Songs about fascist cops and burning shit down are two of my main songwriting specialties, so I had to compile a good playlist to go along with the marshmallow-toasting and other activities.

Campfire Songs

A playlist that collects together most of the songs I've written that are about police or other vigilantes lynching Black and Brown people.

Say Their Names (addendum)

Mic and David prospects

Despite Andy Ngo's politically conservative worldview and tendency towards exaggeration, his book, Unmasked, made for fascinating reading.  Especially since he and I and other people I keep on meeting have been targeted for cancellation and more by the same group of "antifascist" morons, for different reasons.  Me because I'm a Nazi, of course!  (Didn't you know?)  

Here's a playlist of songs I've written that are on subjects written about in Ngo's book, from a very different vantage point.  If you contrast the perspective of these songs from the way the people of whom I'm singing the praises are considered by Ngo to be criminals or terrorists, it's that much more intriguing, or disconcerting, or something, that we're both being constantly trolled and harassed by the same group of people, or groups with lots of crossover.

Songs related to Unmasked

climate justice.intersectionality.David Rovics

I have heard multiple journalists expressing their shock at seeing heavily-armed and armored riot police using tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and other "nonlethal" weapons against peaceful protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.  While it's a good thing that so many of these journalists evidently feel that the police practices they're observing (and falling victim to) are abhorrent, the fact that they're shocked by them belies the general bias of the corporate media.  Where have these people been all their lives?  Apparently not where I've been.  They haven't been reporting on the bigger protests of the past years and decades, that's for sure (and they haven't been listening to my music or reading my blog).  If they had been, they would realize that these kinds of police tactics are not the exception in the USA (and elsewhere) -- they're the norm.

Read more:

http://songwritersnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-road-to-ferguson-musically.html

The Road to Ferguson

Playlist for July in History and Song -- www.davidrovics.com/history/july

July

What if Trayvon had stood his ground?

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

Trayvon

This is the studio version of the song I wrote after the racist police execution of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th, 2014.

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 on 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

His hands were in the air (4x)

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

His hands were in the air (4x)

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 (4x)

His Hands Were In The Air

A song about the police murder of Oscar Grant, on January 1st, 2009.  From the album, All the News That's Fit to Sing, which you can download for free here:

https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-sing

Song For Oscar Grant

Charleston. Is everyone crazy who hears voices telling them black people are irredeemable criminals bent on taking over the country? Or are they just listening to Fox? Was this the act of a madman, or just a fan of Bill O'Reilly following hate speech to its logical conclusion?

Should a massacre of black church-goers really be so shocking in a state that still officially flies the Confederate flag in front of its State House? (To say nothing of the other US flag, the Stars and Stripes, also drenched in the blood of Africans near and far, along with so many more people.)

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

Lyrics:

He was listening to voices, talking in his head
If you grew up in America you know exactly what they said
And with every job we lose, however bad things get
There's a black man in the White House on the TV set
And we can blame it all on him and his entire race
Because they no longer know their place

You can hear the voices and by the early light of dawn
You can see the flag waving on the State House Lawn

He was listening to voices, you could say that he was crazy
For thinking certain people are just born to be lazy
He could see it on the cop shows, they don't know right from wrong
The race war is coming and now it won't be long
I promise it was not his original notion
If you want to start a war, first you have to set the war in motion

Chorus

He was listening to voices who said the conflict's coming soon
And he walked into the church on the 17th of June
The very date of the rebellion that never was to be
For which 35 were hanged in that very city
For which the church was burned, for which the church was banned
For which there's been no atonement in a sick and troubled land

Chorus

The State House Lawn

Dallas.  From my album, Punk Baroque, available for download or streaming in its entirety at www.davidrovics.bandcamp.com.

