The first single from his upcoming debut album, Eyes on the Prize, has been released by singer-songwriter, guitarist, and climate justice campaigner Ethan Buckner. Eyes on the Prize is an indie folk/pop song for our tumultuous and crucial times, with lyrics that pay poetic homage to Alice Wine’s 1956 civil rights hymn.
After a passionate address by US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Buckner and his band performed their new song, Eyes on the Prize, during the March to End Fossil Fuels, the largest climate protest in the United States in years. With the support of hundreds of environmental and social justice organizations and celebrities including Jane Fonda, Marc Rualo, Jeremy Strong, and SOFI TUCKER, the march brought together over 75,000 people in midtown Manhattan to kick off New York Climate Week.
This is the first time Buckner has worked with producer Justin Glasco (Paris Paloma, The Lone Bellow), who has been nominated for a Grammy. Ethan’s brother, drummer Matt Buckner, and vocalist/keyboardist Debbie Neigher (Demi Lovato, Suki Waterhouse), all contributed to the track.
Eyes on the Prize, like most of Buckner’s songwriting, oscillates between introspection and community, confidence and fear. An epic chorus that calls for perseverance and optimism erupts over booming kicks and frenzied percussion, conjuring the pulse of indignation and inspiration that dene watershed moments in social movements. Buckner wrote the song after protests erupted outside his Los Angeles residence following George Floyd’s death in 2020, with helicopters whirring overhead.“As the drumbeat of protest shook our neighborhood, the mantra of ‘Eyes on the Prize’ just kept repeating itself in my head,” Ethan said, recalling his first session working on the track.
More than half a century after the Civil Rights movement, I wanted to pay tribute to the enduring struggle against tyranny and magnify the spirit of the times. Ethan has spent the better part of a decade working for the nonprofit Earthworks, where he leads campaigns with Indigenous, working class, and communities of color against large oil, gas, and petrochemical corporations.Photos from Buckner’s advocacy on causes ranging from global warming and racial justice to economic inequality and immigration are featured in the book’s cover art.
To Ethan, the images are “a tapestry of struggles much larger than myself, stories that carry with them grief and triumph, trauma and hope.” In the months after the publication of Eyes on the Prize, Buckner will release a new single every month until the spring of 2024, when he will drop his debut 10-song album, Treading Water.
The forthcoming project, produced by Glasco, relies upon Ethan’s literary poetry, exquisite guitar work and soulful vocals, blending genuine emotion with soaring tunes and dark and ephemeral soundscapes.
Listen to “Eyes on the prize” on Spotify:
