In a household where the music of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie mingled with Beatles tunes, music crafted as resistance and storytelling profoundly shaped a musical ethos that nurtured Roger Street Friedman as a songwriter. "When I started writing songs," he said, "I thought that's what you did: write music with a message." As his discerning social conscience grew, so did his signature writing style, a transformative storytelling reminiscent of '60s and '70s protest music.
Friedman's father was a decorated World War II veteran, and his older brothers were vocal opponents of the Vietnam War. To this intersection of military service and activism, Friedman noted that his father entered World War II as an officer in the fall of 1944. "He fought through France and Germany and then got seriously wounded, and I think by the time Vietnam happened, he did not feel that it was a just war, even though he was a war hero."
At 16, Friedman and Jon Carin, who later played with Pink Floyd, were in a band and co-wrote a song called "The Poor Man Blues." He laughed, telling this story. "I was in no way a poor man, coming from a solid middle-class background, but I always felt like music was something that should tell the story of the underdog." He speaks of Jackson Browne's influence, saying, "I was 17 when I saw [Browne] protesting a big nuclear facility that was going to be put up on the eastern part of Long Island."
Drawing from other icons like Paul Simon, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell, Friedman explored love, despair, resilience, and hope with an acute awareness of the human condition. From this early foundation, he wrote to amplify marginalized voices and investigated the complexities of justice by reexamining events and translating them into songs that would resonate universally. On his latest ablum, Long Shadows (out now), he aspired to provoke thought and change and penned his song, "I Think We Know," after the October 7th attacks in Gaza.
"I knew what the Israelis would do. It was just horror upon horror, and that song came out in 25 minutes," he said. "That was not a conscious decision I made. I was just so moved by it that the song just flowed out of me" Through this haunting ballad, he captured grief and despair that acknowledges the cyclical nature of violence while still clinging to a kernel of hope.
Friedman's albums Rise and Love Hope Trust delve into themes of social justice with striking clarity. One single from Love Hope Trust, "The Ghosts Of Sugarland," examines the horrors of convict leasing after the Civil War. A newspaper article about a school district constructing a new building in Sugarland, Texas, motivated Friedman to write the song. As the construction crew excavated, one bulldozer operator found some bones.
"They thought it might be a crime scene or something, so they called the police. It turned out that it was the remains of a mass grave of convict laborers who worked on a sugar plantation down in Texas after the Civil War." Friedman explained how some laws had been written to make it easier to arrest people and to exploit the loophole in the 13th Amendment. Slavery had been outlawed, "but if somebody committed a crime, you could use prisoners as slave laborers." He added that these laws were also called “the black codes”. "I think the injustice made me want to write about it."
It wasn't the usual way Friedman wrote a song, but he did extensive research because he felt responsible for getting it right. "The hope in writing about historical topics is that change will be spurred, but I'm not sure that it is possible to change people's deeply held beliefs." On “Long Shadows” he further explores this fertile ground with “The Banks Of The Brazos”. Sung from the perspective of one of the condemned men sentenced for petty crime only to die of “heat stroke” 10 days after arriving in the cane fields.
Contrasting feeling inspired to write a story, and feeling obligated to share a story to effect change, Friedman said, "I think it's a little bit of both." He admits he has been lucky. "I'm a white guy, born into a middle-class family, with no major stories of discrimination in my past, and I feel that if I can do anything, I should. It's all I have: the ability to write a song about it."
Similarly, on “Long Shadows,” Friedman addresses modern social issues with incisive wit and sharp commentary. "The Land of the Leaf Blower and the Mighty SUV" critiques suburban complacency in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Its rollicking acoustic riffs belie the seriousness of its lyrics, which scrutinize white fear and privilege with biting irony.
"I try not to bang people over the head with words like you're bad, or this is bad, and this is good. I try to just tell the story. Still, I feel like where there's life, there's hope, so you have to, even in the darkest moments, think about people who survived horrific things; from terrible abuse, or tragedy, to the Holocaust. People survived by holding on to hope. Having that vision of how things can be is important because neither man nor womankind has gotten anywhere without imagining it first."
The reality, he pointed out, is that there is much suffering in the world and much sadness in people dealing with lost loved ones or the loss of a loved one. "But there is also a lot of beauty. Many beautiful people will come to your rescue, whether you're red or blue or black or white or yellow."
Although many of Friedman's songs tackle societal issues, his personal life also informs his work. His single "Rolling In Again" honestly and humorously probes the dynamics of long-term relationships and captures the push-and-pull of emotional distance and reconciliation and the universality of such struggles.
"When one person checks out emotionally, and one person feels abandoned, it's about always rolling back in," Friedman explains. "I like the push and pull of a relationship. I've been married for 20 years, and we're at the point in our relationship where it's okay to fight and go to the other side of the house, but it's cool because we're always rolling back in."
Friedman also took a 25-year hiatus from the music industry, and when he returned …well, there had been changes …to say the least. "It seems like, with social media, computers and technology, everything is speeding up, and people's attention spans are getting shorter. You have to say everything in a tweet. I was on Instagram, and one musician said something about the election, and of course, many of his fans said stick to your music and don't say anything. But we're artists, and we’re people with opinions; that's what we do."
Sadly, some things never seem to change. "One thing about writing songs about injustice and stuff like that or telling stories of people who are mistreated or discriminated against is that those are never-ending. It's like they've been here since the beginning of time and will be here forever."
Friedman's newest album, Long Shadows, represents those stretching shadows during the golden hour, symbolizing growth, introspection, and the interplay between light and darkness.
"It's the first one I self-produced that I'm pretty proud of. I'm hoping to do some touring. We're working on that now," Friedman said. "Beyond that, I'm continuing to write, and I'm sure more records will be coming out."
Whether revisiting historical injustices or addressing contemporary struggles, Friedman's writing will continue to compel listeners to confront uncomfortable truths while also finding solace in shared humanity and joy in his brilliant musicality.
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