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1. |
Viral Solidarity
02:36
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There's foreboding in the air
Waiting for an earthquake
Pandemic spreading
No telling how it might remake
A world so divided
In so many, many ways
Anyone can see
It's no way to greet such days
When you can shut your borders
But it'll barely slow the spread
With a million people homeless
And not enough hospital beds
In times like these we find out
That a society
Is only just as strong
As our solidarity
The foreboding in the air
Can get only thicker
As we see our leaders
Passing blame and getting sicker
A crashing economy
Leaders fraught with indecision
Only capable of thinking
Like bought-off politicians
Not enough testing kits
And the ones you got were broken
But hey
The president has spoken
Chorus
A million people wake up
In the morning thinking
Thoughts they never had
Til they found that they were sinking
On a cruise ship full of holes
Where if you can't catch the breeze
There are no fences tall enough
To keep out the disease
Lifting every boat
Or watching them all sink
Ready or not
We're standing on the brink
Chorus
Contain an epidemic
Like in Wuhan or in Seoul
Or watch a catastrophe
Take its toll
Hide behind our gates
Cowering, afraid
Or organize our neighbors
In mutual aid
In synchronicity
Such great things can be done
A planet to lose
Or a world to be won
Chorus
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2. |
I Was A Stranger
03:35
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If you go to Pima County in the Sonoran Desert lands
You'll find the town of Ajo among the cactus stands
The only town you'll see, the only water, too
When someone is thirsty there's no question what you do
For well over a century, it was a normal thing
To have an extra jug of water that you might bring
In the harsh Sonoran Arizona summer heat
We'd rather give the vultures something else to eat
You didn't ask where I was going, nor where I had been
I was hungry, you gave me food
I was thirsty, you gave me drink
I was naked, you gave me clothes
I was a stranger, you let me in
I have this book here, a story I learned well
I always thought I understood the tale that it tells
It's spelled out very clearly in Matthew 25
What a good Christian does when a stranger arrives
Chorus
Now there's a crackdown, with life and death on trial
The only place with water for a hundred miles
Facing twenty years in prison is a very mighty rod
Now all of us are forced to choose between Caesar and God
Chorus
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3. |
Cheese and Bread
02:28
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1831, the age of industry begun
For the working folk of Wales, life was short
With wages cut again it was only sensible that then
Folks took over and shut down the debtors' court
The gentry pulled the wire, told their men to open fire
And restore the rule of their estate
But as the night descended and the battle ended
The soldiers had all fled behind a gate
They chanted “cheese and bread”
And “our children must be fed”
In the days when Wales rose against the crown
They chanted “cheese and bread”
With a bloody loaf above their heads
When the red flag flew in Merthyr Town
The message went out east and west to put the gentry to the test
The cavalry was ambushed and turned back
After so long playing defense, the time had come now when
The workers were the ones on the attack
Chorus
The crown sent soldiers by the score until order was restored
Then came Dic Penderyn's execution
Another martyr for the cause, meant to give us pause
The next time the people call for revolution
Chorus
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4. |
Iceland, 2008
03:21
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Iceland is an island with half a million or so Vikings
Mostly known for volcanoes, hot springs and fishing
Known for its welfare state, for being good and socialistic
Certainly not known for being corrupt or nepotistic
But in the USA and Europe when they were deregulating banks
Iceland's politicians took bribes and joined their ranks
Soon you had a situation, one would think just couldn't be
A bank whose debt was worth ten times the country's GDP
When Wall Street imploded, sure enough it spread
Banks all over the world were floating in the red
All over the world, governments made the plan
To cut spending and raise taxes on the working woman and working man
The banks were bailed out while the people had to pay
But in Iceland people thought there must be a better way
And the Earth stood still a moment, fear was struck in every toff
When Iceland told the bankers to fuck off
Folks were in the streets in Reykjavik and just couldn't be ignored
They said this is a debt we Icelanders can't afford
Let's guarantee deposits of all our people, yes indeed
But as for all the speculators motivated by their greed
To make really dumb investments, to them Iceland said good luck
Sorry for your losses but we don't really give a fuck
The 1% all trembled when they took away the trough
When Iceland...
