Last month, local Pittsboro musician and songwriter Joseph Terrell posted his song, titled “Genuine American Hero” to social media. The song now has more than 3 million views on TikTok.
The song centers around the officer who shot and killed Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, last month in Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security has said Good was impeding agents, but there have been conflicting reports.
Terrell said his song is meant to challenge who we label as heroes.
“It kind of became about this stock character of the American soldier,” he said. “That officer, I think, was just real representative of the problem we've got.”
Terrell’s been playing music since he was a kid. He learned his first guitar chords from his grandmother, and began seriously playing music in college. He played with the Chapel Hill-based band Mipso for 13 years. His solo debut, "Good for Nothing Howl," was released in 2023. He said he writes all kinds of music, and wrote this song after weeks of watching news about ICE.
“I don't set out to write any kind of music I would classify as protest music. But when I feel fired up about something, sometimes a political song comes out,” Terrell said.
“Genuine American Hero” is a protest song written in the talkin’ blues style, similar to those of musicians Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. According to Terrell, talkin’ blues is a song without a melody — a rhythmic style of speaking lyrics. He said he wrote the song without a guitar in his hand.
“The first line I thought of was, he saw a 37-year-old mother of three, and he shot her in the face in her SUV,” Terrell said. “Very few songs I write come out of anger, but I was really mad when I wrote this one.”
Good’s death sparked controversy over the Trump Administration’s Immigration enforcement tactics, specifically with their presence in Minneapolis. Weeks later, another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, was shot and killed by an officer at an ICE protest in Minneapolis. Pretti was an ICU nurse.
Terrell said he’s experienced mostly positive feedback. He received comments and messages thanking him for sharing the song and also some asking to share the chords so others can sing it as well. He said he has received bad messages from Trump supporters as well.
Terrell said he didn’t post the song with a specific response in mind.
“It just felt like when you've got a burning question, you just have to ask it, and you find your hand suddenly is raised,” Terrell said. “This one kind of was burning a hole in my pocket, and I had to put it out there for people to see it, whatever they would have thought about it.”
Though the song follows events that took place in Minnesota, Terrell said he could have written it about any place that’s been targeted by ICE. North Carolina experienced an increased ICE presence in November and December, with Operation Charlotte’s Web in Charlotte leading to the detention of more than 250 people, according to the Department of Homeland Security. ICE also came to the Triangle.
Terrell said Latin American culture has been a large part of his experience in North Carolina, and to him is one of the best parts about the state.
“It's hard not to get mad when you feel like … it's just so patently un-American and against what we should be standing for,” Terrell said.
Terrell said he hopes his song continues to spark conversation, and that it reminds people music can be a way to stand together.
