For today's Bandcamp fundraiser, tons of cool artists have come together to release a 20-song musical tribute to Allen Ginsberg's The Fall of America: Poems of these States 1965-1971 to celebrate the poetry collection's 50th anniversary. All proceeds will be donated to Head Count. It includes contributions by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore & Lee Ranaldo, Yo La Tengo, Devendra Banhart, Andrew Bird, Angelique Kidjo, and more. The description reads:

This exciting tribute celebrates the 50th Anniversary of beloved poet Allen Ginsberg’s “The Fall of America: Poems of these States”, 1965-1971. In the fall of 2020 with the 50th anniversary of those poems fast approaching we reached out to many of Allen’s musician and artist friends. Many responded enthusiastically about interpreting these poems to music; even those poems that presented more of a musical challenge.

Our model for this exciting project was Allen’s 1989 “The Lion for Real” produced by the masterful Hal Willner. We had hoped that he would offer us his guidance and with some musicians on board he might have been persuaded to join us as he had done with other projects over the years. Sadly, fate intervened and Hal became one of the first casualties of this deadly pandemic. Although we cannot come close to the genius he would have brought to this project, he will forever be our guiding light, our guardian angel and inspiration for this project . He has left us a model to work with and we will shoot for the stars as his spirit guides us. His blueprint for unexpected combinations and looking in unexpected places inspired us and to our surprise we found international interest from around the world including Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Korea and Japan.

Music has an incredible power not only to move but also to unite people. With that in mind, all proceeds from the sales of these tracks will be donated to HeadCount.org, an organization which promotes voter registration and participation in democracy through the power of music.

The Fall of America is the warning and the world is listening.

They also add that the project is dedicated to the late Hal Willner. Listen:

Thurston Moore also put a new 10-song project out on Bandcamp today called screen time, and you can check that out too: