Calexico’s seventh long-player, Algiers, had recently dropped, marking the band’s first opportunity to play live for its new label, Anti. But after a short acoustic song, Burns bid the remaining crowd good night with a promise to return in January. And tonight, Calexico makes good on its promise at the El Rey.

This interview originally posted at LAist.

We caught up with Joey Burns, Calexico’s principal member, to talk about his L.A. upbringing, life in Tucson and more.

LAist: Everybody talks about Calexico being a Tucson band, but you actually started out here in Southern California?

Joey Burns: Yes. In high school I was in bands that played Gazzarri’s on the Sunset Strip, among other places like Madame Wong’s East and West, and my favorite band from back then was a band from San Pedro called The Minutemen. Great punk rock band, Mike Watt’s still touring and playing — really fun to watch.

Any favorite spots you like hitting when you return to L.A.?

I like to go to the water nowadays because I live in the desert. That’s the first destination. I like to go to places that I haven’t really been before, so I’ve been enjoying checking out East L.A., just checking out parts of town that I didn’t really hang out much in, and so that’s always been kind of fun. There’s a Levi’s Showroom on the Sunset Strip that I might check out — pretty excited about that. I hear they have some rare vintage shirts. All the used clothing stores — I used to go to Aardvark’s a lot. Record stores: Amoeba’s always a good one; Aaron’s was a good one, too.

I used to work at a record store in San Pedro, but I don’t think it’s around anymore. It was called Soundsations. There was a store, I think it was in Inglewood for a while, and then one opened up in San Pedro for a short while.

You grew up in San Pedro?

Well, I grew up in South Bay — various places in South Bay. I went to high school in Palos Verdes, so that’s even further remote. I went to college in Irvine — that’s pretty far away, I wouldn’t call that Los Angeles at all. But I used to drive up the Harbor Freeway a lot to get up to Hollywood.

We’re really excited to come back. L.A. is where John and I first met in 1990. I was working at SST Records after college, and we became friends through a studio. ’89 was the end of a lot of the big stuff at SST, a lot of them went to Geffen. A lot of people went to major labels. Firehose went to Columbia for a while; everyone had to kinda jump ship. It was kind of the end. It was Cruz Records that was being pushed at the time.

We met up through a mutual connection at Radio Tokyo, which was a recording studio in Venice Beach. We met up there in L.A., started playing together and now we’re going back!

What brought you out to Tucson originally?

We were playing in Giant Sand for a while and wanted to have more of our own time. I think in L.A. having to work several jobs… you can get away with working less out here and just focus more on music. So the overhead was lower, and there’s a lot more characters out here. We enjoyed the change of pace, and Tucson is a much more down to earth place. And downtown has always been an interesting part to Tucson: a lot of artists, a lot of warehouse spaces and interesting venues that have come down throughout the years. Places like Rialto Theatre and Hotel Congress, which has a club in it, have always been the mainstays for both national and local touring acts.

In some ways, coming to Tucson definitely nurtured that one foot in tradition, one foot in experimentation approach. Taking some of the ideas we were kicking around and developing them.

What kind of music were you playing prior to Calexico?

I played in a garage rock band, an experimental jazz group, some orchestral stuff in college, jazz band in high school — so a lot of variety for me growing up in music groups that I played in.

Mostly guitar?

No! Mostly bass. Upright bass and electric bass. And I think that’s what kind of connected John and I because he liked a wide variety of stuff. He loves listening to jazz and classical music, and I think it shows in his playing. He’s definitely one of those kinds of drummers that has a different sort of approach, much like Jim White of The Dirty Three who has also played with Cat Power.

Both John and I, when we moved to Tucson — I think he moved in ’92 and I moved in ’93 — we wound up to looking for old and unusual looking instruments. Things that people back then didn’t want. Accordions, mandolins, marimba, vibraphoone… nobody wanted those things. And there were a lot of musicians who had retired here who were interested in getting rid of stuff. It was readily available. Along with a lot of Western shirts, y’know, things people really just weren’t wearing back in those days. So it was an interesting time coming out here and tapping into something I think that is part nostalgic and part reinventing something, taking these pieces, whether they’re instruments or influences, and making your own statement. Giving these things its own voice by way of your own story and where we came from.

