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

Just Like the Nazis Did

When the Ottoman Empire rescued hundreds of thousands of Europeans and brought them south across the Mediterranean, to safety.  From Live in Rostrevor with Lorna McKinnon.

Lyrics:

1492 

In 1492 Colombo crossed the Ocean
Only one of many horrors that would then be set in motion
As his men cut limbs of Arawaks and burned children at the stake
Plundering a continent for God's sake

In 1492 when King Ferdinand won Granada
He passed a law known as the Edict of Alhambra
It was as the landlords wanted, as his gracious God had willed
That any Jew in Spain had three months to leave or else be killed

And 800,000 Europeans became refugees
And headed south across the Mediterranean Sea

In 1492 they were starving and bereft
The King said they'd be safe up until the time they left
But Christian Europeans cut them open with their swords
Searched their stomachs for gold and dumped them overboard

In 1492 the Sultan sent his fleet
To go rescue Sephardim after the Ottoman defeat
Hundreds of thousands of people who knew their deaths were near
Were rescued by Muslims and taken to Izmir

In 1492 the Sultan said that's fine
If they'd impoverish their kingdom just to enrich mine
The Sultan also passed an edict – he said “welcome home
“Now treat your new neighbors as if they were your own”

1492

Sleep For Weeks

The words "collateral damage" have come to mean dead civilians. This song puts those words in context.


Collateral Damage

you loved your sweet country for all of your life
like your mother and father before you
the land runs deep, so deep in your blood
your flesh and your bone and your sinews
descendants and ancestors, deep as it goes
a relative circle as far as your eye
it can all be undone in the flash of an instant
mechanical thunder that bruises the sky

(chorus)
goodbye to my relatives, all of my life
never again will I see
you won't have a name when they fly the big airplanes
collateral damage is all you will be

from a faraway place where the language is strange
they come with their angry machines
and the clouds rain a metal that hurts when it falls
and it shatters the ground, making everything scream
and the children run crippled, the old people hide
the babies are caught in the rubble debris
but the strangers don’t know you, you are only a number
and how can they respect what they can’t even see

(chorus)

a mother is more than a number to a baby
who now has to grow up on it’s own
and a grandfather blinded and crippled at his age
is more than just a statistical drone
all of these people are human beings
and deserve to be more than a footnote
this cynical language of killing is killing us
caught like a bone in humanity’s throat

(chorus)

so if you see a ghost in the lonely wind blowing
like shrapnel the sound of the rain
and it’s speaking a language you don’t understand
but you know what it means just the same
it’s too late for innocence, all of that’s over now
don’t say that you didn’t know
when they come to collect for the damages owed
the collateral may be your own

(chorus)

Collateral Damage

Hammer

David Rovics 8/11/2008 gig at Beginnings, Briceland, CA produced by Andy Caffrey

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

Episode 1: Tolpuddle Martyrs Part 1

There are various causes of deadly new novel viruses, as I have recently learned, along with many of you.  One of them is climate change, so we can be sure we'll be seeing more of them.  But whatever the reasons for the fatality rate of Covid-19, we do know why the last global pandemic, the so-called "Spanish Flu" in 1918 was so extremely deadly.  It was a pandemic caused by the particular conditions of the trenches of World War 1, and the movements of troops around the world at the end of the war.  This war virus ultimately killed more human beings on planet Earth in six months -- in every corner of the globe -- than the carnage of World War 1 caused in four years.

Recorded live as part of the Viral Solidarity Concert project at Big Red Studio on April 2nd, 2020.

The Pandemic of 1918

This trailer has been superseded. Please go to https://soundcloud.com/tayo-aluko/paul-robesons-love-song-by-tayo-aluko-the-trailer/

Paul Robeson's Love Song (trailer)(superceded)

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

1492

davidrovics

Recent comments

C1nd3rK3ll

Related tracks