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1. |
They Lied
02:46
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They Lied
They lied about the wars, took time to figure out
That democracy and freedom was not what it was about
They said we'd fight the terrorists, but all that I could see
Was I was occupying someone else's country
They lied about the weapons, they all were so convinced
The generals on the TV, haven't heard from them since
They say it was an accident – but I think it was their plan
They spread the lie on CNN and NPR and C-SPAN
They lied about the jobs, all the pundits used to say
Before this city was abandoned and the good jobs went away
Sign up to this free trade bill, win-win all around
Now half the guys I used to know are six feet underground
Lying is all they seem to do, looking at us on TV
They pretend they care, but it's all about the money
Which anyone can tell, if you have half a brain
Why I should believe them now, it just seems insane
Talk turned to the virus, what we all stood to lose
I was not the only one who thought it was fake news
I just went about my life like I normally would do
So maybe I'll catch a cold, I thought, or a little flu
They lie about so much, I wish it were not true
But from this hospital bed, if I could just click “un-do”
I guess I would have worn a mask, stayed home to quarantine
Instead of being intubated, hooked up to this machine
You can say that I'm an idiot – maybe, I don't know
But before I take my leave, before I have to go
Before they stick me in a box, with quarters on my eyes
There's lots of blame to go around here, and I know where it lies
They lied about the wars
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2. |
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To All the Jared Kushners of the World
To all the Jared Kushners of the world and all the money that you own
You who look at us with such indifference, sitting upon your throne
From which you collect all the rent from your subjects in all the most gentrified towns
Regardless of whether a global pandemic have forced us to shut everything down
To all the Jared Kushners of the world for whom the ceiling is the sky
For you, life comes so easy, inherited from birth, why would you ever ask why
Do you think you earned it all, it's up to you how much you charge, it's all yours to keep
Would you climb any mountain of corpses no matter how slippery, no matter how steep
To all the Jared Kushners of the world, is your appetite ever met
At what point do you ever wonder just how fucked you can make things get?
Before it's bad enough that even you and your investors can see the whole thing's gonna fall
Just how top-heavy can an icon be before it can't stand up at all
To all the Jared Kushners of the world, how do expect things will transpire
When all your filings are enforced and the moratorium expires
Do you envision a neat row of U-Haul trucks, tenants all packed up to leave
Their homes – your businesses -- their neighborhoods, their cemeteries, where they used to go to grieve
To all the Jared Kushners of the world and all your ill-begotten gains
You who sit comfortably in your limousine ignoring all the blood stains
Have you seen this movie before? Was it good? What's your favorite scene?
Mine's when they take off the blindfold and the king meets his guillotine
To all the Jared Kushners of the world
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3. |
Say Their Names
02:30
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Say Their Names
Jacob Blake was walking to his SUV
Alton Sterling was selling DVDs
Eric Garner had just broken up a fight
Breonna Taylor was asleep in the middle of the night
Tamir Rice was playing in the park
Elijah McClain was out walking after dark
Dominique Clayton was sleeping in her bed
Where she was shot by a cop in the back of her head
Say their names, say their names
Walter Scott was driving to a store
Bettie Jones was answering her door
Philando Castille was driving home with his girlfriend
Anthony Hill was naked on the grass when he met his end
Ezell Ford was walking in his neighborhood
Michael Brown was blown away just standing where he stood
Kendra James was shot to death at a traffic stop
By yet another unaccountable killer cop
Atiana Jefferson was playing a video game
With her little nephew, gunned down just the same
Oscar Grant was celebrating the New Year
Handcuffed when the shots rang out that everyone could hear
Eric Reason pulled into a parking spot
Not long after that was when he was shot
George Floyd was just shopping in a store
Micah Xavier Johnson thought that he was still at war
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4. |
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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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5. |
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There's Water On The Moon
The news isn't getting any brighter
The death toll isn't getting any lighter
There's a dark pall drifting overhead
With so many more people dead
Turn on the computer or the TV set
It's a world full of anger and death threats
What could happen if life could be supported
Somewhere else where things might be better sorted
A place where some could start anew
Another way to say we're not through
Despite all of the destruction, all the bad decisions made
All of the madness we could trade
For a place more remote than primate or penguin
Has long ever been
There's a discovery, a silver lining for the cloud
That has some folks singing out loud
There's water on the moon way up there
Maybe you and I should go
Live on a frozen lake without a care
Looking down at the Earth below
The cafes are all closed, you won't miss the sight
Of someone bring to your table a flat white
We can still make espresso up there
In our bubbles, breathing freshly-manufactured air
When we go outside we can jump so high
You speak into your mic, I'll hear your reply
We can look at the green Earth, wish it well
From up in the place that makes the waves swell
Up there life is simple with just a couple distractions
Too few of us to form a faction
We all practice great lunar hygiene
All tested, cleared and quarantined
Go back to visit now and again
The planet we lived in way back when
Before the satellites found H2O
And some of us said fuck it let's go
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6. |
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Behind These Prison Walls
Behind these prison walls there's a man who's won awards
For the work that he has done and all that it affords
Such as the knowledge of the horrors committed in our name
They can't stop the message, so the messenger gets blamed
Behind these prison walls, in solitary confinement
In a land of rolling hills and royalty and other such refinement
Is someone who is a hero to whistleblowers everywhere
Who helped them tell the world of the crimes of Tony Blair
Behind these prison walls you will find a mortal man
The reason why we know what happened in Afghanistan
When the soldiers of the empire whose sun set long before
Were torturing civilians in their terror war
Behind these prison walls is a part of Wikileaks
An eloquent orator, but you won't hear him speakh
Locked away in silence, one who knows too well
How those in power act when there's another war to sell
Behind these prison walls is one who stands accused
Of exactly what offenses, the US has refused
To say precisely which, or to try to clear the mist
Or to explain how he's not the same as other journalists
