Songs documenting the genocide of the Palestinian people, written between October-December, 2023.

Notes From A Holocaust

This is my new podcast series, A History of the World According to David Rovics.  In this series, I take on history, starting with what we Americans call the Colonial Era, then working our way forward, tightening up the timeline as we go.

I'll upload new episodes every so often, gratis, here and on other platforms, including at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld.  You can find notes about each of the 16 episodes there now.  Eventually the whole series will be available for free download by anyone.
All of the episodes should be FCC-friendly for radio broadcast in the US, except for episode 11, because of the song, "Iceland, 2008."

For paid subscribers, 16 episodes are already up.  They can be found in the Everything folder -- if you're a CSA member, whether you signed up through Substack, Patreon, Bandcamp, or at davidrovics.com/subscribe, you should have gotten a welcome email with the link to the Everything folder, but feel free to contact me if you need that again!

A History of the World According to David Rovics

All but one of these songs I wrote in the past few months, mostly about the ongoing joint Israeli-American Holocaust of Palestinians in Gaza.  Aside from my voice and guitar, all the instrumentation you're hearing is Chet Gardiner, and the harmony vocals are Kamala Emanuel.  Kalindi Jackson made the cover.  The one song that wasn't written this year is a remix of a song I recorded at Big Red Studio back when Jeremy Corbyn was leading the British Labor Party.

From Auschwitz to Gaza

In addition to doing songs for grownups, I do songs for kids, too!  These songs all appear on one of two albums -- Har Har Har and Ballad of a Dung Beetle.

Children's Music

Our Al-Qaeda allies would never launch a chemical attack against civilians, would they?

This is a song from the album, Spies Are Reading My Blog, which you can download or stream in its entirety at:  www.davidrovics.bandcamp.com

Syria, 2013

Lots of free music, videos, CDs for purchase and more at www.davidrovics.com/kids! Sign my email list to find out when I'm coming to your town -- and maybe even organize a show yourself!

Punk Rock Baby

Roller Coaster Train

The Fruit That Got Away

The Pirate Song

Walking On The Ceiling

As we stand by, the Israeli military is obeying its commands to annihilate the Gaza Strip.

As The Bombs Rain Down

Stop the Genocide

In the mirror world, this slogan is controversial, and is a veiled threat of genocide against the Jewish people.  In the real world, the ethnonationalist Jewish-supremacist state of Israel has been committing a genocide against the Palestinian people for the past 75 years, and this slogan is a slogan of liberation for all the people who live between the river and the sea.  As with similar slogans in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, for dominant political tendencies in Palestinian civil society it's about equality between all peoples, not genocide.  Genocide, rather, is what Israel is doing.  As the Israeli authorities openly and publicly say, this is "Nakba 2.0."  We should believe them, they're serious.

From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea

When there were still hospitals functioning in the Gaza Strip, before they were intentionally destroyed in an ongoing, genocidal bombing campaign, the surviving doctors wrote on the bodies of the surviving children, over and over again, the acronym, WCNSF -- Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.

Wounded Child -- No Surviving Family (WCNSF)

We pause this genocide for a few words from our sponsor.

Humanitarian Pause

The danger of ignoring obvious historical parallels to unfolding events is the prospect of repeating them.

Just Like the Nazis Did

This song is a public service announcement, to thank the Houthi Army for their service to the global public.

Song for the Houthi Army

On June 8th, 1967, during the course of the Six-Day War, the Israeli military tried to sink an American ship and kill all the crew -- knowing full well that's exactly what they were doing.  The attack left 34 Americans dead, hundreds maimed, and a ship destroyed.

The Ballad of the USS Liberty (When Israel Attacked the USA)

This episode explores events that took place between 1492 and the 1840’s.

The Alhambra Decree of 1492
The Golden Age of Piracy
Shays’ Rebellion
The War of 1812
The Merthyr Tydfil uprising
The Tolpuddle Martyrs
Colonization of Australia by capitalists and refugees
The Opium Wars in China
The Rent Strike Wars
Colonization of America by capitalists and refugees

Book recommendations that cover some of this history include A Peoples’ History of the United States by Howard Zinn and Villains of All Nations by Marcus Rediker.

A History of the World EPISODE 1

This episode covers events that took place between 1846-1916.

The Mexican-American War and the St. Patrick Battalion
The Fugitive Slave Act in Wisconsin
The Eureka Stockade uprising in Australia
John Brown and the abolitionist movement against slavery
The settler-colonial project in Oregon
Use of Egyptian mummies in the paper mills of Maine
Little Crow’s uprising of 1862 in Minnesota
The Highland Clearances in Scotland
The life and death of Joe Hill and the rise of the IWW
The Easter Rising in Ireland

Book recommendation for some of this history would be An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States as well as Loaded, both by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

A History of the World EPISODE 2

This episode covers events that took place from 1917-1921.

