MUSIC videos &lyrics
Just Who We Are (the Cost of Living in the Land of Freedom)
This is the third song I’ve written in my life in response to a school shooting. It came to me on my birthday in 2023, after the mass shootings in Uvalde and Nashville. A year later, I decided to record it here in Lori Land, the first recording I made here in my little studio. This is actually the second recording of the song, the first was a bit more experimental. My beautiful friend Ron Goad provided inspired percussion and tremendous moral support. The amazing Steve Pendlebury created this video & Jean Van White (artist with a camera) provided many of the powerful images. Huge gratitude to everyone involved in this passion project, it’s a love song to all those who have suffered gun violence.
Lyrics / Just Who We Are (the Cost of Living in the Land of Freedom) - Lori Grigsby
1) How is it I get to wake when you sweet child have been taken forever?
Turn on the news and there’s your face, & another & another & another & another.
CHORUS) Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are sending out our best thoughts and prayers.
2) How is it that you can sleep knowing you could make a difference but you’ve chosen your greed?
Knowing tomorrow may be… just another gaping wound in a country that bleeds?
CHORUS) Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are sending out our best thoughts and prayers.
3) Hard to imagine the heartache when your sweet child has been taken forever.
All of the hopes, all of the memories, and all of the things they dreamed they might be just swept away….
CHORUS) Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are tweeting out our best thoughts and prayers.
INSTRUMENTAL VERSE
Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
Oh yeah it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are sending out our best thoughts and prayers.
Yeah we are tweeting out our best thoughts and prayers.
Recorded live at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, VA on July 7, 2026
with “The Chopped Liver Rhythm Section” - Ron Goad (percussion) & John Werntz (bass)
Videos recorded & edited by Steve Pendlebury at Steve Pendlebury Media Services:
Here & There
Lyrics / Here & There - Lori Grigsby
1) Well… I’ve been here, and I’ve been there, met a lot of people, made a few friends.
Marched in line, fell behind, jumped a lot of fences just to see the other side.
I’ve often wondered what it’s all about, What are the lessons I have learned?
CHORUS) Well, life’s too hard without a sense of humor, & most people are broken children in disguise.
In the end, what matters most is how you treat them, and you have a choice…
2) Well… I’m still here, and I don’t know how, only through the grace of the gifts that I’ve been given.
Thank you friends, thank you strangers, anyone who ever made a difference.
Thanks for the shelter through the years, and all the laughter through the tears
CHORUS) Cuz life’s too hard without a sense of humor, & most people are broken children in disguise.
In the end, what matters most is how you treat them, and you have a choice…
BRIDGE) Well seasons come and seasons go, another life, another road.
And all those things you wish you’d known, just gotta let them go…..
CHORUS) Yeah, life’s too hard without a sense of humor, most people are broken children in disguise.
In the end, what matters most is how you treat them, and you have a choice…
Just Who We Are (the cost of living in the land of freedom)
Lyrics / Just Who We Are (the Cost of Living in the Land of Freedom) - Lori Grigsby
1) How is it I get to wake when you sweet child have been taken forever?
Turn on the news and there’s your face, & another & another & another & another.
CHORUS) Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are sending out our best thoughts and prayers.
2) How is it that you can sleep knowing you could make a difference but you’ve chosen your greed?
Knowing tomorrow may be… just another gaping wound in a country that bleeds?
CHORUS) Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are sending out our best thoughts and prayers.
3) Hard to imagine the heartache when your sweet child has been taken forever.
All of the hopes, all of the memories, and all of the things they dreamed they might be just swept away….
CHORUS) Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are tweeting out our best thoughts and prayers.
INSTRUMENTAL VERSE
Oh but it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
Oh yeah it’s just who we are, it’s just the cost of living in the land of freedom.
And we are sending out our best thoughts and prayers.
Yeah we are tweeting out our best thoughts and prayers.
Crazy Cat Lady
Lyrics / Crazy Cat Lady - Lori Grigsby
1) Well I may be a crazy cat lady, but what’s your definition of children?
And I confess I’m an analog girl in a digital world.
And I get lost sometimes, well, maybe a lot, so many things that I just don’t understand…
CHORUS) Call me crazy, call me weak…
but I believe in music, I believe in hugs, I believe in peace and I believe in love,
That together we… can be a symphony… that drives the darkness away…
2)What do you see when you look at me? Am I hard to define?
Does that mean that somehow I just don’t belong?
Every day we pick and choose how we divide, meanwhile we lose the truth behind a wall of lies…
CHORUS) Call me crazy, call me weak…
but I believe in music, I believe in hugs, I believe in peace and I believe in love,
That together we… can be a symphony… that drives the darkness away…
Every day it’s science fiction, and stoking more division, somehow it’s become a religion,
Oh but we… are racing our voices now, and we… are calling out… to the best in us
CHORUS) Call us hippies, call us freaks…
but we believe in music, we believe in hugs, we believe in peace and we believe in love,
And together we… will be the symphony… that drives the darkness away…
So I may be a crazy cat lady, but I’m happy to be…
Legacy
Lori Grigsby
Lyrics / Legacy - Lori Grigsby
1) Is it just me, where are we going? Seems like we’ve lost our way.
I’m on the train, studying faces, so many lined in pain.
It was a year ago today we lost Virginia Giuffre…
Somehow it all gets swallowed up in the endless day to day…
What have we become? Was this us all along?
CHORUS) Tell me what will be our legacy? And what kind of world are we leaving behind?
Oh for those who see the reality, time to rise…
2) Another day, another dollar for the big guys at the top.
First it’s a wall, next a ballroom, it’ll never stop.
It’s a monster that’s eating us all with an endless aching hunger,
It gobbles everything up, but it’s never enough, a gaping black hole…
And nobody knows where it all goes.
CHORUS) Tell me what will be our legacy? And what kind of world are we leaving behind?
Oh for those who see the reality, time to rise… rise……..
Tell me what will be our legacy?