Guadalupe on the Banks of the Styx by Hard Girls Band

San Jose, our hometown, used to be a city where the poor and middleclass found prosperity together. Historically it’s a very multicultural city, with a long history of programs for betterment of the poor. But in the Web 2.0 era it has become almost exclusively a city for the 1%. Real estate prices have spiked enormously in a very short period of time. As a direct result of the changing economic environment, San Jose cultivated the largest homeless camp in the country, known as “The Jungle.” In recent years, the city broke up The Jungle, forcing thousands of people who had finally found somewhere to stay to be scattered throughout the streets. “Guadalupe on the Banks of the Styx” is a song about a place that was once beautiful—where anyone could find peace for just the cost of crossing the river—but has, in our lifetime, become a place of lost and wandering souls.