Algiers was recorded in New Orleans. Is it the first album you’ve recorded outside of Tucson?

We recorded in Nashville a little bit, the Convict Pool with the cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or.” But with there being a lot of family and kids around, it made sense to get out of town. We couldn’t think of a more eclectic place: philosophy, themes and music. And Craig Schumacher of Wavelab Studio had just gotten over cancer, and part of that recovery was going to New Orleans and surrounding him with all the things that he loves and bringing business to a city like New Orleans.

Is location and travel a big part of what inspires a Calexico record?

Yes. With our previous record, Carried From Dust, there are definitely influences from our travels to South America, which happened in 2007. Songs like “Victor Jara’s Hands” or “House of Valparaiso,” those songs were definitely influenced by going down there.

Travel has always been a big influence on our music. We’ve got band members from Europe and around the States — Paul Niehaus from Nashville, Tennessee; Martin Wenk from Berlin, Germany. Last couple years we had somebody from Spain joining us, who also sits in on the new record as well as the last album. So there’s always been this sort of multilingual, multicultural influence.

How does being such a cultural melting pot affect life on the road for the band?

We all hang out. I often get asked, “How do you guys rehearse?” and, well, we’re going to be rehearsing Sunday and Monday before we hit the road, and, of course, we toured a bunch, so we already have a very deep working relationship, and it doesn’t take very long before we fall back into a rhythm. But it makes it nice, especially when the Europeans come over and they see what’s happening with politics and just the general direction where things are going. Sometimes they’re really surprised. For example, the idea of a wall between U.S. and Mexico: You mention that to somebody from Berlin, and they can’t help but to do a double take. It’s like: “What? What are you talking about?”

Themes of immigration — there’s a different approach to things like that overseas. But it’s all really good. Even within the band the European crisis, you’ve got a Spaniard and you’ve got a German in the band and their viewpoints are quite different. For me it’s interesting to see how they interpret what’s going on both in their own countries and in Europe as a whole. And that’s really been the first time there’s been something that severe going on. Most of the time it’s focusing on the wars that have been happening in the past, going for years and years now.

Do you have an expanded touring band again on this tour?

Yes, seven musicians. Paul Niehaus is playing, Martin Wenk on trumpet and multi-instrumental stuff, Jacob Valenzuela on trumpet and doing a lot of different things. Sergio Mendoza on piano, who was born and raised in Nogales, Arizona, and lived in Sonora, northern Mexico for a while. And Ryan Alfred is playing bass. He and Sergio are the newer members. So seven musicians on a stage, and it’s incredible getting to see how things have evolved both on a personal level and in regards to audience and industry. The music industry has changed a lot. Of course, the European Union has formed.

It had been a while since we had been back to Europe, so when we went in the fall, I was excited to see where things are at for the band and if there’d be people coming to the shows. And of course there were a lot of people coming to the shows. There were a fair amount of sold out shows, which is really cool, and people were excited to see the band. Some even saying they were some of the best shows that they’ve seen to date, people who had seen us eight, nine, 10 times. So that meant a lot to me. And getting to reunite with people and venues we’ve played in the past — the Muffathalle in Munich, or the Forum in London, the Paradiso in Amsterdam, or in Belgium we played one of the first sold out shows at Ancienne Belgique.

For me it feels good to connect with Europe because we’ve drawn so much influence from the European aesthetic. I think it’s influenced the sensibility and the tone — it’s hard to put it into words without generalizing… but the attitude — it’s kind of a combination of North American and European. I noticed it when I first met John, the drummer. He’s really quite a unique person. He loves the things that are made with the intention of being around for a long time. He loves vintage drums, old cars… things that are built to last. And I really learned to appreciate that. I didn’t really think about these things before I met John, whether it was houses or architecture or homes or clothing, which comes full circle to the Levi’s showroom. He was the one who asked, hey is it possible to check out this “House of Strauss” because Paul [Niehaus] was on tour with Justin Townes Earle, who is connected to these clothing circles and was able to get in and have an appointment with the showroom.