The rise and fall of the Working Class Union in Oklahoma
Danish syndicalism and the Battle of the Borso
World War 1 and the Pandemic of 1918
The Russian Revolution and US invasion of Russia
The Winnipeg General Strike
The Industrial Workers of the World and the lynching of Wesley Everest
The Palmer Raids
Kelly Butte and the use of prison labor in Oregon
The Tulsa Race Massacre
The Battle of Blair Mountain

There's no need to start at the beginning, necessarily, but all the episodes out so far can be found at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld, along with notes on each of them.

A History of the World EPISODE 3

1933-1941

The rise to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler
The International Brigades and the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War
Anti-immigration laws and sentiment in the west and the turning back of Jewish refugees
The kindertransports — rescuing Jewish children while leaving their parents to die
The SS Winnipeg and Pablo Neruda’s rescue of the Spanish refugees in France in 1939
Henry Ford and the popularity of fascism in the US
Ram Mohamed Singh Azad and resistance to colonialism in India
The US-imposed oil blockade on the Japanese Empire
The internment of Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans in the western US
Chiune Sugihara and the rescue of thousands of European Jews by “the Japanese Schindler”

On the Lincoln Battalion and the Spanish Civil War I recommend Carl Geiser’s Prisoners of the Good Fight.  On the rise to power of Hitler I recommend Berlin Diary by William Shirer.



A History of the World episode 4

1943-1949.  Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!

The arrests and executions of German communists such as Hamburg city councilor, Franz Jacob
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The boatlift of the Danish Jews to Sweden
The Dutch resistance and the killing of Henk Streefkerk
The Normandy landings
The liberation of Katharina Jacob and other Ravensbruck prisoners by the Red Army
The US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine, the Naqba
The Berlin Airlift of 1948-49

Book recommendation for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising would be The Bravest Battle by Dan Kurzman.  On Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Empire and the Bomb by Joseph Gerson.  On the Naqba, the Absence of Peace by Nicholas Guyatt.

A History of the World episode 5

After the worldwide revolution, when the people united, we looked back at our accomplishments.

When the People United

I had a good time chatting the other day with the hosts of the podcast, Unfinished Business with Paul & Rob. We talked about Gaza and music and other things.  The interview with me begins 12 minutes in.

Unfinished Business interviews David Rovics

The final phase of the genocide involves daily massacres of Palestinians so driven to feed their families that they're ready to risk being shot by Israeli soldiers in order for a chance to get ahold of a little pasta.

The Food Lines are the Front Lines Now

The reality is incomparably worse than the movie.

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Hunger Games

The US seems ever more intent to go to war with Iran.  Meanwhile, there is a country in the Middle East with undeclared nuclear weapons, which the IAEA never visits -- Israel.

Israel and its Nuclear Arsenal

The British courts have regularly been finding Palestine Action innocent of any wrongdoing, in the group's efforts to smash the war machine, deeming them to be on the side of international law and British law, and deeming the state and the arms industry to be breaking the law.  In light of this state of affairs, the British parliament has acted decisively, passing a law with an overwhelming majority to declare Palestine Action a terrorist group, and thus to declare that anyone expressing support for Palestine Action to be a terrorist as well, potentially liable to spend up to 14 years in prison for singing the chorus to this song.

Photo by Guy Smallman

I Support Palestine Action

Some distinctions between Auschwitz and Gaza?  Gaza is much bigger.  And the genocide is being financed and armed by the US and most of the rest of the western world.

In preparation for Sunday's vigil for Gaza that I'll be singing at (12-2 pm at 12th and Hawthorne SE here in PDX) I did a livestreamed concert from my living room to practice some relevant songs.

Songs for Gaza

I'm At My Wit's End

What's one thing that just about all of us can do right now?  I've got answers.

Mental Health, Music, Community, and the Resistance

October 2025 East Coast Tour Ditty

We're at another one of those seismic moments in technological development as it applies to the arts and most other things.

Some Thoughts on Technology, Artists, and Society, in the Past, Present and Future

He spent most of his short life feeding off of algorithms, and now the algorithms are feeding off of him.

Charlie Kirk

Renee DiResta's book, Invisible Rulers, does a brilliant job of introducing us to the modern online age -- an age which she characterizes as one during which the rumor mill and the propaganda machine have, in so many ways, collided.

Invisible Rulers

When I heard on the news that the Global Sumud Flotilla was being attacked by drones and Abba music, I was struck by the muse.

Lay All Your Love on Gaza

Everything else happening in the world aside, we are at a fascinating juncture in the history of humanity.  Assuming we live long enough to witness it, many people would say we're on the cusp of a new reality, represented by the three words, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).  Ai Tsuno's fourth album gracefully explores this theme.  For this special edition of This Week with David Rovics I bring you Where the Algorithms Rule:  a guided tour.

Where the Algorithms Rule GUIDED TOUR

My adopted home town of Portland, Oregon is once again in the international headlines, and this calls for a little primer.

Portland, Oregon Myths and Realities in 2025 full episode

Scott Harris interviewed me a few days ago for the Counterpoint public affairs radio show.  We talked about the situation in Portland and other things.

251006d-CTPT-rovics

Sam and Amal are the hosts of a show on WUSB community radio in Stony Brook, New York called Unbound:  the arts & culture of Palestine.  They interviewed me for a very enjoyable hour the other day, in advance of the show we'll be doing on Long Island on October 26th!

