Nearly a century ago, this country suffered its greatest and most enduring economic hardship with the Great Depression. For close to a decade, Americans were devastated by poverty and unemployment, with drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade. Sound familiar? Back then, songwriters and musicians put on a brave face with songs like “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee.” These days, we don’t have the luxury of leaving our worries on the doorstep. Some folks don’t even have a doorstep, or if they do, they run the risk of ICE waiting for them when they get home.

Singer-songwriter James Kahn understands these are perilous times, and he has written a couple of new songs that reflect these difficult days. On “Cold Dawn,” chugging guitars, brittle bass lines, and urgent keys ride roughshod over a loping beat. James’ whiskey-soaked rasp wraps around lyrics that offer stark reportage: “It’s comin’ on dark times, they say history rhymes, I can hear it hummin’, all its comedies and crimes, broken verses and curses, and now there’s dark times comin’.” Rather than suggesting we wallow in the mire, even as we receive “dire messages in code written in tears overflowed,” the sunny chorus insists it’s time to join the resistance: “So you better hold on, hold on, hold on, in the cold dawn… gonna turn this thing around.” Swoony accordion, smoky harmonica, and National steel guitar bookend each verse.

Accompanying the song is a powerful video that weaves vivid footage of concentration camps, the spray-tanned dear leader, Alligator Alcatraz, ICE Barbie, fiery conflagrations, protests, arrests, ICE raids, MLK, candlelight vigils, Anne Frank, war zones, and heartwarming reunions. It offers moments of hope, resilience, and perseverance. James clearly subscribes to the theory that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

“Omein” flips the script, offering a musical chiaroscuro where light refracts shadow. Churchy keys wash over a stately melody as lyrics invite us to connect with the better angels of our nature: “Omein, Omein, when you find those tender mercies that your heart cannot contain, let them hold them in your heart and say Omein.” Midway through, shadowy organ lattices a walloping beat as “Omein”—the Hebrew word for “Amen”—and “Shanti,” the Sanskrit word for peace and tranquility, intersect. Like a prayer, like a mantra, the song offers a bit of cosmic exhale.