NOTE: THIS TRACK HASN'T BEEN MASTERED YET, AND SO YOU'LL NEED TO TURN YOUR SPEAKERS UP A BIT.
This is the last song I've written and recorded for my upcoming concept album, Adentro del Volcan! The album now goes off for mastering, here in San Miguel de Allende.
Here's the concept:
An alien crashes on Earth, with no chance to get home. Using his powers to blend in, he sets about exploring his new surroundings in a country called the USA. He encounters baffling and alarming chaos and duplicity, with the few humans who are trying to be better than their instincts and programming feeling overwhelmed and disillusioned at the behavior of others around them. Some leave their home country, conflicted, in search of a more altruistic community to live in. Traveling farther afield, our alien observers the desperate search for love amidst the crumbling world civilization. He is stunned by those who refuse to see their situation for what it is, hiding away in churches or in meaningless virtual games.
Infiltrating the gatherings of the parasitic rich, our alien meets image consultants, agents and PR specialists who bray and boast of their exploitations--regaling him with tales of manufactured outrage on behalf of their “artist” clients to generate something called “clicks” and “buzz.” Caught up in this whirlwind, our alien finds himself leading a punk band with a giant PR machine behind it, but soon enough recoils from his handlers and breaks free.
As the societal collapse approaches terminal velocity, our alien feels a planetary consciousness stir, as the Earth attempts to intervene and rid itself of some of the most destructive monkeys infesting its skin. And as the alien Earth environment wears him down, our involuntary visitor feels a profound loneliness as all that he has seen and experienced weighs heavily upon him. In his final moments, he dreams of how it might have been if the planet’s human inhabitants had only felt some sense of connection and common purpose between each other.
The Worst Monkey (© 2026 Walter Ehresman)
I bring an interstellar view to your humanity,
and from the place that I now stand, it’s hard for me to see
a way toward your survival that’s worth living here at all…..
a way toward a community to catch you when you fall.
I see the traits that you brought down from living in the trees—
a brain that got too big without concurrent empathy…..
a brain that somehow doesn’t hold the biggest skill of all—
to understand mortality is not negotiable (oh no).
[chorus]
You can fantasize about a system you can buy
to somehow worm your way out of the time that you must die,
while never realizing that your only legacy
is how you treat your fellow man up to the point you leave…..
instead of always chasing the worst monkey you can be (oh no).
It breaks my hearts to see your evolutionary flaw,
and watch as you all squander this idyllic blue-green ball.
Walter Ehresman: alien vocals; acoustic guitar; electric 5-string bass; keyboards & key percussion; congas; key loop triggering.
For official Walter Ehresman solo and band releases, please click here: https://walterehresman.bandcamp.com/
p. 2026 Walter Ehresman. All rights reserved.
