These are all songs I haven't yet recorded in a studio.  All but two of them were written since my last album recording project in Ireland in October, 2019.  I re-recorded most of these songs on February 16th, 2020, with the aim of getting a better recording quality than I had gotten originally for most of them.  Then I boosted the signal by 4 or 5 db for most of the tracks.  The only one of these songs that I didn't record with a single USB mic plugged into my laptop is "Behind These Prison Doors."  That song is the audio from the video we made in front of Belmarsh Prison in London, England.

I can barely afford the rent in my apartment at the moment, and I just put out an album recently, so I'm not thinking much about another studio recording project, except that it would be good, for a lot of different reasons, to record these songs in a studio, with other musicians, and make a real album of high enough quality to fit in on the streaming platforms and get listened to.  If these songs are going to have their optimal impact, they need to be recorded in a studio, and some of them, like songs about 2020 electoral campaigns, for example, really would be best off recorded very soon.  When I reach 100 patrons at www.patreon.com/davidrovics, I'll make studio plans for this album.  Working title, Here In The Matrix.

Here In The Matrix

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

Just Like the Nazis Did

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

Free Julian Assange.  This version is from my 2021 album, Rebel Songs.

Behind These Prison Walls

One of the lesser-known details about the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War is how badly the Republican refugees were treated in France, after they fled over the border, running for their lives.  The Vichy authorities, after the Nazi occupation, were worse.  But for 2,200 of the refugees in France, the fate of their comrades would be avoided, as Pablo Neruda and the government of Chile at the time had arranged for a cargo ship, the SS Winnipeg.

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

Across The Ocean Wide (When The Winnipeg Set Sail)

The founder of the Portland Tenants Union is running for the Portland City Council, to replace the late Nick Fish, so I wrote a campaign song.   The election is May 19th, 2020.  Take the city back with Margot Black!   

You can write your own campaign song, too, whether you're a Portland voter or not.  And whether or not you're going to go knocking on doors for Margot's campaign, another thing you can do is make a video to help amplify the message of this song.  (Which is true of other songs as well, incidentally.)

Margot Black Campaign Song

BREAKING NEWS:  There are no cross-Canada trains running, because the tracks are blocked by Mohawks and others participating in blockades across the colonized nation.  Thousands of travelers and billions of dollars worth of freight is currently not moving.

Wet'suwet'en

Among the most eloquent of America's political prisoners is from Texas.  He is serving a fifty-year sentence for nothing more than a blatantly obvious act of self-defense against a murder attempt by a racist cop.  The cop even admitted as much -- an admission which later mysteriously changed, of course.  Alvaro is up for parole, at least potentially, in 2021.  From my 2020 album, Notes From A Failed State.  #FreeAlvaro

Ballad of Alvaro Luna Hernandez

A number of striking graduate student teachers in California requested a song for the picket lines.  Here's one musical offering.  I'm very much looking forward to visiting California in late March to sing on the picket lines in person!

Spread The Strike

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.

Margot Black Campaign Song

davidrovics

Related tracks