Hamell On Trail is the performance name of Ed Hamell, who is known for his political and satirical brand of folk-punk. On his tenth studio album, Tackle Box, Hamell is as sharp-witted as ever.
One of the album’s highlight and potentially most controversial tunes is “Not Aretha’s Respect (Cops)”. The song deals with different dealings he had with cops while also in the presence of his ten-year old son. The song details different things that Hamell would love to tell the cops, but he refrains because he doesn’t want to get shot. It also features the biting chorus “Hey Fuckface, I’m trying to teach my kid there’s some authority that needs to be respected, but we have no respect for you. Now I’m trying to teach him to not get shot”.
The song also concludes by stating that he is white, highlighting that if white people are starting to become fearful and suspicious of the police, those issues are greatly magnified by blacks and other minorities who are exponentially more likely to be targeted and shot. Some of these issues were also addressed in Body Count’s “No Lives Matter”, which was previously featured as a Daily Dose of Protest.