I’d say that aesthetic extends to the music, too. That sort of timelessness. Algiers sounds immediately familiar, even though it’s more expansive and complex than previous Calexico records. Is it a challenge to keep writing new songs. Do you ever hit walls?

You’ve gotta keep it going. We love it. You need the songs in order to go on the road. And similarly you need the road in order to inspire experiences and songs and writing. Over the past couple years just about everyone in the band has settled down and had families. Both Jacob and Paul have kids. Jairo has three kids. John has three kids. I’ve got two kids. So the familial quality that happens at this point in most people’s lives really makes us appreciate having our jobs. It makes it special for us all to get together. We love hanging out, and it shows on stage. I kept on getting that comment in Europe last fall. People could really tell that we were enjoying each others company and that booking agents and promoters were having a great time backstage with us as well.

We love this job and we’re looking forward to coming to L.A. Man, it’s been a while.

It’s been a while since you’ve played with the lights on. Any other collaborations you’re looking forward to?

Our office hours are always open. We love doing collaborations. We recently did some recording with Neko Case for her upcoming record. Variety keeps it fun and interesting.

Is there any artist that you’d like to get a phone call from?

I’ve been hearing some new Bob Dylan on the radio here in Tucson and you know, that’s one of those things that, well, if you mention it, you’ll curse it. But getting the opportunity to work on soundtracks and especially the film I’m Not There was a great example of just that. We got the opportunity to collaborate with a whole slew of artists, some we even suggested, like “Hey, Charlotte Gainsbourg is in the movie, can we send her some tracks and see if she’d like to sing on them?” And the answer that we got back was yes, so that was one of those lessons where nowadays you can just about send tracks to everyone and hope for the best. I think certain artists are really open to trying new things. We got to work with Roger McGuinn in a similar way. Getting to meet Jim James [of My Morning Jacket] was a lot of fun, and Willie Nelson, and of course we knew Iron & Wine. It was great to get to do a lot of different collaborations all under the umbrella of one movie and one project. That was really thanks to Randall Poster, the music supervisor who connected us with soundtrack work previously.

I thought “Goin to Acapulco” was one of the most poignant moments in the movie, with Jim James singing and Calexico performing and actually appearing on set.

Being on set was a lot of fun. No one had really heard that song and there was a lot going on in that movie and in that scene in general. There were a lot of things happening. You’re on location. It was shot outside of Montreal, Canada. Everyone’s in character, and it’s pretty amazing.

When we got there they were working with Richard Gere; he was on horseback. Before we had gotten to the set, the horse had acted up, and they nearly had an accident. So people were a little bit on edge. And then this huge mess of a rainstorm came in, and everybody took a break for lunch. We came back and everyone is pretty relaxed and chill and we begin working on the scene that we’re in.

And they pump the music through the PA system, and it’s resonating through the area, basically out in the middle of nowhere. It really took people by surprise but got people in the mood so we could get in character and into the scene. There was a real person pretending to be a corpse right in front of you. It’s pretty creepy and wonderful at the same time.

I’m sure we will have some more acting opportunities. These things just kind of happen all by themselves. Hollywood’s a bizarre place I love it. You never what might happen from whatever project or collaboration you do. The music has continued to have a bridge to soundtracks and movies. Seems like every day I get an email or a request to watch something. Tonight I’m supposed to watch a documentary on Wild Horses in North America, so that would be the next collaboration, seeing what music would work with that. We also get a lot of requests for songs to be used in documentaries regarding immigration, and I’m really proud of that. In the future I’d love to get some calls from directors like Wes Anderson or Jim Jarmusch. Something that’s outside of the Southwest, something a little different. Who knows, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to Sundance this month since we’ll be on tour, but someday I’d love to check out more film festivals, whether it’s Berlin or L.A. or Toronto or New York, meet people and get involved. Who knows, maybe I’ll just write a screenplay and a soundtrack and see if I can get someone to make the movie.

