The story behind: The song 'The Power To Change' by the Black and White Years

The Story Behind the Song

'The Power to Change' by Black and White Years, from the band's self-titled 2008 debut

Scott Butler: I wrote 'Power to Change' no less than four years ago, perhaps more. I recorded it initially at nearly half the tempo in the upstairs bedroom at my parents' house. I was listening to a lot of Spoon at the time, so it had that vibe. Years later, when the Black and White Years were learning the song, I decided the do some re-thinking of the lyrics. I had just read 'The Story of B' by Daniel Quinn, so the ideas discussed in the book became the subject of the chorus. Basically, that humans aren't intrinsically flawed; it's just our culture that is. Our culture which has, since the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago, attempted to claim and control its environment and place humankind outside and above the natural order. It's a concept both terrifying and comforting.

I was raised to believe that humans were sinful, greedy things that just naturally did horrible things to each other and that only religion (and hefty amounts of it) could keep us from being evil, spiteful beings. So, as frightening as it was to see how quickly, thoroughly and thoughtlessly our culture has nearly destroyed the world, it was nice to know that nothing's wrong with humans in general, just our system. Because I have no way of attempting to change that system, I did the only thing I could do, which is write a song about it. Thus, 'Power to Change' was born.

The way our band makes music is perhaps different from how other bands do things. I write the words, the chords and the basic structure of the song, and then the band makes it all sound proper as they add their own elements.

John (Aldridge) adds his fantastic (and intricate) bass lines, and Landon (Thompson) plays things on the guitar that I would, first of all, never think of and, second of all, never be able to play. The drums were mostly all drum machine. 'Power to Change' was not one of those rare songs (in our case) that just pops out and sounds great, something that we learn in no time and play it right straight out of the gate. The version people hear on the radio, the version on our album, is the fourth recorded version of that song. To be honest, I'm glad it's done and we don't have to mess with it anymore. It's one of those songs that you can work on and work on endlessly, and it's only ever finished when you finally say, 'It's finished.'