Behind these prison walls is a person they'd deprive
Of most of the things in life that keep us all alive
A person being tortured, as we stand here now
For revealing the war crimes – why, when, where, how
Behind these prison walls, our very right to be informed
Of what the hell is going on is the teacup in this storm
With knowledge there is power, so the solution by the Crown
A 24-hour-a-day, indefinite lockdown
Behind these prison walls
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7. |
The Pandemic of 1918
03:03
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The Pandemic of 1918
A world war was raging, like the Earth had never seen
A whole generation lined up in trenches with killing machines
But aside from a few islands and some mountain peaks
The pandemic killed more people in just 24 weeks
No one knows where it began, speculation's gone on for years
The trenches of Europe is where the deadly strain appears
From packed trains and ships and hospitals, around the globe it spread
This war strain of the virus that left so many dead
The death toll was unequal, but barely anywhere
Was left untouched – though the greatest share
Of dying was reserved for the poorest, densest colonies
Of the empires and their wars that created this disease
If you have a couple hours, then do something with me
Conduct a little research into your family tree
If you look into it, it won't take long, quite likely you will find
In 1918, you left an ancestor behind
The pandemic knew no borders, it went from the front lines
Which had increased its deadliness, as if by design
It circled the whole planet, so many people died
They dug mass graves everywhere and put your relatives inside
A world war was raging, like the Earth had never seen
A whole generation lined up in trenches with killing machines
But aside from a few islands and some mountain peaks
The pandemic killed more people in just 24 weeks
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8. |
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When This Fertile Valley Was Stolen
When this fertile valley was stolen, it was a process assisted
By an epidemic that wiped off the Earth most any who might have resisted
The land was parceled and given away to any brave pioneer
Who was white enough to own property around here
When this fertile valley was stolen, it sealed so many a fate
Who'd no longer live by a trading post, but in a stratified settler state
With a white landed gentry created by colonial decree
We're not talking about the Bible, but a few generations of history
When this fertile valley was stolen, it was easy to foresee
That so many, many years later, there'd still be a white majority
It was engineered from the day the Exclusion Laws were made
Any pretense of inclusion since has been a sick charade
When this fertile valley was stolen, the pioneers were given their farms
Which were defended from the displaced by force of arms
And by dint of reason, as false as any that could be
Enforced by laws and customs called white supremacy
When this fertile valley was stolen, a process was set forth
To make another bastion of capitalism to the west and north
Of freshly conquered California, Arizona and the rest
Of the disease and theft and slaughter, when the pioneers went west
When this fertile valley was stolen
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9. |
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With Masks Upon Their Faces and Leaf-Blowers In Their Hands
It's been two months now since that cop took a knee
Like a knee upon the neck of a whole society
Folks rose up all over starting there in the midwest
The National Guard came in upon the governor's request
Wherever people took the streets, riot cops attacked
Shooting folks in their faces and their backs
Flooding streets with tear gas, see how the people stand
With masks upon their faces and leaf-blowers in their hands
There have been drive-by shootings, and weaponizing trucks
That the death count's what it is so far is partly up to luck
And partly up to barricades used to block the way
So folks might live to fight another day
That is, if they're not killed by agents of the state
Like the ones who came to Portland to make America great
To face a rainbow nation that says screw your White Homeland
With masks upon their faces and leaf-blowers in their hands
As they kidnap people off the streets here in the Global North
As the tear gas billows, the poison belches forth
As those who would be dictators make their power play
As people from all over town face them down and say
We don't want police – a better world can be built
Perhaps it starts with someone's hand upon the hilt
Making tornadoes out of tear gas, maybe not what mama planned
With masks upon their faces and leaf-blowers in their hands
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10. |
Don't Pay The Rent
03:06
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Don't Pay The Rent
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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11. |
Our Imagination
03:20
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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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12. |
The Pogroms of 1969
03:05
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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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13. |
Patreon
02:34
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Patreon
When the floor fell out from the way it used to be
When people used to pay for stuff, before all of it was free
Those of us who didn't crash got taken down a peg
'Cause if you wanna be an artist you gotta learn to beg
Patreon, Patreon
When all your merch sales and all your gigs are gone
Patreon, Patreon
On the fifth of every month, the last day before rent's late
The deposit arrives and improves this failed state
The difference between drowning in debt
Or waiting for the fifth and just getting my feet wet
Support for the arts is some kind of a cruel joke
Anything that's out there will just keep you broke
I could get a real job, or I could wish upon a star
That there are enough of you who think I should just keep playing this guitar
My music's free on Spotify, that's where we're at
It's a precious little segment that steps up to bat
I miss the old days, but I'm OK
Panhandling my time away
On Patreon...
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David Rovics Portland, Oregon
Singer/songwriter, writer, podcaster (on Spotify, Substack & Patreon), anarchist, dad, lover of life.
David Rovics recommends:
A Hand Full Of Songs
by Jim Page
Seattle's Jim Page is one of the very best songwriters in the English language (and just as oriented towards what we might call the world around him as I am).
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Heart First Aid Kit
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Moving across the pond, here's one more of my favorite rabble-rousing songwriters -- Grace Petrie.
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All of this album is just great. But Storm to Weather is just an amazing sing along track that is always a joy to hear live.
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This album is incredible, top work by Joe
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Anthemic and hook-laden folk-rock from Grace Petries is full of both good humor and wryly poetic observations on life and love.
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