Corona Virus

Songs written during and about the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19

WIRE and

Fifth estate etc

This is what I'm thinking might be the set list for the next album project.  Recording begins on December 12th, 2020 at Big Red Studio,  Recording then continues in Ireland, through the magic of the internet.

2020 Album

In no particular order, this is a playlist of some of the songs I've written through the years that tell a story, about a person or an event.

Story Songs

52 Stories

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

Fire Records will be reissuing the first three albums by the Lemonheads, Hate Your Friends (1987), Creator (1988) and Lick (1989), featuring copious bonus tracks and many never-before released rarities and live recordings. 

Together, these seminal albums showcase the band's early punk rock roots and trace the Lemonheads transformation towards becoming one of the most successful and influential bands in indie rock.

'Anyway' is taken from 'Lick'.

Anyway

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

Coinciding with the final leg of Pere Ubu’s ‘Coed Jail! Tour 2016,’ Fire Records reissue ‘New Picnic Time’, ‘The Art Of Walking’ and ‘Song Of The Bailing Man’ on individual vinyl. 

Originally released between 1979-82, these albums were included in the recent box set release ‘Architecture Of Language.’ Songs from this and from the previously released box set ‘Elitism For The People, 1975-1978’ are to be performed on the West Coast USA in December, following on from the tour’s recent outings on the East Coast and Europe.


Pere Ubu - New Picnic Time - The Fabulous Sequel (Have Shoes Will Walk)

For Omid, who died in an Australian concentration camp in Nauru.  Omid's wife is still in indefinite detention for the crime of being a refugee who had to flee her country quickly, without waiting for papers.  She wishes to remain anonymous, so I changed both of their names, since their story bears a lot of similarity to the ancient Persian poem anyway.

From my 2017 album, Ballad of a Wobbly.

Lyrics:

When Leila met Majnun it was at a traffic light
He handed her his number at first sight
It all happened very quickly, soon both of them were aware
That life can be so good when it's shared

When Leila met Majnun it was convenient, it would seem
That both of them were living in the city of their dreams
They had no plan to leave and lots of plans to stay
But one day that all changed and they had to go away

So Leila and Majnun together left the country 
They got on a crowded boat, sailed the Pacific Sea
They were headed to Australia, a place they thought they knew
Then the Australian Navy took them to Nauru

Where Leila and Majnun were kept there in detention
On a tiny little island run just like a prison
Where they were told by Immigration, dream all that you can 
But your only pathway off this island is on a boat back to Iran

Leila and Majnun, amid the heat and damp
Tried to make the best of life in a prison camp
But the strongest of foundations eventually will shake
And the strongest of hearts eventually will break

Leila and Majnun were on the island when 
One day there came some visitors from the UN
The next thing Leila knew, she was witness to the scene
Of her beloved doused in gasoline

Leila saw Majnun in a state no one should be in
Bright flames rising, burning off his skin
Sometimes you can reach a point – so beaten down, so tired
The only option that seems left is to set yourself on fire

Leila and Majnun

Wire

For Mawda Shawri, a two-year-old Kurdish girl who was killed for being in a van full of refugees with a driver who wouldn't stop the van when the police wanted him to.  The obvious message here from the Belgian cops, in case you missed it, is that the lives of refugees don't matter at all.

The song appears on my vinyl album, Historic Times -- www.davidrovics.com/historic.

Lyrics:

Mawda Was Her Name

Their country was invaded and destroyed
Then they had a baby boy
They sold everything they owned
So they might escape the war zone
They took the Baltic Route, north and west
It was the one the smugglers said was best
They got as far as Germany
Which is where they had another baby

It's a deadly thing, what some call immigration
England was their final destination
In a crowded van, driving to the port 
On past Flanders' fields, yet another life cut short
Cops on every side, the vehicle surrounded
When the loud crack sounded
Mama held her daughter, tight in place
Then she saw the bullet hit her face

And Mawda was her name

There are many ways to stop a van
Many ways to do it – they can
Make a roadblock, for one
If you're under fire, you can use your gun
But all the bullets flew in one direction
At first they denied it, but at closer inspection
The cop was aiming for the driver's head
But he missed and hit the girl instead

And Mawda was her name

And if the driver had been hit, how many more
Numbers would be added to the score
Of those who only wanted to raise a family
But then died on the shores of Turkey
Or somewhere in the desert, or tortured in a prison
Or on the bottom of the ocean
At a Baghdad checkpoint, or at a traffic stop
Or shot down by a Belgian cop 

And Mawda was her name

Mawda Was Her Name

From the album 'Breaking State' released 26th October 2018

Prime Numbers

Virtually the entire western media is spouting the most outrageous propaganda, as it often does when it's most needed to tell the truth instead.  It's not that everything's fine in Venezuela -- it's most definitely not.  But that is mainly due to foreign and domestic sabotage of the Venezuelan economy.