Lyrics:

If This Were A War

If this were a war, if he were a soldier
He'd find a well-defensible position
He'd put on body armor if he were a sniper
And set his sights with terrible precision
If this were a war and he was somewhere overseas
He'd be watching out for the other side
Watching for the Taleban or whichever enemies
Kept on trying to blow him open wide

If this were a war he'd be dodging shells
Aimed at him for being on the street
He'd be on alert for any sign that tells
That the soldier might be drawing heat
If this were a war and he were being shot
He'd be under orders to shoot back 
If he had learned the lessons from the training that he got
He'd carefully prepare his counterattack

If this were a war and the enemy wore blue
He'd be looking for signs of it everywhere
If he was in good form and his aim was true
He would pick them off and center his crosshairs
If this were a war, not a Dallas parking lot
He'd be getting medals for this firefight
If he were a soldier, he'd be praised for every shot
He fired from above on that deadly night

If this were a war

If This Were A War

How is anyone supposed to feel at home in a city when they have no control whatsoever over the most basic aspect of their daily reality -- how much they pay each month in rent?  For the half of Portland that owns houses it's one thing.  For the rest of us, it's quite another.

This is a track from my album, Punk Baroque:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/punk-baroque

Just A Renter

For Eric Garner.

From the album, The Other Side.

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

I Can't Breathe

1899.  2017.

This song is from my album, Punk Baroque:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/punk-baroque

Age Of The Robber Barons

Eighty homeless people died on the streets of Portland, Oregon in 2016.  Average age of death:  49.

Lyrics:

In the outdoor seating areas of all the trendy new cafes
You can see the yuppies drinking their cortados and lattes
And you can hear them as they're chatting and laughing out so loud
Must feel good to be in the In Crowd
Must feel good to have such idle conversation
About the latest 1980's Spotify compilation
Yeah I got myself a phone but the battery is spent
'Cause there isn't any outlet to plug into in the tent on the sidewalk

Listen to them talking – the lawyers and ITs
Sometimes I really wonder if I'm a member of their species
But I grew up in this city and now I can't afford to live here 
Can't afford to spend ten dollars on a pint of beer
Can't afford to lie down on a bench and take a nap 
I'm lucky if they let me in to use the john and take a crap
Don't write me a letter, there's nowhere to get it sent
'Cause you don't have an address when you're living in a tent...

Often when I'm downtown selling papers I see
Protesters protesting the powers-that-be
Maybe I should join them but I don't think I will
Because whoever runs the Congress or Capitol Hill
The only thing that changes, whoever's hands are in the larder
Everything gets more expensive and life keeps getting harder
The one and only thing that matters is I can't afford the rent
The sky is pissing freezing rain, the walls are leaking in this tent...

As I lay here on the plastic, shivering away
I'm just hoping that I'll make it to the break of day
Not just be a statistic who died face down in the mud
Beaten by some frat boys, covered up in blood
Sometimes I dream I have a future – an end to this long night 
Sometimes I dream that someday people will have rights 
But then I wake up and I wonder what the hell that meant
'Cause I'm sure there is no future here inside this tent...

http://www.davidrovics.com/
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On the Sidewalk

It began with a massacre at a protest in 1886 on the streets of Chicago.

Lyrics:

It started with a protest in the Gilded Age
Chicago, Illinois was the stage
Workers had gathered across the country to demand a living wage

First in Chicago, then in Milwaukee
The state of US democracy
Was shown to the world with volleys of bullets from the police authorities

Word spread about what happened there
Across the country from Haymarket Square
Word spread across the oceans to just about everywhere

That there'd now be a day when simultaneously
On every continent, in every country
All the workers would march together for the world that shall be

The First of May, the First of May – International Workers Day

Every year it's part of the mix
From now to 1886
To stand against divide and rule, the bosses' favorite trick

From Chile up to Newfoundland
Galway to Georgia, hand in hand
For at least this one day, it's One Big Union grand

In the streets, in the parks
From the DRC to Denmark
It may not be a prairie fire, but it's such a beautiful spark

http://www.davidrovics.com/
https://twitter.com/drovics
https://www.facebook.com/davidrovicsmusic
https://soundcloud.com/davidrovics/

Subscribe here: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=drovics

You can download the David Rovics app in the app store on Google or Apple for free!

You can join my CSA at:  http://www.davidrovics.com/subscribe

The First of May

It's been in the news a lot lately, since Trump announced his plan to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  So here's a little history for those who don't know.

