Samuel Alberto is 11 years old. He can’t vote, though he wishes he could. “I care about our future president a lot,” says Samuel, a fifth-grader at St. Peter’s School in Society Hill. “Kids care about our future, too.”
But Samuel can sing. Oh, can he sing. Just check him out, below, belting out a parody of Adele’s hit “Hello”—with a political twist. “Vote for Donald Trump/Oh Why?” he sings in the refrain. “I must’ve cried a thousand times/ to tell you I’m sorry for what Congress has done/ but didn’t you actually vote for these bums?”
Samuel wrote the song after his dad, Kevin Miller, heard him fooling around on his acoustic guitar, singing about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. When he came to his refrain, Miller encouraged Samuel to write a full parody. They spent three weeks recording at MilkBoy the Studio and filming a video around town. Since posting it just over a week ago, the video has received over 1,500 hits.
This is Samuel’s first parody, and though he’s not sure he’ll do any more political songs, this put him into a “creative mindset” he can apply to other songwriting.
Samuel’s mother was born in Colombia and didn’t become a U.S. citizen until her early twenties. As the child of an immigrant, he says he opposes Trump’s message of building a wall and favors Sanders’ immigration policies. Since he can’t vote, writing this parody was a way for him to get his voice heard.
“I hope it spreads a positive message to everyone who sees it,” he says.