The War Machine

Jeremy Blake runs a monthly prompt challenge for his Patreon Discord, and in July 2025 the challenge was to adapt folk music.

My original plan was to record an EDMish version of “More Waters Rising” by Saro Lynch-Thomason, but because of recent events I decided instead to combine two well-known folk tunes and write new lyrics for a protest song.

The verse melody comes from a Finnish folk song best known as the basis of Ievan polkka, aka “leekspin.;” this folk song is alternately known as Savitaipaleen polkka The chorus and final verses' melodies are from Wellerman, an English-language folk song that traces its origins back to 1830s New Zealand, and which got super popular during the 2020 sea shanty trend.

Unless things drastically change, this will be the last thing I upload to Spotify, and the only thing I leave there after I remove everything else.