Get all 29 David Rovics releases available on Bandcamp and save 70%.
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1. |
Precipice
02:15
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Precipice
On the edge of something – exactly what, nobody knows
Whatever the future will bring, whichever way it goes
Depends on how we get there, the scope of our demands
Everything's up in the air – wherever we might land
Welcome to the precipice
On the edge of something, and you can't stand there for long
Hear the church bells ring, another homecoming song
As the state just pulled the rug, and left us to wonder why
As the mass graves are dug for the essential workers sentenced to die
On the edge of something, so many people say
Things have got to change now, they can't stay this way
Whatever lies ahead, it can't be the status quo
Dog-eat-dog is dead – long may it be so
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2. |
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As I 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
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
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3. |
Essentially Expendable
03:19
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Essentially Expendable (The Death of Jason Hargrove)
A pandemic is spreading, the health system's collapsing
You can watch it all unfolding on the screen
If you're afraid to go outside, enough groceries to hide
It may have been weeks since you have seen
Someone you can touch, and you miss it so much
As you wonder what might happen next
Like when your savings run out and the choice is all about
What kind of help you might be able to expect
Or perhaps when COVID arrived, while some struggled to survive
You were what they call essential
It didn't take long to see you got that wrong
The word they really meant was “expendable”
It did not take long to see, there was no emergency
Plans in place for something which all the scientists knew
Was just a matter of when, there'd be a pandemic again
And the kleptocrats in power didn't have a clue
Otherwise why Did Jason Hargrove die?
Because he kept on keeping on, waking before dawn To do his part for society
Jason drove his bus, he didn't even make a fuss At the time of the impropriety
Somebody coughed, the virus was off Not two weeks later Jason would be dead
What if he had protective gear, with sick passengers so near
With no barrier to protect his head
Stay home, flatten the curve they say, unless we need you to serve
Food for us, or care for all the ill
In that case we'll call you a hero, like the workers at Ground Zero
Where one by one the cemetery filled
Now in every bus and truck, the drivers try their luck
Essentially told, thank you for your service
If these were the front lines, no one put up any signs
Did anyone sign up for this?
Once the death rate peaks, in days or months or weeks
With each one of the virus's waves
Once we can take stock and recover from the shock
Of the sight of all the mass graves
Will this be the impetus, this driver on a bus
Along with so many, many more
The nurses and the prisoners, seafarers and farmworkers
What will they all die for?
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4. |
As I Walk On By
03:22
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As I Walk On By
Every time I leave the apartment, things change a little more
The rug pulled out so many times, who knows where's the floor
Folks look more ragged by the day, I can give 'em a few bucks
Wonder what the future holds, wish them luck
As I walk on by
See the people on their porches, chairs out on a deck
Sometimes you can tell which ones received their checks
And which ones are still waiting after all these many weeks
Wondering if this is what it smells like in Shit's Creek
When my children ask me, I'm not quite sure what to say
Why the playground's always empty where the kids all used to play
Why the people cross the street now whenever we come near
Where did all the people go, who used to be here
I go out with my headphones on, like everybody else does
Listening for news, suddenly relevant, because
We all want to know how the virus might transform
All of us still here, weathering this storm
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5. |
Each Couch By the Street
02:18
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Each Couch By the Street
Each couch by the street has a story
Some were brand new just last year
It looks like days ago, someone had a door key
And it was in a living room – not here
Getting covered in leaves falling down
Getting soaked each time it rains
Did someone split quickly, head out of town
Perhaps whoever left these coffee stains
Each couch by the street has a story
I wonder what this one may be
Another one too dry to have been out for long
It once was someone's property
Did they leave their home and move into a car
Or find a sofa to sleep on at a friend's place
Did they stay near, or go away far
Disappear with hardly a trace
Each couch by the street has a story
One that ended without a yard sale
No one's buying much in the pandemic
Most any such plans are derailed
Along with the crashing economy
All the people who just got the sack
Could just be a time for society
To have one another's back
Each couch by the street has a story
And those stories will soon multiply
Once the ban on evictions is lifted
Once thousands more people have died
While we're here in a country that's failed
When the moratorium is through
When they come to evict your neighbors
What will you do?
