New York, NY (Top40 Charts) ward-winning musical theater composer/lyricist
Danny K Bernstein didn't set out to write a viral hit confirming all of the conservative paranoid conspiracy theories about the political left, but with the amazingly titled "Antifa Hoedown" he has done just that. The secrets were basically out there already, but now that Bernstein has been given the official go-ahead from the Antifa Executive Council to verify all those wild rumors, the radical left is finally free to cash their Soros checks and get to work dismantling organized religion, binary gender and sexuality stereotypes, institutional racism, and the patriarchy.
Sounds like a party. Over 10 million viewers have already come to the hoedown; are you ready to join the party?
Bernstein is a composer/lyricist, director, music director and pianist. His music and lyrics have been heard all over New York City, including off-Broadway, Feinstein's 54 Below, Green Room 42, Club Cumming, and Prohibition. His work Far From Canterbury won "Outstanding Overall Musical" at the 2015 New York International Fringe Festival. His is a 2020 Fred Ebb Award finalist, a Kleban Prize finalist, and a
Jonathan Larson award finalist. In 2014 he won the Walt Disney Imagineering-sponsored "New Voices Project". He is a proud member of ASCAP and the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop.
Driven by a potent combination of boredom and morbid curiosity during the endless doldrums of the 2020 Covid quarantine, Bernstein found himself tumbling down the right-wing rabbit hole. "Some of these conspiracy theories were just so preposterous that I found a certain power and joy proudly confirming them" he explains. "There just doesn't seem to be any point in denying them; sadly, so many conservatives have been brainwashed to disbelieve us, anyway. Rather than feeling angry and frustrated that we can't convince them, I'd rather laugh at it in a way that taunts them. After four years of hearing them say "f*ck your feelings," it feels good to reclaim some power through comedy."
Bernstein had been happily experimenting with different music styles and genres in the creative ecosystem of TikTok. Drawing on his broad knowledge of the modern canon, he settled on a tight 3-part harmony country patter for his newest composition. "there was something really funny to me about the contrast between traditionally conservative music with satirical leftist lyrics that made me laugh while I was in the shower" says Bernstein. "I think I wrote the first verse of in maybe under 20 minutes."
In true COVID-appropriate fashion, Bernstein recorded the whole shebang in the kitchen of his Manhattan apartment, using wired earbuds as a microphone and handling all mixing and editing via Garageband. As soon as Bernstein uploaded the "Part 1" to TikTok, the song began to take on a life of its own. There have been thousands of video covers shared across platforms. Excerpted lyrics have found their way into Twitter bios. It has become a meme in random Reddit forums. Two months in, and the viral spread shows no sings of slowing.
"Antifa Hoedown" may have begun as a tongue-firmly-in-cheek explosion of exasperated comedic songwriting. Yet, it resonates so profoundly because there is a kernel of truth at its core. "There's power in reclaiming words used against you" says Bernstein. "It's difficult for people to argue with you when all you're doing is agreeing with them. Literally, yes, I'm an evil left-wing sheeple snowflake. We've spent the last four years arguing with their absurdity; let them take a turn arguing with yours for a change."