You mentioned documentaries on immigration. How is Calexico getting involved with these issues?

I would like to play more benefits for sure. Humane Borders is one of the groups that we’ve helped out consistently over the years. The only time we ever played Calexico, California, was a benefit for another border group called Border Angels. And interestingly enough, in Europe, immigration is becoming more of an issue, just like in the States. Hopefully we can come up with a better exchange program or better legislation for workers — people who are here and have been paying taxes. I guess for most people it’s just not simple enough to file the proper paperwork to come here and work. It should be simpler.

I was born in Montreal, so I had to become a citizen at some point. I’m sure there was a lot of paperwork back then. I know my dad was trying to make sure my brothers and I wouldn’t act out and say something silly and stupid when we went for the interview. It’s given me the perspective of not taking things for granted over here and also being sympathetic to those who don’t have a lot and are coming here because they need to. It’s survival, especially from Mexico. How do we as a country make sure that our neighbors are doing alright? You want to make sure everyone in the hemisphere — and world — is doing alright, not just in your own backyard. But that’s a much bigger topic.

And SB 1070…

Yeah. Now Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Maricopa County — the same guy who was doing raids on businesses suspected of having immigrants working there — is in the news saying he wants to have armed citizens patrolling around schools. Not professional police offers, citizens, y’know, 500 of his gang to go patrol around schools, and that’s going to be intimidating and send the wrong message. It’s just kind of confrontational. And of course it’s the same guy causing the negativity with SB1070. It’s one of the things that on one hand, I don’t like about Arizona, that there are a lot of conservative people throughout the state, whereas little islands like Bisbee, or Flagstaff or Tucson are more balanced.

I’m also really happy to be here because I feel like I can do something. Our involvement with immigration or I’m helping out with raising awareness around the shooting that involved our Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. We got involved with the Fund for Civility Respect and Community. It meant a lot to me because I felt I was doing something directly for my community. And it’s hard to feel that important in a bigger city or bigger state. And I’m hoping that our music can be an influence at least on a very small level. We do a benefit for our local community-sponsored radio station. We can raise money for a cool radio station, KXCI, and they play a lot of local music. It’s pretty cool. It’s nice because I like being in some of those smaller towns because you really get a sense of who people really are and what the spirit is of a place, but when you’re in a big city you can be anywhere. That’s my little rant about being in Tucson.

Calexico plays tonight, January 16, at The El Rey Theatre. Bahamas opens. Tickets ($20 + fees) are available at Ticketmaster.

Click here to create a customized Spotify Play embed code.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have access to Spotify for a couple years now and for the past several months have been paying for the premium service. Now… I can FINALLY stop biting my tongue (or making friends jealous): Spotify opened for business in the U.S. last week! Hit me up with an email if you’d like an invite for the free, ad-supported version. Or go ahead and sign up here if you’re ready to dive in (can’t go wrong trying it out for a month) at $4.99 or $9.99/month for the fully featured desktop streaming or fully-featured mobile syncing respectively.

Read more below — a republishing of the article I wrote for LAist on July 13, the eve of Spotify’s U.S. launch — or read any of my previous posts on the service.

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Good luck sleeping tonight. Because tomorrow morning you’ll wake up with a brand new set of ears. Spotify, the online music service that has taken Europe by storm and is set on turning iTunes into merely the bloatware you sync your iPhone with is finally cleared for landing in the U.S. Doors open at 5 a.m. Thursday, reports Pop & Hiss.

Take a deep breath before visiting Spotify’s updated U.S. splash page as you may be overwhelmed by multiple quotes squealing orgasmic praise for the product (“It blows the door off of anything on the market” – L.A. Times).

We’ve tried it too and even if it took forever to finally become available in the States, it is still verifiably awesome. Now if you think you’re going to get all this goodness for free, that will have to wait — sign up for an invite here.