Gordon Brown called them terrorists, said we cannot let this stand
Who do these peacenik blonds think they are in Iceland
They threatened isolation, an economy in flames
But the Icelanders said sorry, but the banks can settle their own claims
Though that might be harder for them now that they're under house arrest
Or else they fled the country, as they were most unwelcome guests
And now Reykjavik's recovery just makes the fatcats sputter and cough
Since...
If you haven't heard of this example, perhaps there's a reason why
The owners of the world don't want this kind of shit to fly
They say we all must pay up in this shakedown by the mob
If we can't afford to pay the rent 'cause we don't have a job
They say it's not their problem if we're forever shackled by their debt
We must save the 1% from the fate they should have met
But there is an alternative, though it makes the fatcats scoff
That Iceland...
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5. |
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It's 2019, and looking around
At the tents and trash and excrement scattered on the ground
So many mansions overlooking the sea
Stretch limos, Rolls Royces and movie stars all over Los Angeles County
It's 2019, and one thing I know
Is most people wish we could rewind to a couple of decades ago
Before the rents tripled and folk began to move out
Into their cars, then into their tents, where drivers look on, however loudly you shout
It's 2019, but in a black and white photo
It could be 1929 wherever you go
In every single neighborhood, hungry people wonder why
Some make billions on a blockbuster, while so many are left out to die
It's 2019, where every eight hours
Someone is found cold on the sidewalk beneath the glass and steel towers
In the wealthiest nation in all of human history
So far from paradise, so close to Walt Disney
It's 2019, there's no dust bowl
Just real estate speculators and all the lives they stole
I don't know what to think when I hear the reporter say
A thousand people died last year, living on the streets of LA
It's 2019
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6. |
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If your rent has doubled there are different ways
To cope with the situation and make it through your days
There are therapeutic methods, such as playing darts
With a picture of your landlord's private body parts
You can get a roommate, or 2 or 3 or 4
Build a loft and squeeze more beds onto every floor
You can scratch up each Mercedes that you find on your street
Say “fuck off yuppie scum” to each yuppie scum you meet
But do not kill your landlord – it will not end well
You'll be living rent-free -- inside a prison cell
You can pay a visit very early in the morn
To where your landlord lives – but don't forget the bullhorn
You can form a samba band, march up and and down his road
You can play with firecrackers as you watch them explode
You can sing a song about 1848
When renters burned the mansions down and overthrew the state
You can talk about your landlord, how much you'd like to see him dead
Just make sure it remains only something that you said
Chorus
You can say hi to your neighbors, organize a meeting
Form a tenants' union so it won't be something fleeting
Have some demonstrations, make plans for a rent strike
Create a list of demands, perhaps something like
No more rent increases, fix the things that break
Get rid of all that mold in the walls, for goodness' sake
No more no-cause evictions, no more acting like an ass
No more acting like a member of a feudal ruling class
Chorus
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7. |
Letter To My Landlord
02:42
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I'm writing you this letter 'cause among the choices
It's probably better than listening to voices
Raging in my head, saying point and shoot
Then after you're dead, your face meets my boot
I don't know your name, it's better that way
'Cause I can't play this game, who knows what I'll say
I feel like I'm burning, I've had it up to here
Time that you were learning the meaning of fear
I live in these apartments – they're your private property
Among your residents, most of us agree
That you're a piece of shit – how does that make you feel
We don't like you one bit – that's for real
We think you're a thief, that you don't care
Seems your one belief is whatever the market will bear
Whatever you can get away with, what you can make us pay
If we ever get justice, you should fear that day
Landlord!
But it's not just you – it's all your kin
The things you do caused the state we're in
You bribed the politicians so they'd let you off-lead
Now the legal situation's just the one you need
For you to make millions, for profits to be high
Even billions won't be with you when you die
I hope you find the death you seek, meet the devil that you serve
If you live another week that's more life than you deserve
Landlord!
In the class war you are waging there's no question who is winning
But if there's any justice, this is only the beginning
The next act in this play will be written by the tenants
And until your dying day, you'll be paying penance
Your assets will be seized, that's a fucking given
You profiteers of misery will start spending time in prison
Then you can get a job – figure out what you do best
You can keep the house you live in – but we're taking all the rest
Landlord!
