Iggy Pop’s “We Are the People” is based on a poem penned in 1970 by his old friend, the great Lou Reed. About the poem, Pop told the BBC back in September, “My God, this is the country today as I understand it, or at least one legitimate portrayal of the country today.” Last week, Pop performed “We Are the People” with Reed’s widow Laurie Anderson at Carnegie Hall for the Tibet House Benefit and now he’s released this striking video performance. The song appears on Pop’s latest album Free. From “We Are the People:”
We are the people without land / We are the people without tradition…
We are the people without sorrow who have moved beyond national pride and indifference to a parody of instinct / We are the people who are desperate beyond emotion because it defies thought / We are the people who conceive our destruction and carry it out lawfully