Love, understanding, acceptance: these are the keys to a better world. “With Us All,” the single released last month by Arts Fishing Club, is both a plea and a love letter. It’s a plea for opened hearts, a love letter to the world and to self, and a loving attempt at extinguishing useless hate.

“There was a week in which three separate friends detailed an eerily similar story about how their respective parents had at one point disowned them because of their sexual orientation. My heart broke more with each conversation, and I wrote the first version of the song with a lot of anger towards the bigotry, racism, and religious shame present in our society,” explained vocalist Christopher Kessenich. “However, it felt like I wrote a ‘holier than thou’ song, and I sure as hell ain’t a saint. I asked myself, ‘How do I draw hard lines against the behaviors I don’t agree with, without attacking the humanity of those caught up in the behaviors?’ ‘With Us All’ is my attempt at that.”

The music video for this song lets that message shine. A simple and intimate church setting highlights an underlying message to self-reflect and search for the true motivation behind our actions before allowing them to dictate in harmful ways. The song itself nods to Bob Dylan with lyrics that are heavy, but gentle and speak to the soul:

“All us religions it’s ok, you can settle down
‘Cause there’s no love in the shame we put out
And heaven ain’t about being right or wrong
It’s about tearing the pain away from our souls
And everyone afraid to open their eyes
To call out the truth in our ancestors lies
All us racists and sexists and anti-gays
All of us drowning in all of our hate.

Take a moment with “With Us All” below.

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