To be fair, I listened a second time, without the video, and didn't have as strong a reaction, so the song can stand alone on its sonic merits.
That said, the video only format option you presented clearly was intended to underscore and reinforce the political messaging -  a distraction for me and reinforcing for others.  

Its a beautiful love song. Especially the part where you sing about the glass roses... amazing.
 
Just joking...
Mixing: sounded ok to me... but I guess YT "smashed" it a little bit...

What a vocal performance! Regardless of what anyone thinks of the lyrics, it's a great song. However, those vocals are what make in shine, in my opinion. The mix sounded pretty decent to me. I know what you mean about getting to a certain point and just saying THAT'S IT! It sounds good though. Nice job Craig!

Man, your vocals are on the top shelf! The whole mix sounds great, and surprised me as it evolved. Great writing and production!

mcmd
To be fair, I listened a second time, without the video, and didn't have as strong a reaction, so the song can stand alone on its sonic merits.
That said, the video only format option you presented clearly was intended to underscore and reinforce the political messaging -  a distraction for me and reinforcing for others.  

Thank you for the comments MCMD.
 
I figure there's much worse for lyrical content in the world of hip hop and rap but the political stuff can make ones blood boil pretty quick.  
 
Regards
Craig

Leadfoot
What a vocal performance! Regardless of what anyone thinks of the lyrics, it's a great song. However, those vocals are what make in shine, in my opinion. The mix sounded pretty decent to me. I know what you mean about getting to a certain point and just saying THAT'S IT! It sounds good though. Nice job Craig!

 
Leadfoot,
 
I really enjoy creating and mixing our vocals. It's really fun to not have any constraints on the creative aspects of that part of the song and with todays daws and computers it's like having a million dollar studio on your desktop and no time constraints to get a song done.. I've always been a huge fan of pop stuff with lots of backing vocals..... stuff like Journey, Abba, The Eagles, Queen, Toto Boston etc. I'm sad that the music biz has abandoned all of that for what we have today which is mostly crap to me. The downhill spiral all started about the time that Nirvana hit the scene. I was in a band at the time and I decided to hang it up.  I saw the writing on the wall and I had a feeling that was the point of no return for the kind of music that personally like. Its such a great thing to be able to create music like we all can today with the tools available to the average Joe. What a hobby!
 
Craig

the_user_formally_known_as_glennbo
Man, your vocals are on the top shelf! The whole mix sounds great, and surprised me as it evolved. Great writing and production!

Thanks Glennbo, 
 
I'm thrilled that you think that.
 
Craig

 A well constructed song and great mix. Top notch vocal performance. Hard not to get political with the content. I can tell there is a lot of emotion in the lyrics. I even empathize, log into FB to see much of my affluent white friends and co-workers claiming people/groups are being systematically destroyed by Boris and Natasha. I see folks loosing their minds on the left and right. I do think this could be a song for something like Hannity but I think the producers would request the removal of the "Snowflake" reference. Just my opinion.

ohgrant
 A well constructed song and great mix. Top notch vocal performance. Hard not to get political with the content. I can tell there is a lot of emotion in the lyrics. I even empathize, log into FB to see much of my affluent white friends and co-workers claiming people/groups are being systematically destroyed by Boris and Natasha. I see folks loosing their minds on the left and right. I do think this could be a song for something like Hannity but I think the producers would request the removal of the "Snowflake" reference. Just my opinion.

Thank you for the positive and insightful comments. 
 
For me... it's all about the culture.
 
Craig

Great song - love it.