stand up speak out

Songs related to war, peace and empire, now and through the ages.

War & Peace

climate justice.intersectionality.David Rovics

Commie music

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

July

mem ararat

Nach scratch - clandestinos

Estamos cerca de llegar a los 300.000 amigos. El día que lo hagamos, para la celebrarlo, os regalaremos una nueva versión de un tema muy especial para nosotros: "BASADO EN HECHOS REALES" (10º Aniversario). Permaneced atentos!.

NACH - Basado En Hechos Reales -2010-11-

argêş | heft stêrk

Even fairly recent history can get quickly forgotten.  It occurred to me that the history of the antiwar movement in the 1960's and 1970's needs to be remembered, for all kinds of reasons, and I had an idea for doing that, so here it is.

From the album, 1939:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/1939

Lyrics:

It's a story everyone should know  
It happened a half century ago
All across this sprawling nation  
The rising of a generation
It started slow and then gained speed  
Nobody knew where it would lead
First there were marches, then there were more  
Way too many to keep score
They shut down classes, couldn't learn
Once they ascertained how napalm burned
They had to find out how to defy
People stood up because they couldn't stand by

There were parades held by the military brass  
There were cities filled with CS gas
Real wars and war games  
Recruitment centers up in flames
Light a match, then in a flash  
Draft cards turned to ash
Thousands moved across the border  
Refusing military orders
Every army base in the USA  
Had an antiwar cafe
There are times when you just can't comply
People stood up because they couldn't stand by

Soldiers insisted on free will  
Put down their guns, refused to kill
Newspapers of the underground  
Ubiquitously could be found
Across the country, across the sea  
Throughout the ranks of the military
Take a grenade, pull out the pin  
Praise be to Ho Chi Minh
Another fragging every night  
A war that many refused to fight
Bombs were falling, some asked why
People stood up because they couldn't stand by

The ruling classes, with all their powers  
Shook inside their ivory towers
They were brought to their knees back then  
That's why we don't have the draft again
Even back then some of them knew
They had to be careful, what they tried to do
Rulers who miscalculate  
Lose control of their ship of state
In order to govern you need consent  
And all of that just up and went
In '68 came the reply
People stood up because they couldn't stand by

They Couldn't Stand By

I woke up on the morning of December 21, 2015, to look at a BBC story.  "Kenyan Muslims shield Christians in Mandera bus attack" was the headline.  I read on:  "A group of Kenyan Muslims travelling on a bus ambushed by Islamist gunmen protected Christian passengers by refusing to be split into groups, according to eyewitnesses.  They told the militants 'to kill them together or leave them alone,' a local governor told Kenyan media."  I read more and wrote this.

From the album, 1939:
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/1939

Lyrics:

It's a long way from Nairobi, travel across the country 
To an arid northern little border town
If you leave early in the day you'll still be on your way
Long after the sun is going down
It began as just a ride to the other side
But then was interrupted by the sound
Of the shattering of glass as the driver tried to pass
The men with guns there on the dusty desert ground

There were two already dead, another shot as she fled
No question here whose lives were now at stake
When all is said and done it is instances like this one
When every move is one that just might make or break
All passengers get out, men with guns began to shout
You Christians now get up against the wall
But then everyone stayed still, saying now do as you will
You may leave, or you may kill us all

It wasn't far away, just over a year ago today
When people were massacred exactly in this manner
The pattern it was clear, all the Muslims here
Would be safe if they just stood beside this banner
Headscarves passed from hand to hand among this human band
Live together or together fall
And then nobody moved, showing each of them approved
Of saying you may leave, or you may kill us all

It wasn't set in stone – there's no way they could have known
That this time this act of solidarity
Would see the gunmen leave, goals left unachieved
On the border there in Mandera County
But sometimes you take a chance, then at a second glance
You see you've changed the world with the passing of a shawl
There are those who will remember those who on one day in December
Said you may leave, or you may kill us all

One Day In Kenya

Koma Se bira nin diğer şarkıları için tıklayınız http://pnd.tl/uwDsIB

Koma Se Bıra - Gerilame Ez Evindarım (Yeni 2016)

BOCA FLOJA Y AKIL AMMAR MEXICO DF

Hogir F. Rasul - Serkiznakem

1899.  2017.

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

Age Of The Robber Barons

Bad Old Songs

Good Old Bad Old Days

Lost Causes

March of the Jobless Corps

Partisans & Parasites

Parasites

Six Million Germans / Nakam

For the volunteers of the YPG.  This is a track from my 2017 album, Ballad of a Wobbly, which can be downloaded or streamed in its entirety at www.davidrovics.bandcamp.com.

Rojava

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...

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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/
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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

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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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!

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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

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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

A song for Bob Steck and all the other veterans of the international brigades in Spain.

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

The Last Lincoln Veteran

The Dying Firefighter

Promised Land

They really used that name for a little while, no joke.  From my 2004 album, Songs for Mahmud.

Operation Iraqi Liberation

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

A rhetorical question, and a vitally important one.

How Far Is It From Here to Nuremberg?

1 - YouTube Video : https://youtu.be/RjrQTl6Cl0o
2 - YouTube Video Vol:2 : https://youtu.be/CuoUQoiVZ7A

https://soundcloud.com/fikretpeldek/turkish-mashup-2-se-bira-fikret-peldek-remix-2019
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✍ Sosyal Medya Hesaplarım
● https://www.instagram.com/djfikret/
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Se Bıra - Kurdish Mashup (Fikret Peldek Remix)

aka The Last Universal Diasporic Testament of Adam Spielman

live @ http://www.lightbaz.com/2011/03/radio-74/
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGgfuwbTmUM

Daniel Kahn - The Jew In You

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

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