From the 2019 album, Strangers and Friends.

Lyrics:

In Venezuela

Chavez was elected 
Like every time he ran 
When his Socialists took power 
That's when the changes began
The opposition started 
Attacking every forward move
But reforms went ahead 
The people's welfare improved
A land of such riches 
That had always gone to so few
Was reaching places 
Ignored since 1492
In Venezuela

Millions poured into the streets 
To stop the coup back then
They got the man that they elected 
Back into power again
The Bolivarian Revolution 
Became famous worldwide
Soon other socialist governments 
Swept in in a red Latin tide
Between the Cuban doctors 
And the Venezuelan oil
Millions got medical care 
Millions tilled the soil
In Venezuela

Bush began the sanctions 
Obama imposed more
A slow-burning, destabilizing 
Economic war
Following the formula 
Of the Chicago Boys team
Used in many places 
To make economies scream
Oil prices plummeted 
Foreign holdings locked
Invasions being planned 
Negotiations blocked
In Venezuela

From the Haitian Revolution 
To Venezuela today
From the Seminoles 
To Salvador Allende
Look at their ankles 
You'll see the chains
Imperial vampires 
Open veins
Those who stand up 
To the business elite
Who cannot stand to see 
The workers in the driver's seat
In Venezuela

In Venezuela

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

Ever heard about the act of war that predicated the Japanese Empire's bombing raid on the Pearl Harbor Navy base in 1941? A US naval blockade on Japanese oil imports from Indonesia that had been going on for months, threatening to strangle the Japanese economy.

From my 2019 album, Strangers and Friends.

Oil Blockade

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

Behind These Prison Walls

With Trump threatening to bomb 52 cultural sites for each of the 52 hostages at the US embassy taken by student activists in 1979, I offer a brief musical commentary on the subject.

From the 2020 album, Notes From A Failed State.

When the Students Took the Embassy

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)

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

Are these the plagues, swarms of locusts, floods, fires, famines, wars, and pogroms they were talking about...?

Coronavirus Climate Catastrophe Fascist Empire 2020 Blues Massacree

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

What do Donald Trump, 1848, Covid-19 and Winston Churchill have in common?  Some thoughts on the subject, in podcast form.

Unprecedented Precedents

History will look back on which parts of the world managed to contain the new virus, and which parts didn't, and why.  Society in the countries that failed will never be the same.

We're In This Together (Ballad Of Covid-19)

What everyone who seems to understand the gravity of the situation we are facing with this pandemic keeps saying -- specifically in relation to countries like the United States, so unready to meet this challenge -- is society will never be the same.  I sure hope they're right.

Once This Pandemic Is Over

If you've ever traveled to the Middle East then you have seen how the more civilized societies have been maintaining personal hygiene in a way far superior to the comparatively grimy European diaspora -- water. If you don't have a hose attached to your toilet like they do all over the Arab world, you can use a simple plastic squeeze bottle.

The Solution To The Toilet Paper Shortage

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

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)

We spend the hour with New York City journalist, author, and regular contributor to the Fifth Estate magazine, Bill Weinberg, talking about the pandemic and where things might go from here, the prospects for fascism or mutual aid, defunding the police, cannabis, and lessons from Tompkins Square Park, Chiapas, and elsewhere.

Fifth Estate Live with Bill Weinberg

We spend the hour with regular Fifth Estate contributor Eric Laursen. co-founder of the NYC Anarchist Book Fair and author of many books, including Understanding the Crash, about the economic crash of 2008.

Fifth Estate Live with Eric Laursen

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

Just a love song for the moon, and the very recent discovery of water upon it.

There's Water On The Moon

Just how top-heavy can an icon be before it can't stand up at all?

You'll also find this as the latest episode of Song For Today, wherever you get your podcasts.

To All The Jared Kushners Of The World

Every day I read another story of someone whose last words were "I wish I had believed the virus was real."  This song could be from the vantage point of any number of them, sadly.

They Lied

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