I’ve spent a long time trying to think for myself in a country where everyone wants to tell me what I think. This comes from personal history, political disillusionment, decades of independent work, ecological concerns, institutional absurdities, and the recurring experience of watching other people confidently explain my own life back to me—usually without checking the facts first. It’s part political autopsy, part personal record, and part middle finger to the manufactured binary. Free markets, not corporate feudalism. Individual liberty, not institutional impunity. Skepticism in every direction, including toward the person holding the microphone. No party membership. No prescribed conclusions. No claim to infallibility. Just a lifetime of observations, some hard-earned convictions, a willingness to question the prevailing narrative, and the lingering suspicion that the people most certain they’ve figured me out are often the ones who’ve done the least homework. This is the source material. The song is what happened when it escaped.
~~~~~
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT
© 2026 John F. Sendelbach — All Rights Reserved
Eighty tie dyed shows, '83 to '94,
Question every badge and budget,
Who's behind the door?
Native roots and living ground,
That's where I learned to grow.
First I hadn't done the reading,
Then I watched the political money flow.
Donors write the rules,
The revolving doors don't close.
They can cast me right or left—
That's not how my thinking goes.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT!
I CAST the STEEL!
Cast me right, cast me left,
You can't tell me what is real.
Cast me out, cast me aside,
I won't play the part you write.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT!
I CAST the STEEL!
Free markets, let the people build,
But privilege isn't freedom's face.
Cast iron holds its shape,
But money shouldn't own the place.
Parking lots consume the living ground,
Big institutions hide the cost.
Scale without accountability—
That's how the world gets totally lost.
Somebody cast the first stone.
Somebody cast a lie.
A petition cast aspersions,
Never stopped to ask me why.
The paper cast me as the villain,
Never once picked up the phone.
Typecast before the facts came in—
The outcast was set in stone.
Six years spent rebuilding,
Now verification comes first.
Check the record, check the source,
Don't mistake the claim for proof.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT!
I CAST the STEEL!
Cast me right, cast me left,
You can't tell me what is real.
Cast me out, cast me aside,
I won't play the part you write.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT!
I CAST the STEEL!
Maybe I'm confirming
What I already believe.
Maybe there's more to understand,
More than what I tend to see.
I'll take the source before the sermon.
I'll decide what's true for me.
You can cast a role around me—
You can't cast my mind for me.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT!
I CAST the STEEL!
Cast me right, cast me left,
You can't tell me what is real.
Cast me out, cast me aside,
I won't wear the role you write.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT!
I CAST the STEEL!
Cast a line into the stream.
Cast a shadow. Cast a dream.
Shape the metal. Make it real.
I DON'T CAST A BALLOT—
I'm the outcast, I DON'T CAST A BALLOT
Cast me left, cast me right,
I won't wear the role you write.
I'm the outcast, cast me left, cast me right,
I won't bear the role you write.
I don't care about left and right.
I'm the outcast,
I don't care about left and right.
I'm the outcast,
I don't care about left and right.