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

Just Like the Nazis Did

Ever feel like a marionette whose strings are being pulled by billionaires who like to watch their puppets form circular firing squads?  Me, too.

Divide and Rule

What’s more important – gender, race, or class?
Give me the wrong answer and I’ll have to kick your ass
Do Black lives matter a little, or do they matter a lot?
What were you doing on the night that Bettie Jones was shot?
Do you really care?  If so, then how much?
Or are you some kind of privileged person, completely out of touch?

Let’s argue about it, let’s be perfect little tools
Let’s play the game of the billionaires – the old divide and rule

What is your position on Vladimir Putin?
Is he God, or the devil – for which side are you rootin’?
Do you support negotiations?  Or do you support the war?
There is no room for nuance here, which side are you for?
Let’s shout at one another until we get tired of shouting and then
Entrench our positions and make sure to never talk again

Is it a genocide in Gaza, or is it just a slaughter?
What do you call a country that won’t let people have water?
Is antisemitism on the rise?  Is it true
You can’t call someone a Nazi if they are a Jew
How do we even start to have such a debate
What’s your position on the existence of the Jewish state?

What’s your pronoun, how do you define?
Your gender, sexuality, where do you draw the line?
What’s the difference between X and Y?
Who gets to be a girl, who gets to be a guy?
Who do you exclude and who do you embrace?
What’s your definition of safer space?

Have you been doing the work, and if so are you sure?
Are you progressing towards the genuinely pure?
Have you got the right perspectives, your ducks all in a row?
Is that Facebook banner just the one you really want to show?
Do you look good in the camera, sound earnest in the mic?
Was there a post for which you regret clicking “like”?

Divide and Rule

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 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

This piece was inspired by Conlon Nancarrow; not that I'm very familiar with his work, but his method was enough to inspire me to create a piece in a similar style to his own. It was made using one note, replicating it and dragging it to exactly the right place as many times as I needed, for both piano and harpsichord. That is, until I added in a new sound at the end, giving a lot of distortion to it.

I did not expect it to become as popular as it has, given that it was a rather momentary, on the spur, and random creation, and it is less conventionally accessible than many of my other pieces. My only regret may be that this has overshadowed my other work in terms of popularity.

I've created a sequel, and am currently working on a third Conlon Nancarrow inspired piece, but so far they've not measured up to the original. However, there are some interesting and exciting twists in the second piece, 'The Next Level', and I've put the third piece to the side, 'Piano Madness: The Spirit of Conlon Nancarrow Returns', having been unsatisfied with it, though I may attempt it again at some point.

Conlon Nancarrow Tribute

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.  I also write songs as part of Ai Tsuno, which you can look up on all the streaming platforms.

Divide and Rule

davidrovics