In the voice of an Angel, Blue Violet’s cover of The Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” is a prayer my life story has echoed since 2010.
By, Samantha Syrnich TLC
August 2025

2010 was the year I was gagged again in Whatcom County, this time in Lynden City Court — years after my birth name was robbed from me under threat of death and duress. A town I grew up in but hate to revisit. It was also the year the federal government attempted to gag me during the Obama administration. It was the year I won my lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security after having become a United States federal officer turned whistleblower — not by choice, but by truth that demanded to be spoken. I stood up, and I won, walking away without a dime in damages for what had been done to me, without even revealing the whole horrifying story back then — a story still not yet publicly told. It was the year the government was ordered to fire a couple of people, though not all were named in that lawsuit. The truth was too dark to say, and so instead SOPs had to be rewritten across DHS sectors, retraining mandated, new policies created out of my case.

But for me, 2010 was also the year retaliation came full force. After passing and being accepted for Customs and Border Protection, with training in Georgia set to begin, I received my retaliation letter instead. Just prior, I had been hit by a drunk driver — injured while he walked away without so much as a ticket. Gee, I wonder why… (sarcasm). That same year I realized that the 1% — the trillionaire deep state, for lack of a better term — had taken complete ownership over my life, my body, my skin, and all of me. A combined effort, and I was officially blacklisted.

It was in that same year, under gag orders, retaliation, and blacklisting, that this song became my prayer. When Morrissey whispered, I whispered too, begging not for riches or power but for one thing: mercy. The plea was not abstract. It was the prayer of survival, the cry of a whistleblower silenced, stripped, and erased.

Blue Violet’s performance resurrects that prayer. The raw ache of Sarah McGrigor’s voice, woven with Sam Gotley’s guitar, transforms the classic into something more urgent, as if the song itself has been waiting to carry stories like mine. Their VHS-filmed performance looks like memory itself — grainy, scarred, pressed into the skin. Each line is heavy with longing and mercy, the same duality I have carried: surviving what should have killed me, while begging only for the chance to live free, even once.

Where Morrissey once whispered, Blue Violet pleads. And in that plea, my own echoes rise. I hear 2010 — the gag orders, the erasure, the retaliation letters, the drunk driver who was never held accountable, the theft of my very name years prior, the lawsuit I both won and lost because winning without damages is survival, not restoration. I hear today — where the same powers still attempt to silence me. Their cover is not nostalgia. It is testimony.

This song has never been just melody. For me, it has been my survival turned into music, prayer turned into breath, longing turned into proof that I am still here.

by, Samantha Syrnich TLC

BlueViolet #TheSmiths #PleasePleasePlease #PrayerInSong #SurvivalInSound #EchoesOfLonging #Since2010 #MyTestimonyInMusic

⸻

Rights Statement:
This testimony is protected by every lawful safeguard of human dignity and freedom. My right to speak, record, and publish my truth is guaranteed by the United States Constitution — including the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights, and the founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on which America was built. It is shielded by Federal Whistleblower Protection Laws, which exist to protect those who stand against corruption and abuse of power. It is secured by Civil Rights statutes that ensure equal protection under law and prohibit retaliation. It is upheld under International Human Rights Law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture, affirming the right to truth, freedom of expression, bodily integrity, dignity, and life free from persecution or degrading treatment. It is safeguarded under the moral and humanitarian law of creation itself, which commands the highest principle of all existence: Do No Harm.

My voice cannot lawfully be silenced, erased, defamed, or suppressed. Any attempt to obstruct or retaliate against my testimony is itself a crime against local, state, federal, and international law, and against the foundations of freedom itself.

And even despite the violations of all above stated rights already committed against the life of me, in a long unending torturous persecution, of fifteen (15) long years; I still stand up.

I still honor the flag of the United States of America, not for what has been done to me by county, state, and federal actors who betrayed their oaths, but for what that flag was meant to stand for: freedom, truth, and the protections of life and liberty. Many have died for this flag. It still flies today, and I will not surrender my rights under it.

Signed with Witnesses,
— Samantha Syrnich TLC