Five for Fighting’s Jon Ondrasik has released a new song that harshly criticizes the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Grammy-nominated artist penned “Blood On My Hands” shortly after learning of the suicide bombing in Kabul that left 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghan people dead.
Ondrasik, a proud conservative, told WIBC’s Mock n’ Rob that he generally stays away from politics in his music.
“I take no joy in putting this song out, but like all of us, I was horrified by the images coming out of Afghanistan – the mothers handing their babies to our soldiers over barbed wire, the people falling from planes,” explained Ondrasik. “But the song didn’t really take shape until 13 troops of our troops and 100 Afghanis were killed by the suicide bomber.”
Ondrasik said a phone call with a friend who does humanitarian work was ultimately the thing that changed his heart about writing a political song.
“She said, ‘I’m organizing evacuations of AMCITs.’ And I asked, ‘What are AMCITS?’ She said, ‘American citizens.'”
Hearing that his friend was risking her life to rescue American citizens the US government left behind made him realize that the Biden administration’s Afghanistan debacle was “a national shame.”
“And I wrote a few lines that night ‘blood on my hands,'” Ondraski said, “but it didn’t fully wrap itself up until the president gave his ‘extraordinary success’ speech.”
He continued: “And I was stunned because I fully expected our generals to come out and clarify [Biden’s] comments, be the adult in the room, and do the right thing. But, they did not. They echoed the same Orwellian narrative [as Biden], and I realized that this was a political operation – not a military or humanitarian one. And I felt I had to call them out.”
Ondrasik said he recorded the song, “said a prayer, and put it out.”
“There’s blood on these hands/ And still Americans…/ Left to the Taliban…/ Now how’s that happening?” the lyrics to the song read.
“Blood on my Hands” is available on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
Ondrasik said that although it will unlikely be heard on commercial radio stations, the song is resonating with people.
“I think deep down, it’s a moral message, not a political message,” he said. “It’s about a promise that America broke. It’s about accountability. It’s about the fact that our Afghan veterans are suffering because we have not admitted our complicity in this.”
He continued: “And it’s a shame, quite frankly, that the music industry and the writers who like to get on their soapbox and claim they care about compassion for women and children and human rights are silent on this issue. It’s exposing a lot of hypocrisy.”
Click the link below to hear our full interview with Jon Ondrasik.
https://omny.fm/shows/mock-rob/interview-10-22-21-john-ondrasik-five-for-fighting
