Gary Marks Drops Two New Singles Ahead of Political Novel

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The singles address political themes from Iraq and Vietnam wars to January 6th and democracy.

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Singer-songwriter Gary Marks has released his two new singles ' Where We Started ' and ' Nobody's Following .' The tracks accompany the publishing of his flagship political novel The Dance and the Diamond Sky.

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The release follows Marks' recent LP, Crossroads (Lantern Heights Records), a 2026 Record Store Day UK / Europe selection.

Of the song ' Nobody's Following ', Marks recalls: '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. Nobody should have followed any of them. All it does is make America look short-sighted and foolish. As Talking Heads once said, 'Same as it ever was.' But if we admit our mistakes and find real solutions, it doesn't have to be like this forever.'

Of the song ' Where We Started ', Marks says: '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. Since then, working people have been forced to pay Trump's tariffs while the rich get tax cuts. And the people who attacked the Capitol have been pardoned by the man whose lies brought them there. This is a war against democracy, plain and simple, and no one is coming to rescue us. The Supreme Court won't save us. The current Congress won't save us. The last line of this song asks the question, 'Will this be the end or the beginning... of us?'

For five decades, Marks has written songs about power, compassion, democracy, and freedom — themes that feel strikingly current in 2026. Beyond music, Marks is a prolific author, having written more than twenty novels and novellas, including his flagship political novel The Dance and the Diamond Sky, set in a fractured 1960s America whose parallels to 2026 have struck early readers.

Gary Marks's novel The Dance and the Diamond Sky focuses on young pacifists, a college-dropout songwriter, and political radicals confronting war, injustice, and an intensely divided culture in 1969. But this is not a nostalgic trip back to the sixties. It's a warning from one divided America to another.

The questions raised in the novel — what to do when powerful politicians insist their lies are facts, and those lies begin to affect your own life; whether mass protests can be as effective as acts of resistance; and the bigger question of whether one person can change anything — have become urgent questions again in 2026. This time with democracy itself on the line.

Paired with Crossroads , Marks's Record Store Day UK/Europe vinyl album, the novel distills what Marks has learned through five decades of examining his own life, human nature, American politics, and the helpless majority who want democracy to survive.

What does conscience require when a country is coming apart? The ending of The Dance and the Diamond Sky is more than a metaphor. It examines war, politics, and reality itself through the free-form thoughts of an unwitting hero with only moments left to live. And what he decides to do when fate saves him.

' Nobody's Following ' and ' Where We Started ' is out now.

Gary Marks first emerged in the 1970s with three albums blending folk, rock and jazz. Those recordings brought together a remarkable group of young musicians who would become major figures in jazz and contemporary music. Guitarist John Scofield made his first studio appearance on Marks's 1974 album, Gathering. On the following two albums, Marks was joined by Paul McCandless of Oregon on oboe and saxophone, ECM pianist Art Lande, vibraphonist David Samuels and trumpeter Mark Isham .

Those three albums have since been reissued seven times across Europe and Japan and continue to attract serious record collectors decades later.

Marks stopped touring in the 1980s, stepping away from the conventional music industry. Instead, he spent the next several decades writing and recording eight more albums entirely on his own terms and releasing them independently with no formal distribution.

Throughout his catalogue run consistent themes: freedom, democracy, environmental responsibility and love in its highest form.

That same through-line leads directly to Crossroads , Marks's 2026 Record Store Day UK/Europe release — a collection of songs written across five decades that feel uncannily suited to this political moment ahead of the midterm elections, when Marks's lyrics sound less like themes and more like news.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/article/Gary-Marks-Releases-Where-We-Started-and-Nobodys-Following-Singles-20260923)._