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

Leftist Music

Some of the songs in this playlist are the original recordings I made in my living room with a USB mic and the refrigerator humming in the background, while others were recorded in a studio.  For playlist liner notes, check out davidrovics.com/2020music.

2020 Musical Timeline

First of all, I've written many songs about things that happened everywhere in the US, which are generally not in this playlist, unless they relate specifically to Oregon.  For example, mass popular resistance to the draft during World War I, or the rise of the labor movement during the Great Depression, or Occupy Wall Street, any number of other stuff.  You can find those songs in various other playlists related to history.  

What's in this playlist are either songs specifically about events that took place in Oregon, or songs about people who are directly related to Oregon.  For example, "When the West Was Won" is about a massacre of Chinese miners in eastern Oregon, whereas "Joe Hill" is about an internationally-known labor organizer and songwriter who was active as such in many different parts of the US during his life, but he first registered with the Industrial Workers of the World in the Portland, Oregon branch.

The playlist starts out chronological, with several songs about the founding of the settler-colonial enterprise known as the state of Oregon.  After that, the songs are more grouped thematically, only somewhat chronologically.  Aside from a few stragglers that aren't necessarily part of a broad theme, the playlist focuses on particular aspects of life in Oregon that I've written about extensively:  police violence and racism, corporate landlords and gentrification and the movement for rent control, protests during the Trump/pandemic era, and the widespread phenomenon of people without housing.

Oregon Songs

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

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

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

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

All songs from 2020, except for a couple from late 2019. Mostly songs that have appeared in solo guitar form on various other recordings from the past year, plus a few that haven't. All songs being given the band treatment for the first time, and what a band treatment it is. My best effort at distilling 2020 into an album, basically.

08. When This Fertile Valley Was Stolen

In May, 1887, a gang of white men led by someone named Bruce Evans carried out a series of massacres of Chinese gold miners in northeastern Oregon, robbing miners of everything, and killing all of them, at each camp the gang found.  Although some of them confessed to their heinous crimes, a jury refused to convict them.  Instead, the name of mass murderer, Bruce Evans, is engraved in an arch to the memory of the Pioneers who settled the area, in the town of Enterprise, Oregon.

When the West Was Won

When the automobile came around, the city of Portland, Oregon opened up Kelly Butte as a rock quarry to make gravel to use for paving the streets of the city.  They did not employ anyone to split the rocks, though -- they arrested people off of the streets of the city on all sorts of nonsense charges, and made them split rocks at gunpoint, as prisoners.  This prison rock quarry, run on some of the original land stolen from the original inhabitants, operated like this for almost half a century.  Who are the descendants of the pioneers that were given this land?  We know them well.  Who are the descendants of the rock-splitting indigent prisoners?  Do they live in tents on the sidewalks of the city today?

This is the latest collaboration between me and Virtual Bird.

Kelly Butte

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

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

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

Irish brigade kinky boots

How did Oregon get so white?  Here's a little backgrounder.

This version of this song appears on my 2016 live Bandcamp album, Letter to My Landlord.
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/letter-to-my-landlord

Lyrics:

You wanna understand what happens today
You gotta know how things got this way
So let's back up from the present date
And examine the history of a state  As with the rest of this stolen land
Mass murder is how it began
From the first days of the Territory  Only white men could own property

And to them the land was given for free  From Wallowa to the Pacific Sea
Taken by force and then handed out  
Leaving no room for the slightest doubt
That a White Homeland was the intent
And to make it certain just what that meant
Signs were posted that clearly read  Leave by dusk or end up dead

Best get out of town before the sun goes down
Because if you're not white that's probable cause
Here in the land of the Sunset Laws

The Oregon Territory's Constitution  Explained the methods of exclusion
It wasn't subtle – it was all too clear  Nonwhite people not welcome here
And when Oregon joined the USA  It entered the union with laws this way
Salem could fine and lash and kill  To enforce the white land's will

After the war of gray and blue  Exclusion Laws were passed anew
They weren't repealed for sixty more years
After the Klansman rule of Walter Pierce
It feels a lot like nothing's changed  Looks a lot like a firing range
Who owns the land, who keeps the order
From Portland to the California border


Sunset Laws

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

Man From The Daily Mail

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

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

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

Behind These Prison Walls

Song for the Biotic Baking Brigade

Song for Irish Republican Francis Hughes, who died on hunger strike.  He was known as a man of few words, among other things.

This is a track from my album, Big Red Sessions.

Up the Provos

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)

If Bernie Sanders has any chance of getting into the White House, it will only be because he was propelled there by a massive popular movement.  His own party's leadership would rather have fascism than socialism, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Bernie 2020

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

In preparation for the next Democratic presidential candidate debates, here are some musical thoughts on the Democratic party establishment apologists for plutocracy and empire who will be ganging up on the insurgent front-runner, Bernie Sanders, in the coming weeks and months.

To Agree With The DNC

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

Particularly in countries with governments as bought-off and incompetent as ours in the US, how society copes with the current moment will depend primarily on our ability to support each other -- mutual aid.

Viral Solidarity

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

The statues are only symbols, and whether they are disposed of by local authorities or taken down by members of the public, there's so much more to accomplish.  But symbols are important, and taking these statues down is an important part of the process of re-framing the mainstream historical narrative, so that it might someday become an honest one.

Pull These Statues To The Ground

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

Greetings from Portland, which has the most toxic air of any major city on Earth today.  And other cities in Oregon have suffered far worse than bad air in the past few days.

Flames Of History

The president and the attorney general and a whole lot of corporate media says Portland, Seattle and New York City are "anarchist jurisdictions."  It's a technical term, apparently.  We anarchists say, if only it were true.

Anarchist Jurisdiction

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

Lorna McKinnon and I did a tour together, culminating in a concert in Rostrevor, County Down, in Ireland, in the autumn of 2016.

06. Joe Hill

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