Breitbart’s own Jon Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the Trump-inspired, Billboard-topping song “Fighter,” is saying words he never thought possible just a year after losing his home of 20 years in the devastating Palisades fires: “I think it might end up being the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I was shellshocked for months but there are lessons that you learn. This is going to turn out, I believe, which I never thought I would possibly say. I think this will turn out to be a blessing for me in some ways,” Kahn said Wednesday on Breitbart News Daily, when host Mike Slater asked him why he wrote his new song “After It Burns.”
The powerful, four-minute song is a deeply emotional reflection on loss, pain, anger, and the resolve that follows when everything familiar is reduced to ash.
Slater bluntly asked Kahn “What happened one year ago?”
“I was working at Breitbart on my computer and started getting messages to keep an eye out for a fire in the hills. I was a resident of Palisades. Grew up there. Went to high school there. Bought my first and only house there,” Kahn explained. “The winds were completely out of control. Ultimately, I left my house at four o’clock not believing that my house was in jeopardy because I lived pretty far away from the hills.”
“Two and a half hours later,” Kahn said, ” I was at my dad’s apartment looking at Ring camera footage of my home starting to burn. And I ended up, along with so many others, losing their homes in the Palisade fires.”
The video for “After It Burns” opens with real-time Ring doorbell camera footage of Kahn’s white picket fence going up in flames.
Slater asked Kahn to walk the radio audience through what those gutting moments felt like for him.
“It took me about two and a half hours to drive two miles to my dad’s apartment. By the time I got there, I turned on my Ring camera footage and my dad and I sat there and saw the picket fence go up in flames,” Kahn explained. “And then I saw the camera in the back yard and it looked like the biggest health storm we’ve ever seen. And then my security system started sending me emails. There’s smoke in your music studio, there’s smoke in your kitchen — email after email. And then finally it said glass break in the living room. And I looked at my dad and I said, ‘my house is gone.’ And he just nodded.”
“We were just both in shock,” Kahn continued. “So that’s how it went down. It was only two and a half hours after I left. Which means, Mike, that it swept through the entire town of the Palisades. That means it swept through the business district and then miles to my house in two and a half hours. That’s how quickly it moved.”
“Why write a song about it?” Slater asked.
“That’s sort of how I have dealt with hardship through my entire life. I didn’t realize it when I started making music a bunch of years back, but, you know, the only way I know personally how to deal with hardship is to create art. And it took me a long time after these fires. It took me months and months. I mean, I would walk by my guitars, I’d walk by a piano and I wouldn’t play it. I wouldn’t pick up the guitar. I just didn’t have it in me,” Kahn said. “A few months after, I just sat down at the piano and this song came out and it came out quickly. Usually when you’re a songwriter and a song comes out quickly, it’s usually very honest, very raw and hopefully pretty effective. So, I figured it would be a great way to commemorate a year of loss and hopefully inspire some people that have lost so much in these fires. Also in a broader sense, inspire people who have dealt with catastrophic loss in the past in other arenas and will in the future.”
Slater wanted to dig a little deeper, saying “It’s one thing to write a song about a house burning down. That’s pretty specific. This is about bigger things right after it burns. So what are the things you think people can relate to in this song?”
“I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned that you don’t expect when something this catastrophic happens,” Kahn responded. “And it’s interesting because we’re both in the news business. So, we’re always reporting on what happens over there, what happens to other people. So to become part of the story, which sadly I was along with so many others, you learn a lot and you don’t think you’re going to get through it. I was shellshocked for months but there are lessons that you learn. This is going turn out, I believe, which I never thought I would possibly say, I think this will turn out to be a blessing for me in some ways.”
“Even though I’m still dealing with a lot of paperwork, a lot of insurance and all sorts of stuff back home. I relocated to Nashville. And for me, I had been considering moving to Nashville for about five years and just frankly didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger,” Kahn said. “I was kind of stuck. And looking back, I feel like I was kind of stuck in my life at that point. So I relocated to Nashville. My house is a dirt lot right now. And honestly, I think it might end up being the best thing that ever happened because I love Nashville. It’s an amazing community. The people are incredible. My politics go over better than they did in L.A. And it’s just, it’s an amazing place. I’m, I’m grateful that I was able to make this move and adjust. I feel badly that it took something so catastrophic to motivate me. But I, I do think, you know –we’ve talked about faith in the past, Mike — I do think that God was kind of looking out for me. And I think you have to look at it through your own personal lens. And I hope everybody finds peace that went through this in some way.”
Slater walked the listening audience through “After It Burns” a few lines of its lyrics at a time, asking Kahn if the opening lyrics came to him early on as he was writing the song.
“Absolutely. I just started talking to the fire in the second person and then I kind of knew what the song was gonna be from there,” Kahn said.
Slater then played the first verses.
You came in
You didn’t use the door
And fed yourself
But still you wanted moreNow there ain’t nothing much left to say
I know now I was the only one in my own way
And somehow I’ll find the will
So I can find a wayThrough the ashes
Broken matches
Nothing lasts that
Should’ve lasted
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies you can see for miles
After it burns
“‘I know now I was the only one in my own way,'” Slater read aloud before asking Kahn what those lyrics mean.