Tomorrow morning Spotify opens to users in the U.S. wiliing to pay a monthly subscription fee for access to nearly anything you’d want to listen to (Spotify claims 13,000,000 tracks) on demand. For $4.99/month, stream via the web and for $9.99 stream via Android or iPhone. The premium $9.99 plan also features over-the-air syncing, enabling users to listen to songs encrypted locally on their mobile device instead of having to rely on a mobile connection to stream from the cloud.

At these rates, Spotify’s service is similar to those of Rdio, MOG, and to a lesser extent Slacker and Rhapsody. Spotify’s social integration is unique in that it makes it super-easy to listen to and share playlists with your Facebook friends (who use the service) in the desktop interface.

The desktop application will sync with iTunes so it’s super-easy to become a convert (if desired). It’s also easy to sync music over-the-air to your devices and to purchase MP3 downloads at prices somewhere between Amazon’s and Apple’s.

Spotify has more than ten million users in the six countries in which it’s currently available, including one million paid subscribers.

Visit spotify.com to get yours Thursday morning.

…[E]ven if it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go on out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures; sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music; sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry…

This sentiment is reminiscent of the anonymously-penned poems, “Be the Best of Whatever You Are,” (often attributed to Douglas Malloch) which Dr. King cites in the sermon. In my searches tonight reflecting on Dr. King, I really appreciated how he introduced the street sweeper at the 50th anniversary of Alpha Phi Alpha in Buffalo, 1957 – “The Birth of a New Age.” A great blueprint for any commencement speech.

“We need more people who are competent in all areas and always remember that the important thing is to do a good job. No matter what it is. Whatever you are doing consider it as something having cosmic significance, as it is a part of the uplifting of humanity. No matter what it is, no matter how small you think it is, do it right. As someone said, do it so well that the living, dead, or the unborn could do it no better.

More and more multimedia from Dr. King’s sermons and speeches in the ’50s and 60s continues to crop up and it’s sometimes stunning how much more impact the words have when spoken by the reverend himself as opposed to reads on the written page or website.
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I could not find the Buffalo ’57 audio, however I came across audio of a King speech that includes the street sweeper riff in the King Institute archives at Stanford. This 3.5-minute clip was taken from the full “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” sermon delivered at New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois, on 9 April 1967. Another recently web-published sermon of note is this one from Temple Israel, a Jewish synagogue in Hollywood from 1965 which popped up a few years ago.

In addition to the King Institute archives, find more audio of Dr. King’s speeches here, here, and here.

The most recent episode is titled “Words“:
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Radiolab is a workshop in the aural experience – it is, at its core, a program that explores the essence of radio, from story arc to research to interview to post-production and mixdown. Any given episode will surprise you in its clarity, weirdness, and attention to detail. My first reaction to listening — I became a regular listener to the podcast (you can subscribe here for RSS, xml, or iTunes) in 2005 — was amazement at how much effort, creativity, and likely attempts at perfectionism went into the editing and remixing of the audio. An hourlong Radiolab is without fail a stimulating and thought provoking experience, rooted in the great voices, delivery, and smartypants adeptness of hosts Jad Abumrod and Robert Krulwitch.

My love affair with this program is capped by how well it uses the latest technology – since the early days of podcasting, Radiolab has been made available in multiple formats for download and streaming as well as across many NPR member stations nationwide. We’ve come to expect this from NPR programming since the grand ol’ days of RealAudio streams. But this show stands apart in that it takes the story and the sound and the experience to extreme levels, show after show.

I don’t have a TV nor do I care to watch one. I listen to programs like this. Stock up your music-playing receptacle with multiple episodes from the archives before your next road trip and you will not be disappointed. Even P Diddy listens to Radiolab twice.

One of my all-time favorites is “Numbers” (mp3:

Other faves include Memory and Forgetting (mp3). Listen to the segment below on amnesia and Musicophilia with Oliver Sacks:

Finally, music… Musical Language (mp3) just reading the first graf of the show notes is mesmerizing as it is:

What is music? How does it work? Why does it move us? Why are some people better at it than others? In this hour, we examine the line between language and music, how the brain processes sound, and we meet a composer who uses computers to capture the musical DNA of dead composers in order to create new work. We also re-imagine the disastrous 1913 debut of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring…through the lens of modern neurology.

