It's why David Herne sings America, What's Happened To You?: "America you're making me blue/I'm praying that you'll come around/nd find your way to higher ground."
The reason we need to be asking these questions is offered up in "Easy Answers": "You're living your life to the tune of someone else song/You bought the easy answer, easy answers to get along."
Where we are going and how we are getting there is a common topic of country songs, and Kakistocracy doesn't ignore them. Roads - another country music staple - are in ample evidence along with these two questions as the environment and objective of the GI fighting the War on Terror: "Going down the road to Baghdad might be the last trip I ever had." ["Going Down the Road to Baghdad"] and the reason that GI is fighting in Baghdad: "long as you're driving a car, don't tell me you're anti-war" ["Iraqi Soldier Blues"].
Every war has casualties, and there will always be someone who asks: "Can anybody say just why the poor boy had to die?" ["Poor Boy"]. After the military funeral ["21 Guns"], someone seeks to do this in "(I'm Goin' Down to) Crawford Texas": "I'm gonna ask him just what are we fighting for" and "I'm gonna ask him is there a Plan B?"
The answers to these questions don't seem to be forthcoming, so more questions are asked in "Mr. President": "is the White House wrapped in barbed wire?" and "are you somebody's tool or just a fool?"
Kakistocracy isn't all political. Everyday travails of the common man and woman so familiar to fans of country music are here just as one would expect of the "White People's Blues".
"Mercury's In Retrograde" and "Crystal Time" both deal with the frustrations of living a hard life and the availability of easy escapes, but the theme of Ultimate Redemption is represented by a performance on a Nashville church organ by Garth Hudson of The Band of a short piece inspired by Doxology, a 1709 work of the English bishop Thomas Ken.
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