What does it mean to say you've witnessed something? Maybe you were simply in the right place at the right time; maybe you were a bystander who watched silently as an event played out before you. But to bear witness implies something more powerful. When you bear witness in a courtroom or a church, you're an active party, testifying as to what you've seen. One who bears witness speaks of her firsthand experience — of an incident, of spiritual enlightenment, of truth itself — back into the world so that it might change an outcome or a life.

It's that second sort that interests Benjamin Booker in "Witness," the title track from the follow-up to his explosive 2014 debut. The New Orleans-based songwriter — who's favored a sound like the blues, soul and rock 'n' roll mixed with gasoline and a lit cigarette — leans into more explicitly gospel territory here, letting his strepitous guitar take a backseat to an upright-piano melody and choral harmonies. Booker mourns violence against black bodies and hints at the insidious consequences of bearing false witness: "Thought that we saw that he had a gun / Thought that it looked like he started to run." Meanwhile, Mavis Staples sings the song's chorus, lending her typical moral urgency to its central question: "Am I going to be a witness ... just going to be a witness?"

To accompany the announcement of the album, Booker has written an essay detailing the experience that led him towards writing the album's title song, which you can read in full below.

WITNESS
By Benjamin Booker

"Once you find yourself in another civilization you are forced to examine your own."

--James Baldwin

By February of 2016, I realized I was a songwriter with no songs, unable to piece together any words that wouldn't soon be plastered on the side of a paper airplane.

I woke up one morning and called my manager, Aram Goldberg.

"Aram, I got a ticket south," I said. "I'm going to Mexico for a month."

"Do you speak Spanish?" he asked.

"No," I answered. "That's why I'm going."

The next day I packed up my clothes, books and a cheap classical guitar I picked up in Charleston. I headed to Louis Armstrong Airport and took a plane from New Orleans to Houston to Mexico City.

As I flew above the coast of Mexico, I looked out the plane window and saw a clear sky with the uninhabited coast of a foreign land below me.

I couldn't help but smile.

My heart was racing.

I was running.

I rented an apartment on the border of Juarez and Doctores, two neighborhoods in the center of the city, near the Baleras metro station, and prepared to be mostly alone.

I spent days wandering the streets, reading in parks, going to museums and looking for food that wouldn't make me violently ill again. A few times a week I'd meet up with friends in La Condesa to sip mezcal at La Clandestina, catch a band playing at El Imperial or see a DJ at Pata Negra, a local hub.

I spent days in silence and eventually began to write again.

I was almost entirely cut off from my home. Free from the news. Free from politics. Free from friends.

What I felt was the temporary peace that can come from looking away. It was a weightlessness, like being alone in a dark room. Occasionally, the lights would be turned on and I'd once again be aware of my own mass.

I'd get headlines sent to me from friends at home.

"More Arrests at U.S. Capitol as Democracy Spring Meets Black Lives Matter"

"Bill Clinton Gets Into Heated Exchange with Black Lives Matter Protester"

That month, Americans reflected on the murder of Freddie Gray by Baltimore police a year earlier.

I'd turn my phone off and focus on something else. I wasn't in America.

One night, I went to Pata Negra for drinks with my friend Mauricio. Mau was born and raised in Mexico City and became my guide. He took me under his wing and his connections in the city made my passage through the night a lot easier.

We stood outside of Pata Negra for a cigarette and somehow ended up in an argument with a few young, local men. It seemed to come out of nowhere and before I knew it I was getting shoved to the ground by one of the men.

Mau helped me get up and calmly talked the men down. I brushed the dirt off of my pants and we walked around the block.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"It's fine," he said. "Some people don't like people who aren't from here."

He wouldn't say it, but I knew what he meant.

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Resources

Benjamin Booker - official site

Related

• Benjamin Booker performs live in The Current studio (2014)
• The Current's Guitar Collection: Benjamin Booker