Lala’s humble beginning in 2006 was based on a business model involving the actual physical swapping of CDs through the mail. Or as they not-so-humbly declared at launch, “The Largest Record Store on Earth.” The site would be full of album covers and users would check “have” or “want” and then arrange to send and receive via Lala’s Netflix-like shipping envelopes, for $1 each.

As the tide turned decidedly away from CDs and toward digital music purchases, along with pressure and legal action from artists and labels, Lala launched 2.0 by 2008. The new Lala was a music “community” from which you could play, share, and discover music. Essentially taking the ultimate music store and putting it in the cloud with licenses for unlimited listens of songs and album at a fraction of what iTunes and Amazon charged – about 10 cents.

Lala.com’s valuation jumped to over $100 million by the end of 2009, aided by a $20 million investment by Warner Music Group. Warner dumped both Lala and iMeem in May 2009 citing losses of $33 million. Lala was acquired for an alleged $80-85 million by Apple in December 2009 (or as low as $17 million and even $3 million if you ask some).

Today Lala is integral to the music industry and serves up one of Billboard’s few weekly charts based on Web-plays and purchases.

On May 31th the service will be put down and customers who’ve enjoyed the fast rise and faster fall of the service are not too happy about it and now have until June 14th to apply for iTunes credits.

I wonder how many or the services that I listed on my September 2008 Socializing the Music Industry Guide even still exist. Here’s a list of alternatives posted at RWW today. I’m fortunate to be an early user of Spotify.

Personally, I’m still happy to buy CDs directly from the bands at their shows or from the labels. Otherwise I buy mp3’s at Amazon. Apple is evil.

Official note from LaLa.com posted below:

• http://hipsdontlie.ca/streaming/
• http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-evolution-of-music-consumption-how-we-got-here/

It goes without saying that Terkel’s unique traveling interview style, best illustrated on 1963’s “This Train” is the model for great audio and visual storytelling of today. While riding the train from Chicago to the civil rights march in Washington D.C., Terkel gathered the voices of anger, joy and ultimately optimism from people of all ages making that historic trip. Just listen to part one of “This Train” below and, suddenly, you won’t think This American Life is the most revolutionary program to hit radio.

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Studs was a Chicago guy but his stories had a purely American bent, touching on difficult matters of importance and celebrating life coast to coast. I’m sorry that he will not be around to see Barack Obama become president, although he discussed as much with a Huffington Post scribe in the days before his passing. I’m also sad that the Cubs couldn’t pull it out this year for Terkel and other Cubs fans who’ve waited the better part of 100 years to see a championship.

Studs Terkel was an activist until his dying days, playing a prominent role challenging AT&T’s corroboration in releasing records to the National Security Agency in 2006.

I hope to locate the full audio of this amazing piece to post later. For now, here’s the first 50 minutes of “This Train.”

Video and more below:

More coverage at Chicago Public Radio.

Several months ago I realized that the iTunes on my MBP was no longer updating the podcasts to which I subscribe and, well, I could no longer connect to the iTunes Music store. As a lifelong skeptic of the iTunes product (and a devoutly stubborn consumer of only non-Apple mp3 and portable media players and phones) I immediately looked elsewhere instead of seeking some ass-backward solution that likely would have required me to download one of the hundreds of iTunes “upgrades” released each year.

This took my back to an old friend, Odeo, which I remembered to have an easily navigable and fully-loaded index of audio and video netcasts. I noticed a new beta version was being offered and I immediately signed up to find an attractive UI and easy-to-use embedded players and download tabs, as well as new subscription tabs. Now, I still keep my Zune — yes, that’s what I use — updated with podcasts via my PC at work, but when I’m not at work — or when I’m WATCHING on my work PC — I use Odeo. Hey, I also through a bit of extra faith into the product because it was originally launched by Blogger founder (and later Twitter co-founder) Ev Williams.

