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

Notes From A Holocaust

Harmonies 2024

Remixes with Kamala and Chet

Audio essays, songs, and interviews related to Palestine.  More at davidrovics.com/palestine.

Palestine

Protest Songs

When I write a new song, especially if it's about current events, I usually make a primitive recording of it and put it up here in this playlist.  (Eventually the song will usually get recorded better, and put out on an album.)

Broadsides

Occasional, bite-sized chunks of anarchist commentary and culture.  Each episode consists of an audio essay followed by a song.  Available wherever you get your podcasts.

This Week with David Rovics

A song about current events or one related to this date in history, with a little bit of context.  Available on all the usual podcasting platforms if you look for This Week with David Rovics.

Song For Today

A little background to the refugee crisis on the US/Mexico border.  These refugees were "made in the USA."  The least we could do is let them in to the country that destroyed theirs.  Also international law is on their side, but the Constitutional law professor in the White House and most members of both parties of Congress don't seem to care about that.

From the album, When I'm Elected President:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/when-im-elected-president-wayfaring-stranger-double-album

Lyrics:

US Embassy

There was a coup in Guatemala, the CIA sent planes
To assist the Guatemalan generals in tightening the chains
Two hundred thousand Indians killed in thirty years
As butchers of their people, the generals have no peers
Where did they get their guns up to this very day
From the men of the CIA

There was a coup in Chile 'cause the US couldn't stand
A democratic government that might give a helping hand
So the generals took over after they had made a pact
With their friends in Washington, and that's a simple fact
This is what we look like when you scratch away the fuzz
This is what America does

But there's never been a coup in Washington, DC
Because they don't have a US embassy

There was a coup in Haiti that overthrew the priest
Who was representing those who had the very least
They were almost self-sufficient, standing on their feet
When the generals insisted on democracy's defeat
The CIA headed south and the lifeboats sallied forth
This is why the refugees go north

There was a coup in Tegucigalpa, I promise I'm not lying
As a consequence of this people are leaving and dying
Gunning down democracy is the USA's MO
It could be called Hypocrisy if it were a TV show
But this is not a fiction, these are bodies full of lead
And thousands and thousands of refugees on the border dead

US Embassy

A high-quality studio version of this song can be found on this album:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/when-im-elected-president-wayfaring-stranger-double-album

It's a pattern, ever present in the places that don't strictly regulate the abilities of the rich to make more money at the expense of everybody else.  Currently one of many cities that the wealthy developers are trying to destroy is my latest home town of Portland, Oregon.

Lyrics:

Gentrification Town

I've moved out of three cities 'cause I couldn't pay the rent
Folks like me weren't welcome so I packed it up and went
It's always the same story, I find a place I wanna be
And soon enough I'm joined by all the other refugees
Then watch the websites warble, this is the hippest place to hang
Hey check out Division, it's the sweetest thing since Tang
Then watch the millionaires come in and build a luxury hotel
Sipping coffee on the sidewalk, saying isn't this place swell

Rents are going up and the neighborhood's going down
Here in Gentrification Town

See the families leave the city, watch how they accept their fate
Except the ones who had the timing right and bought some real estate
The ones who had the timing and the ones who had the credit
The ones who paid attention to whoever it was who said it
This is a nation that won't suffer utopians or fools
He who has the gold rules
He who has the gold, he who bought the stock
He who is the landlord who owns your block

They say you can't blame the yuppies, they're just responding to the will
Of the market and the strength of the US dollar bill
But the dollar's only strong if you have some to your name
Otherwise you're on the business end of the game
The end that just stays home 'cause they can't afford the show
The end that has to pack their things and find a place to go
The new hip place to be, for a little while, then
The wrecking balls move in and chase us out again

Gentrification Town

A high-quality studio version of this song can be found on this album:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/when-im-elected-president-wayfaring-stranger-double-album

Turning away refugees is unfortunately a long tradition in the US.  But the propaganda represented by the Statue of Liberty is really lovely stuff.  If only it were much more real.

Lyrics:

Statue in the Harbor

Give us your huddled masses yearning to be free
That's what it says on the Statue of Liberty
And here they come, from the other side
Across the southern border, across the great divide

And now they're told that they should go away
But the statue in the harbor says "stay"

Give us your cold and hungry, let them come by land or sea
Let them all find solace in this land of refugees
Escaping persecution, just trying to survive
And they worked as hard as Guatemalans as soon as their ships arrived

Give us your persecuted, but only if they're white
It doesn't say that on the statue that holds aloft the light
What did you think would happen in the lands you overthrew
Where should all the children go after the coup

Statue in the Harbor

A high-quality studio version of this song can be found on this album:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/when-im-elected-president-wayfaring-stranger-double-album

Although I wrote it during the current (July 2014) Israeli invasion of Gaza, this is a song about how life in Gaza is under "peacetime."

Lyrics:

Gaza

One point eight million people surrounded on all sides
Refugees since '48, since '67, occupied
The only reason they're not starving is down to the UN
Most have never left there, stuck in the lion's den
The most crowded place on Earth, and there they'll stay
They can't visit friends or cousins a half hour's drive away
Drones overhead constantly
Who will die tomorrow, a daily mystery
In Gaza

The settlers moved out, fighter jets moved in
In Gaza there's just no way you can win
You can't take out a copter with an antiquated gun
You're just a target sitting in the sun
Waiting for your death to come raining from the sky
Where the end really is nigh
You can hear a sonic boom and see a flashing light
Every hour of the day, every hour of the night
In Gaza

There are no shelters, nowhere you can hide
Life is nothing like it is on the other side
There's nothing post about the traumatic stress
There's never more, usually less
And still some people wonder, they insist on asking why
Anyone would be so mad as to reply
So mad as to think that it might make sense
To lob some missiles over the fence
From Gaza

Gaza

A high-quality studio version of this song can be found on this album:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/when-im-elected-president-wayfaring-stranger-double-album

RIP Michael Brown.  Unarmed teen executed in broad daylight by racist cop.

