Emerald City is the sixth album by American singer-songwriter John Vanderslice. It was released in the United States on July 24, 2007; it leaked to the Internet on or around June 23, 2007. The album is named after the nickname of the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. "I was so beaten down after the 2000 election and after 9/11 and then the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan," said Vanderslice. "I was so depleted as a person after all that stuff happened, that I had to write my way out of it. I really had to write political songs because for me it is a way of making sense and processing what is going on."