Lyrics:

From the frozen north with shields and swords
On foot and horse the Christian hordes
Convinced that they were God's own picks
To go and kill the heretics
They headed east and south and as they went
So many souls were heaven-sent
Al-Quds was where they'd make their stand
These white boots marching to the Holy Land

And when they reached Damascus Gate
The Unbelievers met their fates
They lost their heads, they lost their lives
Fathers, mothers, children, wives
Begged for mercy – none received
A city slaughtered and bereaved
By those who'd follow the pope's command 
To be white boots marching on the Holy Land

The Crusaders ruled with great repression
Freedom of religious expression
Would become the norm only when
Muslim rulers returned again
For centuries that was the scene
Until the year 1917
When the British Mandate of the Balfour brand
Had white boots marching on the Holy Land

A new crusade with new invaders
From the exact same places as the old crusaders
Who rule by theft and annexation
A divided up, apartheid nation 
How long the Zionist crusade will last
When the Disaster will be finally past
Til then let's be clear, let's understand
There are white boots marching on the Holy Land

http://www.davidrovics.com/
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A Brief History Of Jerusalem

A friend in Berlin sent me a story about how the entire Chilean Air Force was essentially grounded for a time as a result of the actions of union engineers in Scotland who refused to repair the engines of their fighter jets after the 1973 coup.  From my 2018 album, Historic Times.

Lyrics:

Jet fighters bombed the palace, we all watched it on TV
The 11th of September, 1973
All across the world people cried in vain
As we heard stories of the people being tortured and slain
Stories of the workers, shop stewards and the rest 
Being slaughtered at the new dictator's behest
Labor groups condemned it, said we were on the workers' side
Including all the engineers of East Kilbride

People organized a boycott of General Pinochet
Who had overthrown Allende with a Hawker Hunter jet
Then a few months later, March of '74
Bob Fulton came to work at the Rolls Royce factory floor
He looked at the orders that had come in that day
And found crates with jet engines from Chile
Jet engines from the Air Force across the ocean wide
Sent to be repaired in East Kilbride

It didn't take a minute for Fulton and his mates
To come to the decision that they would not touch these crates
Soon four thousand Rolls Royce workers voted they agreed
To stand with the Chileans in their hour of need
Management decried them, the Tories screamed and cussed
But the Hawker Hunter engines were left to sit and rust
Nowhere else on Earth were workers qualified
To repair the engines sitting there in East Kilbride

It's often hard to know if you've changed anything a whit
But decades later a Chilean general would admit
For a time in Santiago there were no fighters in the sky
Because the whole Chilean Air Force had not one jet that could fly
They may not have changed the world, this group of union engineers
But these crates of metal sat corroding for four years
So here's to British labor, how for four years it tried
To do what could be done from East Kilbride

Jet fighters bombed the palace, we all watched it on TV
The 11th of September, 1973

http://www.davidrovics.com/
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You can download the David Rovics app in the app store on Google or Apple for free!

You can join my CSA at:  http://www.davidrovics.com/subscribe

East Kilbride

I wrote a song about the jar of ashes sitting on my windowsill, which evidently contain some of the cremated remains of the body of Joe Hill.

The last verse is from Joe Hill's Last Will, written by the man himself soon before his execution.

Lyrics:

Look up at the sky, clouds about to burst
In the absence of the struggle things tend to look the worst
I try to count my blessings, be glad that I'm here still
Looking at that jar of ashes sitting on the windowsill

I walk past the rows of tents that line the avenue
Just like the rows of tents here in 1932
Some things take a long time, I shiver in the chill
Thinking of that jar of ashes sitting on the windowsill

I walk home and I wonder, will it ever happen again
That there might be the fighting spirit that there was back then
'Cause things are worse now than they were back when he was killed
When he became a jar of ashes sitting on the windowsill

In 2118 who knows how things might be
Will families live beneath the bridge in a century
Will the lives of fellow workers mean more than dollar bills
More than a jar of ashes sitting on the windowsill

I plunk notes upon the piano like he did long ago
Somewhere here in Portland, somewhere near Skid Row
I'll sing a song for you then, until I sing my fill
Looking at that jar of ashes sitting on the windowsill

My body, oh, if I could choose, I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow my dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then would come to life and bloom again
This is my last and Final Will – good luck to all of you, Joe Hill

Jar of Ashes

Killed for being an effective labor organizer who was opposed to participating in a "bosses' war" -- World War I.

From my album, Ten Thousand Miles Away.

