This is an album in three parts.

First, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, songs that were written in the past few months.

Second, mostly songs related to the class struggle, some very recent and some slightly less so.

The third part relates to the album title.

To paraphrase Renée DiResta, we live in an era especially characterized by the collision of the rumor mill and the propaganda machine.  A collection of the songs I've written over recent years on that subject, such as the album's title track, make up the third part.  

Credits:

The songs were all written by David Rovics.  Depending on the song, you'll also hear David's guitar, bouzouki, or mandola.  If you hear female vocals, that's Kamala Emanuel.  Anything else you're hearing -- bass, drums, synth, banjo, electric guitar, and various other odds and ends -- is Chet Gardiner.

Cover graphics by the brilliant Kalindi Jackson.

I Heard A Rumor

Or, Talking Fascist-Platforming Holocaust-Denying Antisemitic False Allegations Blues.

Twitter Troll Jig

Real antifascists don't lead cancel culture cults that target people like me.  The only thing to cancel is cancel culture itself.  Fuck the trolls.  For more information on the nefarious activities of this pseudo-antifascist cult based out of Portland, Oregon, please go to davidrovics.com/trolls.

Cancel Culture Commander (Ballad of an Anarcho-Puritan)

With the demise of the British queen I found myself obsessively reading everything I could find about the time she gave an award to the Australian monarchist who dissolved Gough Whitlam's administration in 1975.

Gough Whitlam

For untold numbers of people, the reality of living online via corporate anti-social media platforms means a life lived in fear of committing a transgression and being targeted for cancellation by dedicated armies of trolls.  This I already know.  Whether any of you out there who already know this also think this song captures the feeling well is another matter, but it's an effort at that.

This is a zipper song. If you're organizing an eviction defense squad somewhere other than Portland, a slight modification to one line is all you need to use it as a jingle yourself.

Join The Mob

Israel wages real, genocidal war against Palestinians. But in other arenas, the pro-Israel lobby in its various forms wages war against global public opinion. The Zionist entity targeting me in recent months has been UK Lawyers for Israel, so I wrote them a jingle.

The Ballad of UK Lawyers for Israel

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

Chet Gardiner has done some especially impressive enhancements to this song so it really sounds like I'm playing with a band, if you didn't know I recorded my parts alone in my living room.

On another note, thanks to the wonderful gaggle of folks who joined my Community-Supported Art program [davidrovics.com/subscribe] on one platform or another since I put out this very autobiographical song in the first place a few days ago.  Anyone else who wants to become a member, and receive a Better Anarchist Club card in the mail, please feel free!  My children and my landlord will appreciate you, whether they know it or not.

Keep on Eating Til the Card's Maxed Out

"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

There is a widespread belief that the FBI was not just running a character assassination campaign on MLK but that they killed him, and the reason they did it was because of their fear of his plan to lead a new, long-term, mass occupation of Washington, DC.

The Poor People's March on Washington

As I sit here, most of the journalists still reporting from Gaza seem to be somewhere in a hospital complex in Rafah that is currently under siege by the Israeli military.  This song is not a prediction of their deaths, but rather a plea for their lives.

Hani Mahmoud and Tareq Abu Azzoum

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

And now watch them justify the missiles that they sent
To bomb the starving children dying in their tents

Since Long Before October

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)

In 1834, organizing a union in England was legal on the books, but not in reality.  Farmworkers in Tolpuddle, on the south coast of England, tried to organize a union and were deported to Australia for it.  A massive movement across the country forced the government to pardon the Tolpuddle Martyrs, as the farmworkers became known, and transport them back to England.

This version of the song, from a live show in Crewe, England, was enhanced afterwards by multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer, Chet Gardiner, from his studio in Hawai'i.  It will be part of our next collaborative album, to be titled, I Heard A Rumor, to be released on July 4th, 2024.

Tolpuddle

Ever feel like a marionette whose strings are being pulled by billionaires who like to watch their puppets form circular firing squads?  Me, too.

Divide and Rule

What’s more important – gender, race, or class?
Give me the wrong answer and I’ll have to kick your ass
Do Black lives matter a little, or do they matter a lot?
What were you doing on the night that Bettie Jones was shot?
Do you really care?  If so, then how much?
Or are you some kind of privileged person, completely out of touch?

Let’s argue about it, let’s be perfect little tools
Let’s play the game of the billionaires – the old divide and rule

What is your position on Vladimir Putin?
Is he God, or the devil – for which side are you rootin’?
Do you support negotiations?  Or do you support the war?
There is no room for nuance here, which side are you for?
Let’s shout at one another until we get tired of shouting and then
Entrench our positions and make sure to never talk again

Is it a genocide in Gaza, or is it just a slaughter?
What do you call a country that won’t let people have water?
Is antisemitism on the rise?  Is it true
You can’t call someone a Nazi if they are a Jew
How do we even start to have such a debate
What’s your position on the existence of the Jewish state?

What’s your pronoun, how do you define?
Your gender, sexuality, where do you draw the line?
What’s the difference between X and Y?
Who gets to be a girl, who gets to be a guy?
Who do you exclude and who do you embrace?
What’s your definition of safer space?

Have you been doing the work, and if so are you sure?
Are you progressing towards the genuinely pure?
Have you got the right perspectives, your ducks all in a row?
Is that Facebook banner just the one you really want to show?
Do you look good in the camera, sound earnest in the mic?
Was there a post for which you regret clicking “like”?

Divide and Rule

Key factors to a successful rent strike include people doing it at the same time, and being organized for collective action when the cops come to try to evict.  It worked in the 1930's, but since then society and the laws have backtracked a whole lot.

Rent Strike

One among the ranks of the thousands of missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada who I learned about recently is Chelsea Poorman, found dead in Vancouver, BC after being missing for 18 months.

The Murdered and the Missing (Song for Chelsea Poorman)

As things get increasingly bleak here in the USA, with the government paralyzed, the pandemic out of control, and winter approaching, I find myself dreaming of other lands where things function better.

Aotearoa

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