Words and Music: Randall Effner
Vocals: Randall, Sara, and Dianna Effner
Arrangement and Guitar: Adrian Morales
A major news story of 2005 that went largely unreported in the mainstream media was the large movement of Chinese people walking away from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Led by The Epoch Times Newspaper, which in the fall of 2004 had published the hugely influential book,"Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," first hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands of Chinese people began publicly quitting this political organization that is responsible for killing between 60 and 80 million of its own people since it seized power in 1949. By the summer of 2005, the number of people quitting the CCP and its affiliated organizations stood at over three million (it is over 54 million at this writing.)
The song "Set Them Free" was written to be performed at a large rally supporting this movement at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC in July of 2005. In March of 2006, "Set Them Free" won an honorable mention award for "Lyric Writing" in the 7th Annual Great American Song Contest.
Lyrics:
I hear the chimes of freedom ring again
I heard them once before when they were blowin' in the wind
The Chinese people walk in chains, they're longing to be free
It's time to tell the world the truth about the CCP
I'd like to paint a picture in this song,
About what it's like in China if you practice Falun Gong,
Or if you are a Christian or you're for democracy
They'll put you in a prison cell and throw away the key.
Chorus:
Set them free! set them free! set them free! set them free!
Set them free! set them free! set them free! set them free!
The labor camps are like a living hell
Where you're beaten, starved and brainwashed and there'snowhere to appeal
There is no law or justice, there is just the CCP
Who hide their evil deeds behind a cloak of secrecy.
The free world should stand up for liberty
But now we sell out human rights to buy a cheap TV,
We see slavery and torture and we turn our head aside
I'd rather spend a little more than pay for genocide.
Repeat Chorus
The world will not forget the Berlin Wall
And how the people danced with joy, just to see it fall
The Chinese leaders shake with fear rememberingthat day
They know their time is almost up and soon they'llhave to pay.
The blood red dragon can no longer fly
Nine swords have pierced its armor and it looksabout to die
Now millions of its members have renounced it publicly
The world will be a better place without the CCP.
Repeat Chorus
Raise Pitch One Step and Repeat Chorus One More Time