Happy Birthday, Captain

"Freedom Highway" with Mavis Staples on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Hi, everybody.

It’s Captain Jeffy’s birthday today!! Happy Birthday, Captain!

While Jeff enjoys a rare birthday off the road, he asked that we Starship Engineers share his and Mavis Staples’s performance from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s special residency in Chicago this week.

They had been scheduled to perform “For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield’s 1966 liberation anthem, in light of the Democratic National Convention. But on the morning of the broadcast, Jeff and Mavis got to talking… What about “Freedom Highway,” the Staple Singers’ own 1965 propellant for marching and organizing, instead? The convention had a joyous feel, not an ominous feel. “Freedom Highway” would reflect that.

They reached out to the lovely Late Show crew to ask if Stephen would be OK with the last-minute change. It was an easy case to make. “Freedom Highway” was recorded at a church in Chicago, not far from the current Democratic National Convention. Stephen’s team replied with a hearty yep.

Photo credit: Jessica Linker.

And so they sang it. It had been a while since Mavis and her band had performed the song. When beloved background singer Donny Gerrard passed away in 2022, the low, intense parts he used to sing—Pops’s original verses—became a reminder of his absence.

They sang the song in his honor, in Pops’s honor, for the whole of Chicago and the country. The words of “Freedom Highway” are tragically relevant. But we should never let them become trite. They refer to actions we can and must take. They refer to things we can change. It’s time to march.

Freedom Highway

March up freedom’s highway
March each and every day
March up freedom’s highway
March each and every day
Made up my mind and I won’t turn around
Made up my mind and I won’t turn around

There is just one thing
I can’t understand my friend
Why some folk think freedom
Was not designed for all men

There are so many people
Living their lives perplexed
Wonderin’ in their minds
What's gonna happen next?
That’s why we’re gonna

March up freedom’s highway
March each and every day
March up freedom's highway
March each and every day
Made up my mind and I won't turn around
Made up my mind and I won't turn around

Found dead pеople in the forest
Tallahatchiе River and lakes
The whole world is wonderin’
What's wrong with the United States?

Yes, we want peace
If it can be found
We’re marching freedom highway
And I’m not gonna turn around

I think I voted for the right man
Said we’d overcome
Stay on freedom highway
Until the day is done

March up freedom’s highway
March each and every day
March up freedom’s highway
March each and every day
Made up my mind and I won’t turn around
Made up my mind and I won’t turn around
Keep on marchin’ up freedom’s highway

Request for songs!

Jeffy wants to hear your suggestions for songs to cover in the comments below. Suggest his own songs or others’ songs. If he picks your suggestion, we’ll mail you a little somethin’.

This Week in Wilco, Etc.

2021 / August 20: Jeff shares a first draft of a new song, “Stray Cats in Spain (Tiger Prints)” on Starship Casual. 

2012 / August 21: Bill Fay’s album Life Is People is released on Dead Oceans. He covers “Jesus, Etc.” and Jeff sings lead vocal on the track “This World.”

1967 / August 25: Happy Birthday, Captain!