Zaspalo Je Siroće is an exploration into our social condition of being effectively orphaned from our Earth Mother, from our Creator, and subsequently from Hope - a harmonic of the two. Zaspalo Je Siroće is a Croatian song. The phrase translates to "An Orphan Has Fallen Asleep". In 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president it became this album’s name. Choosing not to be spiritually orphaned is an essential step in our evolution and survival. I asked producer Al Oikari to think 'larger than life', so this is not Joe Paulik in concert; it is me in my head.
An orphan has fallen asleep in front of the foreign doors
And it is calling with its hands across the deep blue sea
Come, come my father, dark night is coming
And our dear mother still isn't home
Last night some dark hearted people took her away
They sang to her quietly so as not to wake her up
An orphan has fallen asleep under the lilac
The dawn of the judgement day will wake him up
In November 2016, producer Al Oikari and I were in the midst of organizing and refining a large batch of songs we had recorded that summer with a dear group of friends in an old log cabin located northeast of Grand Marais MN on the shore of Lake Superior. Vlatka had traveled back to Croatia by then but Hannah was still here. On election night, November 8th 2016, I was performing a gig with Hannah in the bar at Lutsen Resort. Standing to my right, she was able to view the monitor to my left. She was covertly watching the election results. Mid performance, around 8:45, she began crying. I asked her what was up and she said, “we lost”. It was an utterly devastating blow, the worst kind of gut punch imaginable but we finished the show.
The next morning Al suggested we select Zaspalo Je Siroće, the Croatian folk song Vlatka and Hannah had performed live on the rocky Superior shoreline, as title track. I thought about it. An orphan has fallen asleep. I texted him back that it felt like our best option, that it nailed something that had felt previously undefinable. I wanted to use the translated English phrase as album title but did not fancy facing the fallout when required to explain to audiences why they had been orphaned.... Well here it is....
Good parents provide sustenance, love, nurturing and protection, seeking to pass on a code of morals and a way of living and being that sustains life and continues the species. From what I've read about indigenous American cultures existing centuries ago, raising a child included guiding the young to accept these necessities from Mother Earth and the Great Spirit so they would never "lose their parents". In 20th century America, domestic programs and a palpable constitutional morality provided a material substitute for the sustenance needs that are bound arise in a large society. As these are now strangled before our eyes, many feel orphaned in a hostile culture.
Many others insist on their right to remain asleep, avoiding empathy in order to not feel the atrocities, like scared children ducking their heads under the covers until it's over. An orphan has fallen asleep. Another orphan remains awake - a sister or brother to the first. The one that is awake cares for the sleeping one. It is not our job to ridicule the sleeping orphan for its fear and shock, nor to label its fear and shock as stupid or self destructive. Our job is simply to care for the sleeping orphan until a situation arises in which the sleeping child feels safe enough to function in ways that are not destructive. At that point spiritual parents can be introduced....
Zaspalo Je Siroće is a group of songs which finds joy and humor in negative realities, laughs at them, celebrates faith and peace and becomes wiser and more complete by accepting and gaining wisdom from them all.
If you are awake – if you live by the same values whether the weather is fair or foul, whether those who surround you are thuggish or friendish – if you are awake you are now holding the world together. This is a test and it might kill you, but that’s the test. Jesus had this test, and now we have it. He faced it to show us how to face it, not to get us out of facing it. That’s the good news. We get to live it.