“Yeah, that was a tricky, hat was a very personal line for me and I think goes back to what we were just talking about,” Kahn explained. “You sit back and you reflect on these things and you realize, like I mentioned earlier, you know, I could have made the move to Nashville much earlier. And I just I let fear, comfort, whatever it was that was keeping me in that bubble where I grew up, prevent me from doing something that would force me to grow. And so, despite the fire doing what it did, in some ways I’m blaming myself there for stopping a new chapter in my life.”
“Through the ashes, broken matches, nothing lasts that should have lasted,” Slater said, continuing to read the song lyrics. “All that matters now is where you turn. Who’s the you?”
“Well, I think you is sort of a collective. That’s for everybody. It’s more of a general human experience. When anybody goes through something like this, you’ve got a couple of choices you can wallow in it, you can feel sorry for yourself, or you can figure out what’s next,” Kahn said. “And I say that in the second person in those first two courses. But at the end, I switch it to the first person because it’s a choice that I’m making. It applies to me. How you handle something like this is, I mean, we’re very resilient as human beings. Clear skies, I can see for miles, I mean, that was a line because after the fires were, were put out, the bluest skies you’ve ever seen in L.A. It was almost like the fires didn’t happen. And I just remember that image sticking with me and I went, okay, now what?”
“You know, it kind of reminds you of, I don’t want to compare the two, but there was a picture, I remember, I think it might’ve been on the New York Post after 9/11, where it had a beautiful day, sunny day. The Twin Towers were gone. It showed the New York skyline and the caption just said, ‘now what?’ And I’ll never forget that image. And I think that ‘clear skies, I can see for miles’ it was sort of an homage to that.”
“That goes to what I was talking about, a choice that you make,” Kahn said, explaining what the lines “I won’t look for you. I won’t waste another day in the ashes” mean.
“As somebody who’s gone through something like this. Again, I’m not going to spend time wallowing in it. And you make that choice. I’m not going to sit there and talk about it. And it’s hard. It’s hard because your whole life has changed. It’s kind of what we believe as conservatives. You get knocked down, you get up, and you look for what’s next,” Kahn said. “When you write a song, you may not believe it because you’re in pain when you write a song like this. But you’re also telling yourself what you think you need to hear unconsciously. I remember when I wrote the song, I was not the levelheaded optimistic guy before you right now. I was in deep, deep angst. But so I was telling myself, don’t waste another day. Look for those blue skies and start over and figure your life out. And you will.”
“All that beautiful rain coming down, that beautiful rain don’t stick now,” Slater said asking Kahn about what those lyrics mean.
“That’s one that I felt when I was writing it. It was sort of like, where was that rain? But the beautiful rain at that point in the song and in the events, the timeline of the events was, the fire’s out right. And now something beautiful is going to come from it. So, you know, get out there and figure out what that is,” Kahn said.
PURCHASE OR STREAM “AFTER IT BURNS” HERE
Slater asked Kahn “Why is this song the Breitbart Way? Why would your friend Andrew Breitbart have liked this song and just the fact of you writing it and publishing it and putting it out?”
“I think Andrew was famous for the term that everybody uses in our movement that culture is upstream from politics. And I think the song’s not particularly political. I think it’s easy to say, I wrote the song and look at all the pain that the leadership caused through the policies that led up to these fires and the policies that he led after. And there are plenty, plenty of missteps and plenty of neglect,” Kahn said. “But Andrew was a culture guy. And he never wanted the art that conservatives make be labeled conservative art. He just wanted it to be good. And if you became an artist or you have a platform, through good work, whether it be music or film, well, then perhaps you can sneak in some subversive messages and write about the values that we all believe in.”
“And Andrew was very human. He was a very sensitive, compassionate guy. He made everybody feel safe. And for me, when I write a song or direct anything it is very important for me to find that universality between human beings that we all share. And hopefully through the work, let people understand that they’re not alone,” Kahn concluded.
AFTER IT BURNS LYRICS
You came in
You didn’t use the door
And fed yourself
But still you wanted more
Now there ain’t nothing much left to say
I know now I was the only one in my own way
And somehow I’ll find the will
So I can find a way
Through the ashes
Broken matches
Nothing lasts that
Should’ve lasted
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies you can see for miles
After it burns
Where’d you go
You left so much behind
That you can’t take with
‘Cause you can’t take what is mine
And if I ever should see your face
I’ll tell you Go back to hell
‘Cause that’s the only place
I won’t look for you I won’t waste another day
In the ashes
Broken matches
Nothing lasts that
Should’ve lasted
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies you can see for miles
After it burns
All that beautiful rain
Coming down
That beautiful rain
Don’t stop now
And from those ashes
Broken matches
Something new
In all that tragic
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies I can see for miles
And I know one day
I’ll smile again
After it burns
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Jerome Hudson is Breitbart News Entertainment Editor and author of the book 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know About Trump. Order your copy today. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter and instagram@jeromeehudson