[Note: No Random Weekend post today… I wanted to get this one out there.]

One of the great benefits of popular music’s streaming revolution is how it has shortened the time and distance between artist and audience.

Rather than jumping through all the hoops (and cost) that come with a physical release, musicians can simply upload a song to social media 20 minutes after completion.

That’s exactly what Lana Del Rey did this week. Inspired by the horrific mass shootings in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton, she wrote a song called ‘Looking For America,’ recorded it with producer Jack Antonoff, and uploaded it to Instagram.

“I know I’m not a politician and I’m not trying to be so excuse me for having an opinion,” she wrote, “but in light of all of the mass shootings and the back to back shootings in the last couple of days which really affected me on a cellular level I just wanted to post this video that our engineer Laura took 20 minutes ago. I hope you like it. I’m singing [live] to the choruses I recorded this morning. I’m going to call it ‘Looking for America‘”

‘Looking For America’ is a spare, gorgeous, heartbreaking song about the longing for a time (not very long ago) when we didn’t have to worry about being shot to death in public places. Del Rey is contributing all proceeds from the track (which is now available on the major streaming services) to the Gilroy Garlic Festival Victims Relief Fund, the El Paso Victims Relief Fund, and the Dayton Foundation.

I have embedded Del Rey’s Instagram post below as well as a YouTube clip in case the first embed doesn’t work.