Friend 1: I was thinking recently, my man. Say we recognize these United States of Amerika for one minute. I know, I know, but stay with me. Say we recognize it. If we did, I think “Truth is Marching In” by Albert Ayler should be the national anthem. The Village Vanguard recording of course. Came out in ’67, same year that Trane passed, but he was there for the recording of “Truth.” So in that way it’s ghostly. You know? ‘Cause the first track is for Trane. So he’s there and he’s not there. And the whole fucking conception of this nation which is not a nation but an empire is ghostly anyway, especially when it comes to black folks. Our bodies are here, but our souls are elsewhere. “Truth” speaks or sings specifically to the black American experience under not just capitalism but the entire racial civilization man. We are so intimate with dislocation as it is. That’s a harsh word, maybe fragmentation is better. The way the Ayler brothers keep lingering over that theme which has no business but to just get lost in the salt and the mud of bass, and drums. It represents and (un)presents the history of this nation through the limbs of ghosts. And ghosts are the best singers of all. You know that. New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, New York, it’s all there. Of them but reaching much further. Under the guise of that bunk ass label the white grammar created: jazz. It’s something beyond jazz, just like we are something beyond any nation. At least, I hope. Best of all, it’s a march, but a march with no destination. ‘Cause “Truth is Marching In,” but in where? You feel me?
Friend 2: Anthems honor the nation and Ayler wasn’t honoring no fucking nation when he played that shit, but okay, let me ask you: what’s the need for a national anthem at all then.
Friend 1: Yea but what i’m saying is it’s a national anthem which undermines the nation.
Friend 2: A useless play with words which gets us nowhere. Sounds pretty, it really does, but accomplishes nothing.
Friend 1: Not everything gotta accomplish something nigga.
Friend 2: Yea, but I’d rather my nothing have nothing to do with the nation.