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6. |
Don't Pay the Rent
02:39
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There's a suspension on evictions, stick to your convictions
Don't pay the rent
If at home we have to stay, then most of us can't pay, so
Don't...
Tell your landlord, sir, that mortgage can defer
And if they start rattling their sabers, say I need to feed my neighbors
It's time now to demand, One Big Union grand
Neoliberalism is dead, it's time to raise your head
Strike for the guarantee, a home for everybody
Running water, housing, health care – all across this Earth we share
Capitalism has failed, put the billionaires in jail
We need a new world now, let me tell you how
With mutual aid, a new world can be made
From the ashes of the old, if we stop doing what we're told
Solidarity with society
Our lives matter a lot, the landlord's profits do not
We can redefine what is theirs and ours and mine
There's a suspension on evictions, stick to your convictions
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7. |
Rent Party
02:53
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Rent Party
Bank is empty, card is full
And no matter how hard I pull
The car don't move, the rent is due
I'm not sure what else to do
Get a job, perhaps I should
Pulling shots or hauling wood
It's a bit too late right now for that
So in the meantime, here's my hat
'Cause this world, I can't afford
I'm throwing a party for my landlord
My landlord is a company
Which takes away all my money
As well as that of half the town
They're slumlords of great renown
The Randall Group, the Group of Randall
You can bet they don't need to panhandle
They own my building, they might own yours
Along with all of your mold spores
'Cause at that time the rent is due
This is a red line for me, don't know about you
Everything else just comes to a halt
When you get thrown out onto the asphalt
Call it funding from the crowd
Sounds so nice, it rhymes with “cloud”
Call it begging, I don't care
Long as Randall gets their share
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8. |
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When the Students Took the Embassy
Missile strikes in Baghdad, skies full of fighter jets
The tension in the air, as thick as it gets
Their talking points are loaded, at each press conference
With what passes for an effort at historical reference
They talk of things that happened over forty years before
That they say now bring us to the edge of world war
They talk about the hostages, so let us now rewind
When the students took the embassy, just what did they find?
When the students took the embassy, I was just a kid
But I remember well, the first things they did
Let all the women go, while collecting all the trash
All the shredded documents that weren't yet turned to ash
All the shredded documents that clearly showed
The torture and corruption, how the power flowed
The concept of a captured state was one the Shah defined
When the students took the embassy, just what did they find?
When the students took the embassy, they found the crimes of Savak
Had the CIA hiding under every rock
And that's where they had been, where the agents were based
They had a staff of thousands there, from there they laid to waste
The dreams held by so many for a free society
Like the one they overthrew, back in 1953
Historic crimes exposed, in the shredder once consigned
When the students took the embassy, just what did they find?
