July 2020: Stand Steady

Alex Sturbaum

This song was written in support of our friends working in health care and other essential fields during the COVID-19 pandemic, who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe and healthy while being denied everything from basic protective equipment to hazard pay. We wanted to send support to our friends on the front lines, express outrage and frustration that they have been put in such an impossible situation, and hope for the day that we can welcome them back safely.

This song is also a call to action for those of us who are still financially secure – please check out the fundraiser mentioned at the end of the video, with clickable links available through the video on YouTube and Facebook.

Listen to Alex Sturbaum and friends sing “Stand Steady:”

Lyrics

It’s peel off your scrubs, stumble in through the door
Step into the shower and scrub yourself raw
It’s in at eleven, it’s back out at four
For there’s work to be done for the living
Ye who toil on the border between life and death
You’re fighting for those who are fighting for breath
It’s a battle that takes until little is left
And it’s fearful and seldom forgiving

Stand steady, my friends, in the darkest of times
Our love will go with you as you hold the line
When the hardship is past, we as one will entwine
And we’ll dance to a better world coming

Behind gloves, behind masks, there’s a courage that dwells
When you head off to work in a world gone to hell
Do the job you were trained for, and do it as well
As you can with the tools you’ve been given
Politicians and ministers promise to serve
And to give us relief that we need and deserve
If any among them had half of your nerve
They’d have done more and done it unbidden

Stand steady, my friends, in the darkest of times
Our love will go with you as you hold the line
When the hardship is past, we as one will entwine
And we’ll dance to a better world coming

So hold on to hope through exhaustion and fear
And we’ll go safe to ground till you give the all clear
And when this is all over we still will be here
In the bright shining light of the morning
When the bars are back open, we’ll buy you a round
Lift our voices in song, raise the roof with the sound
And we’ll join hands and dance till our feet shake the ground
To welcome the heroes returning

So stand steady, my friends, in the darkest of times
Our love will go with you as you hold the line
When the hardship is past, we as one will entwine
And we’ll dance to a better world coming
Stand steady, my friends, in the darkest of times
Our love will go with you as you hold the line
When the hardship is past, we as one will entwine
And we’ll dance to a better world coming
I know there’s a better world coming

Alex Sturbaum is a songwriter and contra dance musician living in Seattle, WA. They perform with the bands Countercurrent, The Waxwings, and Gallimaufry, and produce the Vashon Sessions. Their second solo album, Loomings, comes out this month.