Sarina Partridge is a community-based musician, songleader, activist and organizer based in Minneapolis, MN. She creates and leads song for supporting communities in our collective moments of grief, action, and joy — songs for protests, rallies, community celebrations, bedsides, and more. Sarina sings with a wide variety of music projects: community song-leading; harmony-rich original music with folk trio Heartwood; performing and teaching of Eastern European and Yiddish song; and leading trainings to empower and support emerging songleaders to step into authentic, grounded leadership. Sarina has a passion for connecting people with their own creativity and with community, and uses singing as a modality to help folks develop an embodied sense of wonder and belonging in this wild world.
We Vote for US
We never voted for them
We vote for US, we vote for US
All power to the people
Oh, when you need hope
Hold your people close
Yeah, you give me hope
I remember, I was never in this alone
ABOUT THE SONG
This song, We Vote For Us, was inspired by a video that I saw ahead of the 2024 election called "Vote Like a Radical." This video was made by the NDN Collective and it just really inspired me. (Check it out here.) What I took away from that video was that we can shift how we think about our votes... They're often framed as voting for someone, endorsing a candidate's politics, our votes saying a lot about our identities and who we are. And this video was inviting people to think about a vote in a different way: Think about voting to choose your opponent -- and the opponent that you and your movements are best positioned to push against.
And that's always how it is. As soon as someone gets elected, they become our opponents, and the best way that we can support them is by pushing against them to move towards serving the people. And that just really spoke to me because leading up to this election, I can feel like, how could I possibly support any of these political parties, when none of them is taking as much of a stand as we need them to in support of the people??! And I wanted to remind myself with this song, hey, I'm not voting for them. I'm always voting for US. All power to the people. And that gives me hope, because that's who I'm fighting for.
As Long As It Takes
We're gonna hold the line, we're gonna hold the line
For as long [for as long]
As it takes [as it takes]
We're gonna hold the line, we're gonna hold the line
No one's gonna take our voice or our vote away
No one's gonna take our voice or our vote away
ABOUT THE SONG
I wrote this song because we were thinking about, how do we help people stay with this voting process for as long as it takes? On the front end, we were thinking about how many people don't know that as long as you're in the line to vote, even if it's past the hour when the polls are supposed to close, you still get to vote. So we were thinking, we need a song to encourage peopleto stay in line, to hold the line -- for as long as it takes. And this melody started coming in. And I was also thinking about how this song could support the post-election process and staying with that for as long as it takes -- pushing our officials and systems to count the votes, to certify the election, and saying to ourselves and each other and the voting systems: you better count the votes, for as long as it takes! We are waiting.
My hope for this song is that it can be customizable to these during-the-elections and after-the-elections different scenarios, but also that it could be really flexible and adaptable. You could sing this song saying things like... "We're gonna stand up for the water, we're gonna stand up for the water -- for as long as it takes..." because so many of the movements that we're a part of, it's a long haul! And I thought, I could really use a song to remind me that I am in this movement for as long as it takes.