Gary Marks has released two new singles, “Where We Started” and “Nobody’s Following”, extending a five-decade songwriting catalogue into the political and social tensions of 2026.
by Paul Cashmere
American singer-songwriter Gary Marks has released “Where We Started” and “Nobody’s Following”, two new songs that examine democracy, war, political power and environmental responsibility. The singles coincide with the publication of Marks’ political novel The Dance and the Diamond Sky, while following his 2026 album Crossroads, released by Lantern Heights Records as an official Record Store Day UK/Europe vinyl title.
The two songs continue a body of work that Marks has developed across five decades, with his songwriting frequently addressing questions of freedom, power, compassion and the responsibilities of individuals within society. Rather than separating his music from his literary work, Marks has increasingly used both forms to revisit recurring political and social themes.
“Where We Started” is rooted in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Marks says he wrote the song shortly afterwards, at a time when he believed Americans could still regard the event as an isolated crisis.
His perspective has since developed into a broader critique of the political direction of the United States.
“I wrote this song shortly after January 6th, when Americans could still pretend it was just a very dark day brought about by a president who’d gone mad,” Marks says. “Since then, working people have been forced to pay Trump’s tariffs while the rich get tax cuts.”
Marks also references the subsequent pardons and commutations granted by President Donald Trump to people convicted of offences connected with January 6. Trump issued the presidential action on January 20, 2025, granting full pardons to many defendants and commuting the sentences of others.
For Marks, those events form the central question of “Where We Started”, which concludes by asking whether the current period represents an ending or a beginning.
The second single, “Nobody’s Following”, reaches further back into American political history. Marks connects the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq War with the Vietnam War era presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon before drawing a line to the current US military conflict with Iran.
“I wrote this song about Bush’s Iraq war, which reminded me of Johnson and Nixon’s lost war in Vietnam, and which is now about Trump’s war with Iran, and his insane environmental policies,” Marks says. “Nobody should have followed any of them.”
The United States has been engaged in an ongoing conflict with Iran in 2026, with the war continuing into September and carrying significant military and economic consequences. Marks uses that contemporary situation as part of a larger argument about the consequences of accepting political decisions without scrutiny.
“As Talking Heads once said, ‘Same as it ever was,'” he adds. “But if we admit our mistakes and find real solutions, it doesn’t have to be like this forever.”
The singles follow Crossroads, a 14-track collection spanning material written across several decades. The album includes nine previously unreleased recordings alongside selections from Marks’ early catalogue and was selected for Record Store Day UK/Europe 2026.
Marks first recorded professionally in the 1970s, releasing Gathering in 1974, followed by Upon Oanda’s Wing in 1976 and Thoughts of Why in 1978. The recordings brought him into contact with musicians who would establish significant careers of their own. John Scofield made an early studio appearance on Gathering, while Paul McCandless, Art Lande, David Samuels and Mark Isham were among the musicians involved across his early albums.
Marks subsequently moved away from touring and the conventional music business, continuing to write and record independently. His later catalogue includes The Real World, If All They Said Was True, Bountiful, A Whisper Can Change the World, From Here, No Turning Back and Alien Nights.
His literary career has developed alongside the music. The Dance and the Diamond Sky was first published in 1988 and received a revised second edition in 2025. Set against the political divisions of 1969, the novel follows young pacifists, a songwriter and political radicals confronting war and social upheaval. Marks has described its continuing relevance in terms of the parallels he sees between the divided America of the late 1960s and the United States of 2026.
The two new songs therefore sit within a catalogue in which music and writing repeatedly address the same questions. “Nobody’s Following” considers the consequences of following political leaders into war, while “Where We Started” confronts the continuing ramifications of January 6 and the wider question of democratic responsibility.
“Where We Started” and “Nobody’s Following” are available now.
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