Steve Earle Taps Steve Buscemi to Direct New “City of Immigrants” Music Video
Steve Earle and Steve Buscemi, photo by Gabriel Barreto
Steve Earle has released a new music video for “City of Immigrants,” directed by Steve Buscemi. The new visual companion for the urgent standout from the alt-country pioneer’s 2007 album, Washington Square Serenade, was spurred by the anti-immigrant violence carried out with murderous impunity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents in communities across the country. With his unfailing reputation for calling out hypocrisy and speaking truth to power through his music, Earle’s new celebration of the cultural melting pot he calls home resonates as a powerful statement of solidarity and a stand against.
Buscemi and Earle’s new video for “City of Immigrants” reflects New York’s rich cultural multiplicity with street footage of diverse neighborhoods and their denizens, interspersed with footage of Earle and New York-based worldbeat ensemble Forro in the Dark performing in Tompkins Square Park and participants in the No Kings rally in March. The video begins with Earle introducing the song as the closing number at his recent solo acoustic residency at the Grammery Theater by explaining his switch to the bouzouki: “It’s an immigrant instrument,” he says, “and as an immigrant instrument, it’s the perfect instrument for accompanying us as we sing this song.”
On the new video’s origins, Earle told Variety, “Well, Bruce released ‘Streets of Minneapolis,’ Tom Morello WENT to Minneapolis and Bruce showed up there, and I’m home in New York and I’m like, get off your ass, Earle!”
“Being asked to direct a new video of Steve Earle’s ‘City of Immigrants’ was a true gift, not only for me, but for the people of New York City that this song movingly celebrates,” Buscemi expressed. “I have long respected Steve Earle as an artist, and I was particularly motivated by this song as it speaks to the current situation in our country in a uniquely inspiring way.”
Watch the new music video for “City of Immigrants” below.
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