Songfacts®:

• Hamell on Trial is Ed Hamell, who does spoken word over acoustic guitar. His songs are intentionally outlandish, often ranting out social or political issues. In this one, he explains that while there is authority that needs to be respected, he has no respect for certain police officers, and the lesson he's trying to teach is son is, "don't get shot."
  
  The song was written after a wave of highly publicized police killings, mostly of young, unarmed black men. Even though he and his son are white, Hamell still believes most cops are to be feared.
• On July 7, 2016, a day after he performed this song at a 2016 show in Dallas, five police officers were killed in the city were killed by a gunman, apparently in retribution for police shootings. Hamell started prefacing this song by saying, "I don't wish violence on anybody, and I wish the good cops would call out the bad cops."
  
  "It's a pretty brutal song to the uninitiated, but with that preface I think everybody agrees that the good cops should call out the bad cops," he said in a Songfacts interview. "That's fairly universal. Unless you're a bad cop."
• Hamell understands that cops face a serious burden. "The majority of cops, they don't make any money, and they see the worst of humanity all the time," he said. "It's got to be brutal."
  
  He added: "I'm sure they see horrible s--t. They go into domestic violence situations and they see horrible s--t. It's got to erode their faith in humanity. I get it. It's a tough gig, man. I'm sure there's plenty of goods. But they're shooting black kids. It's crazy. And everybody's shrugging their shoulders."
• Hamell did the artwork in the video, including the portraits of Bill Hicks, Kurt Cobain, Malcolm X and others he feels are worthy of respect. He started painting in earnest when he found out that people would buy them at his shows. They quickly became big source of revenue when he toured.