Nicolette Aubourg

Lyrics

Katrina: Forsaken Place
(a commentary on the 2005 Bush administration’s delayed response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina)

There’s not much wealth so what’s to lose.
In the French Quarter, some jazz and blues...
The levee might hold, and it might break,
but the forces in Iraq are in their place.

Think it over at your ease;
don’t want to rush and spread disease.
Don’t mind the drownings, the desperate pleas,
the missing children, the sick and elderly.

These waters of a forsaken place,
these tears of a forsaken place – hear the people.

Their salvation compromised
by days and weeks politicized –
the bureaucracy takes precedence
over the waters’ nameless faces.

So you turn a blind eye to your own storm.
You give no answer, leave them forlorn.
Do your feel nothing for the women raped
after their lives had been saved?

These waters of a forsaken place,
these tears that wash their hopes away – hear the people.

These are the pictures the world will see;
these are people you say you lead –
hear the people; hear the people.

Music & Lyrics by Nicolette Aubourg © 2016