There are a few things I WOULD like to see on Odeo — I have a login and limited profile. I’d like to have the option to make my profile public and — similar to Last.fm — network with my friends to share recommendations and fave listens and keep tabs on what those in my network watch/listen to so that I can discover new netcasts of interest without having to look too hard. Also, I’ve noticed that Odeo can be a bit slow — quite often i wait around for the Olbermann netcast, only to find it arrive late at night tagged “4 hours ago.”

Do you use Odeo? Have you tried it since the relaunch? What else have you tried as a netcast portal?

Earlier — Is it V-Obama Day or What?, and prior Obama posts here.

Listen to Obama’s speech below (thx to NewsJunk/Dave Winer for the instant archive).

First, check out the most recent e-mail sent by the Obama campaign:

Friend —

I’m about to take the stage in St. Paul and announce that we have won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

It’s been a long journey, and we should all pause to thank Hillary Clinton, who made history in this campaign. Our party and our country are better off because of her.

I want to make sure you understand what’s ahead of us. Earlier tonight, John McCain outlined a vision of America that’s very different from ours — a vision that continues the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.

But this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past and bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

It’s going to take hard work, but thanks to you and millions of other donors and volunteers, no one has ever been more prepared for such a challenge.

Thank you for everything you’ve done to get us here. Let’s keep making history.

Barack

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Final Primary Night
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
St. Paul, Minnesota

As Prepared for Delivery

Tonight, after fifty-four hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end.

Sixteen months have passed since we first stood together on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Thousands of miles have been traveled. Millions of voices have been heard. And because of what you said – because you decided that change must come to Washington; because you believed that this year must be different than all the rest; because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another – a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

I want to thank every American who stood with us over the course of this campaign – through the good days and the bad; from the snows of Cedar Rapids to the sunshine of Sioux Falls. And tonight I also want to thank the men and woman who took this journey with me as fellow candidates for President.

At this defining moment for our nation, we should be proud that our party put forth one of the most talented, qualified field of individuals ever to run for this office. I have not just competed with them as rivals, I have learned from them as friends, as public servants, and as patriots who love America and are willing to work tirelessly to make this country better. They are leaders of this party, and leaders that America will turn to for years to come.

That is particularly true for the candidate who has traveled further on this journey than anyone else. Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she’s a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she’s a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight.

We’ve certainly had our differences over the last sixteen months. But as someone who’s shared a stage with her many times, I can tell you that what gets Hillary Clinton up in the morning – even in the face of tough odds – is exactly what sent her and Bill Clinton to sign up for their first campaign in Texas all those years ago; what sent her to work at the Children’s Defense Fund and made her fight for health care as First Lady; what led her to the United States Senate and fueled her barrier-breaking campaign for the presidency – an unyielding desire to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, no matter how difficult the fight may be. And you can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country, she will be central to that victory. When we transform our energy policy and lift our children out of poverty, it will be because she worked to help make it happen. Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

There are those who say that this primary has somehow left us weaker and more divided. Well I say that because of this primary, there are millions of Americans who have cast their ballot for the very first time. There are Independents and Republicans who understand that this election isn’t just about the party in charge of Washington, it’s about the need to change Washington. There are young people, and African-Americans, and Latinos, and women of all ages who have voted in numbers that have broken records and inspired a nation.

All of you chose to support a candidate you believe in deeply. But at the end of the day, we aren’t the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard. You didn’t do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else. You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – we cannot afford to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future. And for all those who dream of that future tonight, I say – let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.

In just a few short months, the Republican Party will arrive in St. Paul with a very different agenda. They will come here to nominate John McCain, a man who has served this country heroically. I honor that service, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine. My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign.

Because while John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign.

It’s not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush ninety-five percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year.

