One year ago, Breitbart’s own Jon Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the Trump-inspired, Billboard-topping “Fighter,” lost his home of more than 20 years in the Palisades fires. Now he is channeling that devastation into a stirring new song and video, “After It Burns,” an intimate, hard-edged reflection on loss, anger, and the resolve that follows when everything familiar is reduced to ash.
“After it Burns” is raw and honest, but it is not nihilistic. There is beauty in it, and more importantly, there is hope.
The video opens with real Ring doorbell camera footage of Kahn’s white picket fence going up in flames, the kind of moment that feels unreal until it is playing back on a screen. Kahn watched it with his father from only miles away. “I looked at my Dad and said, ‘it’s gone,’ and he just nodded. There wasn’t much to say,” Kahn recalled.
From there, the video shifts into a close, character-driven portrait of Kahn performing the song. and it’s not hard to feel how personal it is. The lighting, the framing, and the atmosphere evoke the fire without relying on spectacle. Apart from the Ring footage, there are no direct visuals of the catastrophe that destroyed thousands of homes and took lives in the Palisades and Altadena on January 7, 2025.
A Gut-Punch, Then a Turn Toward Hope
The lyrics hit hard in the second person, as if the fire itself is being confronted and put on trial. It is the sound of someone staring down the thing that took everything: You came in, you didn’t use the door and If I ever should see your face, I’ll tell you go back to hell ‘cause that’s the only place I won’t look for you. I won’t waste another day in the ashes. Kahn does not soften the anger, but he does not stay there either. The song ultimately lands on a promise to keep going, and to smile again on the other side of the burn.
He told Breitbart the message is broader than one disaster, and meant for anyone living through catastrophic loss. “This is a song for the thousands of victims that experienced what I did, but maybe even more broadly than that, I hope it moves those who have experienced any catastrophic loss in their lives,” Kahn said. “It happens every day, whether it be hurricanes, illness, or death. I lost my house. I lost a lot of stuff. But I’m still here and there are so many that have experienced worse.”
Kahn’s House Before and After. (Courtesy of Jon Kahn)
Kahn Speaks to FOX’s Trace Gallagher Shortly After the Palisades Fire
Nashville, a New Chapter
The road back has been filled with barriers, but also unexpected lessons. Kahn has since relocated to Nashville, a move he had been considering for years. He said he could never quite make the leap until the fire forced a hard reset. “I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I think I was stuck in my life, and it’s hard to believe, but the fire may have been the push I needed to start a whole new chapter,” he said. “After a pretty rough start, Nashville is starting to feel like home. I guess maybe sometimes things need to burn to understand where you need to be.”
“Right and Wrong, Not Right and Left”
For Kahn and many other victims, the past year has been a grind of insurance fights, confusing permitting, and what he described as a fundamental failure of city and state leadership. In fact, CBS reports that only 500 of 16,000 homes are being built one year later.
“The only ones who came in and did exactly what they said they were going to do were the feds led by EPA Administrator Zeldin,” he said. “The EPA cleared the lots in roughly 30 days. It’s what came after that was beyond disheartening and seemed like a play to break the collective will of the residents.”
There was no leadership nor was there any accountability from Karen Bass or Gavin Newsom,” Kahn continued. “It was and is their lack of leadership that makes the road to recovery even more difficult.”
Kahn stressed that, for victims, the issue is not partisan.
“It’s not really about right or left, but rather, right and wrong,” he said. “Great leaders, left or right, make you feel safe, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a victim of these fires who felt like anybody had their back. Where is Bass? Where is Newsom? Where are the two senators from California, Schiff and Padilla? Why are the only investigations being spearheaded by Senators Scott and Johnson, two Republican senators who are not from California?”
Singer/Songwriter Jon Kahn. (Courtesy of Jon Kahn Music)
“To Be Creative Is the Only Way I’ve Known to Deal with Hardship”
Despite the aforementioned hurdles, Kahn returned to the one thing that has kept him grounded for years: his music…but not right away. He didn’t write a song for months after the fires. He simply, as he put it, “walked by all his instruments, looked at them, and then kept walking,” but eventually he sat down at an out of tune piano, and “After it Burns” poured out. “To be creative is really the only way I’ve known in my life to deal with hardship. For me, it’s the most honest way and I can only hope that the song reaches some folks who are dealing with their own hardships”
You came in
You didn’t use the door
And fed yourself
But still you wanted more
Now there ain’t nothing much left to say
I know now I was the only one in my own way
And somehow I’ll find the will
So I can find a way
Through the ashes
Broken matches
Nothing lasts that
Should’ve lasted
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies you can see for miles
After it burns
Where’d you go
You left so much behind
That you can’t take with
‘Cause you can’t take what is mine
And if I ever should see your face
I’ll tell you Go back to hell
‘Cause that’s the only place
I won’t look for you I won’t waste another day
In the ashes
Broken matches
Nothing lasts that
Should’ve lasted
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies you can see for miles
After it burns
All that beautiful rain
Coming down
That beautiful rain
Don’t stop now
And from those ashes
Broken matches
Something new
In all that tragic
All that matters now is where you turn
Clear skies I can see for miles
And I know one day
I’ll smile again
After it burns
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FIGHTER by Jon Kahn
Jerome Hudson is Breitbart News Entertainment Editor and author of the book 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know About Trump. Order your copy today. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter and instagram@jeromeehudson
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