Published Mar 18, 2026MonthsCovers: 2026-03-17Flashpoint
About This Track
A rock anthem exploring an Iranian-American torn between celebrating the regime's fall and mourning the war — family on, with a torn edge.
Inspired By
An Iranian-American torn between celebrating the regime's fall and mourning the war — family on both sides, protests in US cities, the impossible duality of diaspora identity when your homeland is ...
Written in direct response to An Iranian-American torn between celebrating the regime's fall and mourning the war — family on both sides, protests in US cities, the impossible duality of diaspora identity when your homeland is burning. The lyrics weave in verified details — US/Israel strikes killed Khamenei, February 28 2026, war in 17th day; Anti-war protests in approximately 40 US cities organized by A.N.S.W.E.R., CodePink, DSA; Iranian-American counter-rallies celebrating the fall of the theocratic regime. Majik delivers the report through rock, letting the data hit as hard as the beat. Lines like "Said they got Khamenei, said the regime is no more" anchor the track in specifics that generic coverage misses. The mood — torn, defiant, anguished — reflects the emotional reality behind the numbers. Every Majik's Studio news track exists to make you feel the story, not just read it.
[verse 1]
Mama called me crying from the kitchen floor
Said they got Khamenei, said the regime is no more
I could hear the fireworks from Westwood Boulevard
Persian flags and fist pumps in the apartment yard
But my cousin Dariush lives in southern Tehran
Hasn't answered since the missiles began
So I'm standing in my living room with shaking hands
One eye on the news and one eye on the plans
They're dancing in the streets of LA tonight
They're mourning in the rubble by the pale moonlight
Forty cities marching, signs up in the air
CodePink and A.N.S.W.E.R. screaming this ain't fair
But half my family's cheering that the nightmare's done
While the other half is running from the bombs and guns
I'm frozen in the middle of this fractured song
Trying to feel right when everything feels wrong
[chorus]
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
The fireworks or the sirens, the silence or the song?
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
I'm standing at the fault line and the ground is gone
[verse 2]
Uncle Reza spent eleven years in Evin's cage
They broke his hands for writing on a protest page
He's weeping now but swears that they are tears of joy
Says freedom always costs, just ask any boy
Who grew up watching hangings from the construction cranes
Who memorized the names of every dissident slain
But Auntie Nasrin's screaming at the television set
Her sister's house was leveled and she can't forget
That liberation doesn't mean a thing
When the liberators bomb you into suffering
Jane Fonda's at the rally with a megaphone
Bardem said no to war in a monotone
But nobody's asking what the exiles feel
When the monster that enslaved you and the war are both real
I scroll through pictures, craters where a school once stood
Then celebration videos from my old neighborhood
[chorus]
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
The fireworks or the sirens, the silence or the song?
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
I'm standing at the fault line and the ground is gone
[verse 3]
Seventeen days deep and the fog won't clear
Every headline reads like hope and fear
The theocracy crumbled, the morality police are done
But at what cost, at what cost, under what sun?
My therapist says hold both truths at once
But she's never had to grieve and celebrate for months
I lit a candle for my grandmother's grave
She died in exile, never saw the day they'd cave
She would have wept and danced and torn her hair
She would have cursed the bombs and blessed the air
I think I understand her now, this double wound
This joy that tastes like ash, this grief that sounds
Like wedding bells across a burning town
Like raising up a flag while the walls come down
I wear my heritage like a fracture line
One country, two realities, and both are mine
[chorus]
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
The fireworks or the sirens, the silence or the song?
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
I'm standing at the fault line and the ground is gone
[bridge]
I called Dariush, seventeen rings, no reply
Just static on the line beneath a foreign sky
Maybe he's in a shelter, maybe he got out
Maybe silence is the loudest kind of shout
I hold my phone like a grenade with the pin half-pulled
And the diaspora's heart is overfull
[verse 4]
So I'll march with both the mourners and the free
I'll carry every contradiction inside of me
I won't pretend the calculus is clean
I won't reduce this war to a convenient scene
Forty cities screaming, and I hear them all
Every righteous voice, every desperate call
The regime is ash but the people aren't the state
And love doesn't discriminate by the missiles' weight
[chorus]
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
The fireworks or the sirens, the silence or the song?
Which side am I on? Which side am I on?
I'm standing at the fault line and the ground is gone
[outro]
Which side am I on?
Which side am I on?
The ground is gone
The ground is gone