Interview with David Rovics on Unbound

Kamala and I were guests for the better part of 2 hours on Graham Dean's Common Sense Songs show on Berkshire Community Radio a few days ago in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, along with our good friend, Massachusetts-based singer/songwriter Ben Grosscup.  The live talk and music starts about 25 minutes in.

Common Sense Songs interview

When I heard some stories about a friend's grandparents in Hamburg, Germany, I was moved to verse, twice. This is the song I wrote about her grandmother and namesake, Katharina Jacob. Particularly about the morning of her liberation from her Nazi captors by Russian troops.

This song appears on the Bandcamp album, The Other Side, which you can stream for free or donate to download here:

https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/the-other-side

lyrics

Katharina Jacob, long before she took that name 
Was organizing workers in Hamburg just the same 
Organizing beneath the flag of deepest red 
A new dawn of peace and freedom clearly shining in her head 

Katharina Jacob first was sent to jail 
When the trappings of democracy all began to fail 
She was frequently arrested, in and out of custody 
While her first husband was in hiding from the Nazis 

Katharina Jacob was acquitted of a crime 
But the gestapo had the last word and they weren't finished with her this time 
She was sent to Ravensbrück, a killing hunger at her side 
She heard of the execution, how her second husband died 

For Katharina Jacob the end was close at hand 
She was on a death march with a ragged, starving band 
Marching through a forest, being led by the SS 
What would happen hours later seemed impossible to guess 

When the sun rose the next morning, it was the first of May 
And they all sang the Internationale 
And they all sang the Internationale 

Katharina Jacob thought about her children 
And the friends and comrades taking care of them 
Not knowing yet if any of them survived 
Not knowing that soon she'd see her daughters both alive 

Katharina Jacob watched the German soldiers fleeing 
Streaming from the east, that's what she was seeing 
Allied bombers flew above them, she thought they all might die and then 
Soon there was the silence of all the SS men 

Chorus 

Katharina Jacob saw red flags flapping in the breeze 
Above the Russian tanks and she fell upon her knees 
And so many different voices in so many different tongues 
Sang the most beautiful song that could ever have been sung 

In German, Lithuanian, in Polish and in Dutch 
A myriad of melodies as never had been such 
In Russian and in Yiddish, Italian and French 
Emerging from the forests beneath a trench 

Chorus 

Völker, hört die Signale! Auf zum letzten Gefecht! 
Die Internationale erkämpft das Menschenrecht 
Völker, hört die Signale! Auf zum letzten Gefecht! 
Die Internationale – erkämpft das Menschenrecht

They All Sang The Internationale

For the volunteers of the YPG.  This is a track from my 2017 album, Ballad of a Wobbly, which can be downloaded or streamed in its entirety at www.davidrovics.bandcamp.com.

Rojava

I wrote this song to alienate all of my friends, but most of them ended up having a sense of humor so it didn't work very well.

This is a track from my album, Big Red Sessions, which can be downloaded for free or by donation here:
http://davidrovics.com/big-red-sessions/new-album.php

I'm A Better Anarchist Than You

The San Patricios -- the international brigade you've probably never heard of (half a century before the Spanish Civil War).  This version is from Live in Rostrevor (2016) with Lorna McKinnon on harmonies.

St. Patrick Battalion

The biggest confrontation of the Coal Mine Wars of Appalachia, involving tens of thousands of participants and a front line that spanned ten miles.

Battle of Blair Mountain

Behind the Barricades

After the Revolution

A song for Bob Steck and all the other veterans of the international brigades in Spain.

This is a track from my album, Big Red Sessions, which can be streamed or downloaded at www.davidrovics.bandcamp.com

The Last Lincoln Veteran

They had to destroy the city in order to save it.  That's Professor D from the Dope Poets Society in there.

Fallujah

Written after an incident with a fanatical George W Bush supporter I encountered at the Whole Foods Market on Kirby in Houston, Texas one day.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Song for Irish Republican Francis Hughes, who died on hunger strike.  He was known as a man of few words, among other things.

This is a track from my album, Big Red Sessions.

Up the Provos

Both hunger strikers, both freedom fighters.

This is a track from my 17-song album, Everything Can Change, which can be downloaded in full here:
http://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/everything-can-change

Khader Adnan, Bobby Sands

2017 album recorded at Big Red Studio with Billy Oskay, Elona Planman and others.

13. Failed State

2011 album recorded at Big Red Studio featuring Billy Oskay, Nick Angelo and others.

12. Up The Provos

Lorna McKinnon and I did a tour together, culminating in a concert in Rostrevor, County Down, in Ireland, in the autumn of 2016.

10. Send Them Back

2015 recording project at Big Red Studio featuring Billy Oskay on violin, Spank and Janice Hopkins on harmony vocals, and Arcellus Sykes on bass.

03. Liberty And Justice For All

02. I Can't Breathe

Singer/songwriter, writer, podcaster (on Spotify, Substack & Patreon), libertarian socialist, dad, lover of life.

davidrovics

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