers' first strike since 1977, the 53-day Boeing action, AT&T's 36-day strike. Bridge features actual union slogans: "On strike, shut 'em down, this is a union town!" Celebrates the 271,500 workers who struck in 2024 Economic Policy Institute and the 77% of young workers who approve of unions.

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

Takes its title from actual 2024-2025 housing justice slogans. Opens with the April 2025 Housing NOW! protests where activists wrapped city halls in red tape. National Coalition for the Homeless Verses expose private equity landlords: Greystar buying 8,500 apartments and jacking up rent 36% while cutting security and maintenance; ProPublica Blackstone raising rents 31.5% in Phoenix; Private Equity Stakeholder Project Cleveland where private equity purchases jumped from 7.2% to 21.1%. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Contrasts Spain's hundreds of thousands marching for housing rights Al Jazeera with America's reality where the top 10% own 67% of wealth while the bottom 50% own 2.5%.
Chorus: "Housing over handcuffs, homes over greed / It's a human right, not a luxury / From DC to Nashville, San Francisco Bay / They're pricing us out, but we're here to stay." References the Poor People's Campaign organizing 140 million poor and low-income people. Poor People's Campaign Bridge is spoken-word from a tenant forced out: "I felt like I was forced out the door." ProPublica Ends with chant: "Whose city? OUR city!"

Housing Over Handcuffs

Raging against wealth inequality. Opens with the statistic: The world is on track for 5 trillionaires within a decade while 733 million people lack sufficient calories globally. Verses detail the obscenity: Billionaire wealth grew $2 trillion in 2024 ($5.7 billion per day), Wall Street bonuses hit $47.5 billion, the top 10% own 67% of wealth while the bottom 50% own 2.5%. Oxfam GBWorld Socialist Web Site Meanwhile, 13.4% of children live in poverty, child poverty more than doubled after the expanded Child Tax Credit expired, Black children experience poverty at three times the rate of white children. Firstfocus
Heavy, aggressive rap verses with screamed chorus: "FIVE TRILLIONAIRES! While we can't pay rent! / FIVE TRILLIONAIRES! Our wages ain't been spent! / From the bottom to the top, there's a class war / And they're winning it while we're dying poor!" References the June 2024 Kenya protests where youth rose up against tax bills targeting the poorest; Bangladesh where 400+ students were killed protesting job quotas. Human Rights Watch Bridge lists the names: Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg—and asks "What do we do with the enemies of humanity?" Leaves the question hanging ominously.

Five Trillionaires

Opens the album with the GLAAD statistic: 932 anti-LGBTQ incidents in one year, 2.5 per day. But the song expands to show this is part of a larger pattern—575 anti-LGBTQ bills, aclu 27 states banning gender-affirming care, aclu 13.4% of children in poverty, Firstfocus 271,500 workers on strike. The chorus chants: "An injury to one is an injury to all / They're coming for us, they're coming for all / No left and right, just have and have not / 932 days till we tear this whole thing apart." References the Gender Liberation March linking trans rights and abortion rights, the intersectionality between all struggles. The 19th News Sets the urgent, angry, but hopeful tone.

932 Days

Even on the dirt road, the bills find you.

This ain't your granddaddy's country song. It's a blue-collar anthem for the modern grind, blending down-home acoustic storytelling with a hard-hitting hip-hop beat. "Life is a Subscription" is about working hard from sunup to sundown just to pay the man.

Crank it up in the pickup and let the bass drop.

Lifes a Subscription  - Payment Due

This isn't just a song. It's a story for everyone who's ever felt invisible.
It starts with a restaurant bill. A tapped pencil. A "calculated kindness" that's really just a cruel, heartless joke.
"Keep Running" is a raw, defiant anthem for anyone who's ever seen the worry in someone else's eyes and recognized it as their own. It's for the "fellow runners" in this brutal masquerade, the ones who know what it's like to have a ghost following them for years.
This world will try to break you down to the bone. Don't let it.
This is our anthem. If you feel this, you are not alone.
Share this. Let them know we see them.

"The cheapest thing at this whole table... is the judgment in your hand."
"Keep Running" is a song born from a moment of quiet, brutal observation. It contrasts the cold arithmetic of a privileged worldview with the raw, daily struggle of those just trying to stand.
Set against a driving, relentless rhythm, the song captures the desperate, hopeful energy of its chorus. It's a story of two runners—one seen (the waitress with worn-out shoes) and one unseen (the narrator)—both haunted by the "same damn ghost" of poverty and perseverance.
This is a modern folk-rock anthem for the unseen, the empathetic, and the resilient. It's a song for anyone who believes that true strength isn't found in what you save, but in your ability to see the humanity in others.
Words & Music by Russell Nomer. Copyright Russell Nomer October 18, 2025 All Rights Reserved ASCAP Work ID#932881933 ISRC#QT5AM2581933


Keep Running

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New tracks tagged #Workingclass