A Song for Toforest Johnson

Birmingham singer songwriter releases new single "Mercy for Toforest"

Susie Cousins couldn’t stop thinking about the wrongful conviction of Toforest Johnson. She and her husband binged the podcast series, Earwitness, that details the railroading of Toforest in breathtaking detail. Susie felt haunted by the cold reality that a loving father had been banished to Alabama’s death row for a crime he didn’t commit. But she didn’t just ruminate on the injustice. She took her outrage and channeled it into a song.

Earlier this month, Susie released the single “Mercy for Toforest,” a song that she wrote as a call to action, and a call out to state leaders who have met the mountain of evidence demonstrating Toforest’s innocence with astonishing indifference.

“It was really just the way I processed my anger that nothing is changing for this man,” Susie told me. “It’s so obvious he’s innocent, and still he’s sitting there. What the fuck?”

Full disclosure: I created & produced Earwitness, and told Susie about it when I ran into her at an outdoor concert in Birmingham. Susie’s day job is running a non-profit called Girls Rock Bham that develops and fosters musical talents and skills in girls.

I first met Susie more than a decade ago when my daughter was a wee one and Susie was teaching a music program for toddlers. She’s one of those people who is universally liked, seems to be friends with everyone, consistently exuding warmth and generosity that’s 100% genuine, but never sanctimonious. Plus, she’s fun to be around. And gorgeous! This woman is a gem of a human, for real.

After she learned about Toforest’s story, empathy kicked in. Susie is just a few years younger than Toforest, and learned through the podcast that Toforest is a loving father to five children, and 19 grandchildren. Susie looked at her two sons and wondered, what if I missed their entire lives? Words started to pop into her head and she began to write them down. The words eventually became the lyrics of the song.

“I started to feel more…. not a hopeless feeling,” she explained. “We as a people have got to make enough collective noise about this and get this guy out of there.”

The concept of mercy in these lyrics isn’t a call for lenience, because Toforest is innocent. Susie explained the kind of mercy she imagined is the same kind that comes from twisting a person’s arm until they can’t take it anymore. The kind that says enough is enough.

Mercy for Toforest lyrics

Mercy, mercy
They say justice is blind but let's open her eyes
Mercy, mercy
They say justice is blind but her hands aren't tied

Lined up in their Sunday best
Hand to Bible they did confess
Condemned to reap what deceit had sown
In a deadly game of telephone

So now what will you buy with his life
What can satisfy your appetite
Is it too late to make things right
Will you turn your back or join the fight for 

Mercy, mercy
They say justice is blind but let's open our eyes
Mercy, mercy
They say justice is blind but her hands aren't tied 

Words twist like long balloons
Shape what you want of this thing called truth
Bend and stretch til the system breaks
Then wash your hands of their mistakes

Is it too late to makes things right 
Will you change your mind and save a life 
When you're on your knees at night 
Do you pray for him or turn out the light 

Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy

The arrangement of the song is simple but powerful. Susie’s searing voice is set against an acoustic guitar, with a baritone guitar in the break, a sort of outlaw Wild West sound, played by Les Nuby of the 1990’s band Verbena, who produced the song.

Susie may have initially written the song to help process her own emotions, but Mercy for Toforest feels like a protest anthem, composed in the same spirit of past artists who push back against war, poverty, and other societal harms with their music.

“My biggest hope is that other artists hear it and will be moved to make more art about it, because I think that's one avenue that can be really effective,” Susie said.

And if enough people make it known that they are wholly against executing an innocent person, eventually Alabama’s leaders will have to listen. There’s a subtext in the lyrics, are we really who we say we are? Susie put it this way:

“What could be more pro-life than trying to get someone out who's been wrongly imprisoned?”

You can listen to the song on streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music, or purchase the track on Apple Itunes.

Learn more about Susie Cousins’ music and teaching on her website.

Learn more about Toforest Johnson here, and listen to the podcast Earwitness here.