Lyrics:

His Hands Were In The Air

The town is mostly black, almost all the cops are white
You can see it right away, something isn't right
There's no funding for the schools and they're being shut down
The powers that be don't give a shit about the town

They were walking in the street, it's the safest place to be
In case someone comes shooting, you got a better view to see
They were walking in the street, they weren't hurting anyone
Then came a white man with a badge and a gun

His hands were in the air (4x)

“Get the fuck off the sidewalk,” that's what the cop said
He cut them off in his car, fat face, blood red
The cop says he was attacked, and from a cursory check
It seems his fingers were assaulted by Michael Brown's neck

There were witnesses who saw it, it was recorded on a phone
But the police couldn't handle the light that would've shone
She was forced to hand it over so they could try to hide away
A racist execution in the middle of the day

He had just finished high school and was off to college next
Instead he was shot and killed with no pretext
The media joined in, called the community a mob
A cop called them animals while Michael's mother sobbed

His Hands Were in the Air

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

Once the last Palestinian is killed, then the pundits and politicians will say "how could we have known," and they'll open another museum.

Once the Last Palestinian's Killed

Outside of the west they're reporting the WHO and just about every other UN department are holding constant press conferences, trying to sound the alarm about an imminent genocide, and all the people in Gaza who are about to die of famine and disease.

Famine and Disease

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

Song for the Houthi Army

Rovics Gaza

If A Song Could Raise An Army

Is it just a happy coincidence that whoever wins or loses, the US arms, oil, gas, and other industries benefit?

Here's the latest track to receive the Chet Gardiner treatment, which will eventually be part of the next album, to be titled Bearing Witness.

It's Not A Trade War

This Is Genocide

A song of appreciation for all the protesting students, staff, and faculty at Columbia and many other institutions across the US.

Boycott, Sanction, and Divest

"Antisemitism" is the new "communism" -- have you ever said anything that could be construed in someone's convoluted mind as somehow anti-Jewish?  Iran is the new USSR, Elise Stefanik is the new Joe McCarthy, and the House Un-Israeli Activities Committee is going strong, ruining one life at a time, and striking fear throughout academia and beyond.

The House Un-Israeli Activities Committee

Out of the ashes of the free internet, our techno-fascist future has arrived, with billionaires and their algorithms in control of our means of communication and our very minds.

My Techno-Fascist God

While sitting at my screen it occurred to me one day
It’s been years since I’ve heard what those people used to say
Back when the algorithms favored them
And their form of opposition to the system
Now it’s other folks that occupy my feed
And so they are what I write about and this is what I read
When was it that I handed the control over my brain
To billionaires with everything to gain

With a phone in my pocket, sheared and shod
All from inside my pod
I learn who should get the rhapsody
and who should get the rod
From my techno-fascist God

I remember long ago when the internet
Was as decentralized as anything could get
Before the billionaires hijacked
Sealed off the leak that had briefly cracked
The network of control, now multiplied
Each device with your own dictator inside
To personalize your program, to train you to respond
The way you should when they wave their wands

Chorus

Who should I hate this morning, I turn on the app
Scroll a couple hours, get my brainwashing on tap
What matters, what doesn’t, who’s telling us the truth
Should we blame the boomers, should we blame the youth
Should we blame the Proud Boys or the liberal elite
And how should we behave when we see one on the street
How much time did I just spend arguing with trolls
And racing down another rabbit hole

Chorus

My Techno-Fascist God

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)

Senator John McCain is dead.  Speak good of the dead.  Good -- he's dead.

John McCain

No, not Shakespeare -- Hamlet, North Carolina.  September 3rd, 1991.

Remembering Hamlet

AP is reporting several of the children separated from their parents have been sexually abused in captiviity.  Unfortunately, sexually abusing children after separating them from their parents is as American as apple pie.

Child Separations

The CIA-backed military coup in Chile on September 11th, 1973 resulted in thousands killed and tortured over the course of a brutal dictatorship that began that day.  It also gave rise to some impressive acts of solidarity.  In Scotland, workers at the factory that repaired all the engines for the entire Chilean Air Force refused to touch a fascist engine.  For a time, it was revealed recently, the entire Chilean Air Force was grounded as a result.

September 11th, 1973

The Global Financial Crisis began in earnest 10 years ago this week, and the first of the series of global protests that began with a protest in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan on this date in 2011.  I was there.

Remembering Occupy Wall Street

On April 18th, 2012, Khader Adnan was released from an Israeli prison after being on hunger strike for 66 days. He was objecting, among other things, to Israel’s policy of indefinite detention without trial, which still continues — but only for Palestinians.

Khader Adnan

On April 19th, 1943, what might be accurately described as the greatest urban rebellion in the history of civilization began.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana, killing eleven workers and causing the worst environmental disaster in US history.

Deepwater Horizon

On April 22nd, 1991, a young Palestinian named Saed Bannoura was shot 6 times by IDF soldiers — but he refused to die.

The First Intifada

On April 23rd, 1971, veterans of the war in Vietnam carried out a series of operations in Washington, DC, actions involving thousands of recently-returned soldiers, one of which involved the depositing on the White House lawn of 700 medals veterans had received for their service in the military.

Throwing of Medals

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