Ezra Furman - Suck the blood from my wound

The term "Americana" is a difficult one, just like "indie" it doesn't labels a music genre, but a style that represents the roots of the United States rural identity, so while it is mostly associated with country and folk, since Bob Dylan it was very clear that rock music was key on the making of Americana music. But no matter which side we analyze, Americana has been a mirror of the racial and gender issues that are still an important issue in American society, and that have paved the way for bigots to get to power.

The men in Americana are always white and straight, roughened up by the difficult life in the road. Some artist, like Dylan or Springsteen, have issued strong denounces of the American society that they belong to (sometimes with a wrong interpretation of their lyrics), but that hasn't opened significative ways for the expression of different voices that deconstruct that monolithic male Americana identity, that some times borders in toxicity.

Hence, the importance of a musician like Ezra Furman. With an unapologetic Springsteen influence, Furman takes the roots of blues, country and rock and roll to create an energetic sound that defies authority and ask to be played in loud speakers. But as a queer musician, Furman goes beyond and his music is presented as a true revolutionary act that transgress cultural identities and ideologies. Furman is not only a working class man that is oppressed by the laws of the powerful ones, he is also an outcast that is rejected by his peers. He is not a speaker for the masses, he is an itching scab for them.

Like the most stereotypical Americana songs, Suck The Blood From My Wound is a cinematic narration of a road trip; but unlike most of those classic songs (and even the modern takes on the topic, think of Lana del Rey's Drive or The War on Drugs' Thinking of a Place), this road trip doesn't come as a romanticized way to find oneself, the characters in Furman's song drive at high speed through the desert because they are escaping of an oppressive social system that threatens their freedom to be themselves.

Furman creates a fictional world where a human is transitioning into an angel and is subjected to painful medical therapies to stop his condition, as a metaphor of how queer people have been historically submitted to inhuman acts because of their identities, and as a direct criticism to both transphobia and gay conversion therapy. For his characters, the only way out of their oppression in a society of sick moralism is running away, as Furman shouts "Angel, don't fight it, to them you know we'll always be freaks". He shows us imagery of blood, medical equipment, and suffering, but he knows that that kind of hurt could be temporal if we have love to fight and heal. Crossing a state line in the history of music music might have never been as liberating (in its broader sense) than it is in this song.