Song For Ginger Goodwin

One of my best-known songs, thanks in large part to the Pirate Party in Germany.  For more on the Golden Age of Piracy, see Markus Rediker and other authors...

Black Flag Flying

For years before Hurricane Katrina many people asked the question -- will people wake up to the dangers of climate change once a hurricane destroys New Orleans?

New Orleans

Singing the chorus to this song is illegal in the US, Germany and other countries.  In the US it violates an anti-speech law passed under Bill Clinton in 1997.

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

Burn It Down

Song for the Biotic Baking Brigade

Jason Hargrove, a Detroit bus driver, is only one of so many needless deaths of workers the authorities call essential, by which they seem to mean expendable.  The strikes are spreading.  The future is unwritten.  The time is now.

Essentially Expendable (The Death Of Jason Hargrove)

A new song, mostly about how the term "social distancing" seems very appropriate most of the time, much as we'd like to hope that all we're doing is distancing ourselves from each other physically.

As I Walk On By

In the heat of the summer.

Lyrics:

Are people still lynched in America – and what happens when they die
When he begged for his mother to save him, was he resisting arrest when he cried
And how does the lynch mob roam free, when we already know who they are
The men who murdered George Floyd, and then drove off in their police cars
To live with such savage injustice, with every new day the Earth turns
I'm left with no reason to wonder, as I watch Minneapolis burn

Are people still lynched in America – how many just in the past weeks
From Georgia to Minnesota, as the pandemic spikes and peaks
Did you see him pinned down for eight minutes, did you see the knee on his neck
Did you see the police station on fire, did you smell the smoldering wreck
As the National Guard marches in, watch the wheels of history churn
In the land of Philando Castille, as we watch Minneapolis burn

Are people still lynched in America – and do the poor still die of disease
Are the prisons still full of debtors, do bodies still hang from the trees
Do the workers still live by the highways, still struggle to come up with rent 
Do families still get evicted, when the last of their credit is spent
Do you see all the people who just had to find out what might there be left to learn
From the flames that rise from the Target, as we watch Minneapolis burn

Are people still lynched in America – and what happens when they die
When he begged for his mother to save him, was he resisting arrest when he cried

As I Watch Minneapolis Burn

Elijah McClain was a gentle young musician and massage therapist who lived in Aurora, Colorado, until he was viciously attacked and publicly tortured by Aurora police on the evening of August 24th, 2019, for the crime of walking down the sidewalk while Black.  The police who murdered him are still free.

Elijah Played The Violin

Another world is possible.  RIP John Lewis.

Another World

If you go to downtown Portland any evening of the week these days, you will find on one side, federal agents in camouflage, armed with a broad array of often mysterious weaponry.  On the other side, a wide spectrum of people, mostly on the younger side, not infrequently bearing either an umbrella or a leaf-blower.

With Masks Upon Their Faces And Leaf-Blowers In Their Hands

A song about a few of those murdered by criminal police, with a very simple chorus.  Note to anyone performing the song anywhere:  there is intentionally room in the chorus to say a name in between every time you sing "say their names."  The last chorus can go on for a very, very long time.

Say Their Names

In the 1840's there was a massive rent strike in upstate New York, which ultimately transformed what had been feudal relations between tenants and incredibly rich landlords, called Patroons. Despite the success of this movement, however, not much has really changed in the long run. We need many more rent strike movements like that one!

This is a track from my 15-song album, Into A Prism, which can be downloaded in full here:
http://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/into-a-prism

Landlord

Assata Shakur has long been a heroine of mine, along with the organizations she has long been associated with, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Black Liberation Army. When the FBI teamed up with New Jersey authorities to announce that she had been declared the #1 Most Wanted Terrorist on their list, and the first-ever woman to occupy that esteemed position, I was appalled, as were many others. It is well-documented that despite her one conviction by a kangaroo court, Assata is innocent of all charges and allegations made against her over the years, including the killing of the cop. The terrorists who should have a lot to answer for, in a remotely just society, are the FBI and other federal and local authorities who considered members of the Black Panther Party and other organizations guilty until proven innocent.

This is a track from my 15-song album, Into A Prism, which can be downloaded in full here:
http://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/into-a-prism

Assata

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

13. The Last Lincoln Veteran

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