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9. |
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Ballad of Alvaro Luna Hernandez #FreeAlvaro
Alvaro Luna Hernandez started life with a shorted hand
Growing up in Texas, on occupied land
His troubles with the law, and with the Sheriff of Alpine
Resulted from a racist gang, crossing every line
Of respect for human decency, vicious thugs in blue
Who have ruled the hills of Texas since long before '52
In the middle of the twentieth, when Alvaro was born
It wasn't long before the first time he was torn
From the streets of Alpine, to a windowless cell
When the cops kicked his head, til no one could tell
If he'd live or die – and somehow, he was breathing still
When the morning sun was shining in the Texas hills
Alvaro Luna Hernandez grew up to lead the fight
Against police corruption, and for human rights
Falsely accused of murder, incessantly harassed
A young life in constant danger, quickly flying past
So on the day a cop came to his house, pointed his gun
Alvaro knocked it out of the officer's hands, and he did run
Alvaro Luna Hernandez hid out underground
After the biggest manhunt in West Texas, they fired many rounds
He managed to surrender, without being shot
And that was the last breath out of prison that he ever got
The trial was a sham, and he was given fifty years
Sentenced by the machine, to be ground up in the gears
Since 1996, a quarter century ago
In solitary confinement they've kept our Alvaro
He's now lived to be an old man, and whether he ever leaves
Justice in the USA exists only for the thieves
Who came and stole this country, declared it to be theirs
Slavemasters in power, Chicanos in the crosshairs
Alvaro Luna Hernandez started life with a shorted hand
Growing up in Texas, on occupied land
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10. |
The Pogroms of 1969
03:02
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The Pogroms of 1969
You could say it started long ago, or keep one lifetime in your sights
People were marching for basic civil rights
The marchers were attacked, the press made wild claims
Anything that happened, Republicans were blamed
The mood that was incited, quite intentionally
All over the Six Counties in the Loyalist community
Was an atmosphere of hatred, the kind that burns and kills
If you live in the wrong house, or stand too close to the windowsill
In the pogroms of 1969
With torches, pikes and guns, neighborhoods were attacked
Supported by police, if anyone dared fight back
And fight back people did, kept the Loyalist mobs at bay
Far more homes would have been destroyed if not for the IRA
Defensive lines were formed, as best as could be done
Fifty buses hijacked and lit up in the summer sun
Surrounding the burned-out shells of the houses of Ardoyne
While just beyond them Orangemen sang “the Battle of the Boyne”
Thousands fled the carnage, hundreds of homes burned down
There was a refugee camp in Dundalk as big as any town
The British Army invaded the North and starting building walls
Separating ghettos, from the Bogside to the Falls
If you want to understand the world you live in
You have to peel back the layers and look beneath the skin
If you do that you may find that so much of these Troubles began
Half a century after the Black and Tans
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11. |
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And The Earth Spins Round Again
One day you're working, the next you're not
And what you have is what you got
You lost the job you thought you'd keep
You wake up at night, you can't sleep
You got time now – time to dream
Time to break down, cry and scream
And the Earth spins round again
Sometimes your goals of any size
Just vanish in front of your eyes
And all that's left is what you see
Like the squirrel outside your window in that tree
And on the man there on the screen
Who wants us to try injecting Listerine
The dice are up, no telling where
They'll land when they come down from the air
Everything can change and fall apart
It can affect your lungs and your heart
Assumptions thrown, they're in the breeze
Who knows what they'll be, when we're done with this disease
One day you're OK, things are alright
then all of a sudden, overnight
Foreclosed, evicted, living in cars
Empty hotels and wine bars
Wake up to learn our collective fate
Depends on how we cooperate
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12. |
Our Imagination
02:53
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Our Imagination
It's at moments like these, everything is in the air
The possibilities are nowhere and everywhere
You got to break a bone to set it, and now all we are is broke
A lot of folks are saying it's time to be woke
And they're not talking about microaggressions, but the really big ones
The basic assumptions, like planets circling suns
But there are no natural laws that built your mansions or your tents
These are creations of society – just like mortgages and rent
It's a future of uncertainty, but our liberation
Can only be as free as our imagination
If you were born and raised to believe it sacrosanct
That whoever has a whole lot of money in the bank
Deserves to then live off the wealth from the houses that they own
And if they raise your rent you can move or take out a loan
Then how can you demand your human rights
If you don't believe you have any, as if you deserve your plight
But if things were hard before, now the system has flatlined
Time for those basic rights to be redefined
All these vaunted freedoms added to the Constitution
As an afterthought, after Shays' Rebellion
Did not include the right to land, or the right to eat
Or the right for human beings not to be dying on the street
It's moments like these, standing on the edge
That we might catch the strongest breeze, to land furthest from the ledge
We can fly, you know – all you need is wings
We can house and feed each other – together, we can do anything
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David Rovics Portland, Oregon
Singer/songwriter, writer, podcaster (on Spotify, Substack & Patreon), anarchist, dad, lover of life.
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