Harmonies 2024

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

Just Like the Nazis Did

Rovics Gaza

If A Song Could Raise An Army

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)

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.

If A Song Could Raise An Army

davidrovics

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