It’s not change when he offers four more years of Bush economic policies that have failed to create well-paying jobs, or insure our workers, or help Americans afford the skyrocketing cost of college – policies that have lowered the real incomes of the average American family, widened the gap between Wall Street and Main Street, and left our children with a mountain of debt.

And it’s not change when he promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians – a policy where all we look for are reasons to stay in Iraq, while we spend billions of dollars a month on a war that isn’t making the American people any safer.

So I’ll say this – there are many words to describe John McCain’s attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.

Change is a foreign policy that doesn’t begin and end with a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged. I won’t stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what’s not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years – especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.

We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in – but start leaving we must. It’s time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future. It’s time to rebuild our military and give our veterans the care they need and the benefits they deserve when they come home. It’s time to refocus our efforts on al Qaeda’s leadership and Afghanistan, and rally the world against the common threats of the 21st century – terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. That’s what change is.

Change is realizing that meeting today’s threats requires not just our firepower, but the power of our diplomacy – tough, direct diplomacy where the President of the United States isn’t afraid to let any petty dictator know where America stands and what we stand for. We must once again have the courage and conviction to lead the free world. That is the legacy of Roosevelt, and Truman, and Kennedy. That’s what the American people want. That’s what change is.

Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but the work and workers who created it. It’s understanding that the struggles facing working families can’t be solved by spending billions of dollars on more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, but by giving a the middle-class a tax break, and investing in our crumbling infrastructure, and transforming how we use energy, and improving our schools, and renewing our commitment to science and innovation. It’s understanding that fiscal responsibility and shared prosperity can go hand-in-hand, as they did when Bill Clinton was President.

John McCain has spent a lot of time talking about trips to Iraq in the last few weeks, but maybe if he spent some time taking trips to the cities and towns that have been hardest hit by this economy – cities in Michigan, and Ohio, and right here in Minnesota – he’d understand the kind of change that people are looking for.

Maybe if he went to Iowa and met the student who works the night shift after a full day of class and still can’t pay the medical bills for a sister who’s ill, he’d understand that she can’t afford four more years of a health care plan that only takes care of the healthy and wealthy. She needs us to pass health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants it and brings down premiums for every family who needs it. That’s the change we need.

Maybe if he went to Pennsylvania and met the man who lost his job but can’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one, he’d understand that we can’t afford four more years of our addiction to oil from dictators. That man needs us to pass an energy policy that works with automakers to raise fuel standards, and makes corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future – an energy policy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. That’s the change we need.

And maybe if he spent some time in the schools of South Carolina or St. Paul or where he spoke tonight in New Orleans, he’d understand that we can’t afford to leave the money behind for No Child Left Behind; that we owe it to our children to invest in early childhood education; to recruit an army of new teachers and give them better pay and more support; to finally decide that in this global economy, the chance to get a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American. That’s the change we need in America. That’s why I’m running for President.

The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don’t deserve is another election that’s governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon – that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first.

Despite what the good Senator from Arizona said tonight, I have seen people of differing views and opinions find common cause many times during my two decades in public life, and I have brought many together myself. I’ve walked arm-in-arm with community leaders on the South Side of Chicago and watched tensions fade as black, white, and Latino fought together for good jobs and good schools. I’ve sat across the table from law enforcement and civil rights advocates to reform a criminal justice system that sent thirteen innocent people to death row. And I’ve worked with friends in the other party to provide more children with health insurance and more working families with a tax break; to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and ensure that the American people know where their tax dollars are being spent; and to reduce the influence of lobbyists who have all too often set the agenda in Washington.

In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.

So it was for that band of patriots who declared in a Philadelphia hall the formation of a more perfect union; and for all those who gave on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam their last full measure of devotion to save that same union.

So it was for the Greatest Generation that conquered fear itself, and liberated a continent from tyranny, and made this country home to untold opportunity and prosperity.

So it was for the workers who stood out on the picket lines; the women who shattered glass ceilings; the children who braved a Selma bridge for freedom’s cause.

So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that’s better, and kinder, and more just.

And so it must be for us.

America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Video thanks to Chuckumentary at The Uptake