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8. |
Across the Ocean Wide
02:00
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Across the ocean wide, where many ships have been
Where many long remember those passengers within
All of those whose families were buried or in jail
In the killing fields of Spain, when the Winnipeg set sail
Across the ocean wide, across the open seas
A world better than the camps the French authorities
Threw the people in, and if they lived to tell the tale
They'd be the lucky few, when the Winnipeg set sail
Across the ocean wide, the ship was met at bay
By the throngs of people who just had to come that day
In 1939, to cheer and cry and say all hail
Solidarity – when the Winnipeg set sail
Across the ocean wide was where they had to flee
The thousands upon thousands of Spanish refugees
From the lands of Europe, where humanity had failed
To the shores of Valparaiso, when the Winnipeg set sail
Across the ocean wide was where they would remain
As dictatorship would rule for half a century in Spain
Torpedoed in '42, now it lies upon the shale
One voyage will outlive her – when the Winnipeg set sail
Across the ocean wide
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9. |
East Kilbride
02:54
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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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10. |
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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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11. |
St Patrick Battalion
03:40
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My name is John Riley
I'll have your ear only a while
I left my dear home in Ireland
It was death, starvation or exile
And when I got to America It was my duty to go
Enter the Army and slog across Texas
To join in the war against Mexico
It was there in the pueblos and hillsides
That I saw the mistake I had made
Part of a conquering army
With the morals of a bayonet blade
So in the midst of these poor, dying Catholics
Screaming children, the burning stench of it all
Myself and two hundred Irishmen
Decided to rise to the call
From Dublin City to San Diego
We witnessed freedom denied
So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion
And we fought on the Mexican side
We marched 'neath the green flag of Saint Patrick
Emblazoned with "Erin Go Bragh"
Bright with the harp and the shamrock
And "Libertad para la Republica"
Just fifty years after Wolf Tone
Five thousand miles away
The Yanks called us a Legion of Strangers
And they can talk as they may
Chorus
We fought them in five major battles
Churobusco was the last
Overwhelmed by the cannons from Boston
We fell after each mortar blast
Most of us died on that hillside
In the service of the Mexican state
So far from our occupied homeland
We were heroes and victims of fate
Chorus
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12. |
The Pandemic of 1918
02:01
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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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13. |
Everything Can Change
01:55
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First you have to have a problem
That part isn't hard
The second step is everybody realizing
They're like you -- they're holding the same card
Step three is finding there's a tactic
When everyone believes it could be true
That if all the people work collectively
There just might be something we can do
Everything can change so quick
The Congressmen and businessmen and TV sets
Will try hard to make sure it isn't so
"You don't have a problem and if you do it's not the SAME problem
"And if it is, well, there's just nowhere you can go"
But it's happened many times, the history is rich
Though we easily forget
How a meme can take hold and grab you
How it can spread out like a net
Everything can change so quick
They'll say that we are lost, or we're dreaming
Or they'll make a dream for us
They'll try to come up with a good story, a convincing narrative
About why we belong at the back of the bus
About why we belong in this position
About how we don't know what we meant
About how there most certainly isn't any such thing
As the 99%
Everything can change so quick
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14. |
Normandy
02:07
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If I could live to see the day, say eighty years from now
If I could live to be an old man, I sure hope I'd be hearing how
Today was the beginning of an historic victory
And I didn't come in vain to this beach in Normandy
I wonder will this be the day when the tide began to turn
When our leaders all around the world all began to learn
That hatred, fear and nationalism won't bring us liberty
I think all that from this beach in Normandy
And as I look around me, comrades falling everywhere
The very ocean crimson red, shells zipping through the air
I hope at least the next generation might get a chance to see
Something better than this beach in Normandy
Yes if I weren't full of bullet holes, about to breath my last
Propellers roaring above me as the planes are flying past
I might not be so worried about the future of humanity
If I weren't bleeding out on this beach in Normandy
Lastly, if I could make a toast over my corpse I'd say
Here's to the new world, once we make the fascists pay
Here's to a future where all peoples live in solidarity
As I die here on this beach in Normandy
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15. |
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Katharina Jacob, long before she took that name
Was organizing workers in Hamburg just the same
Organizing beneath the flag of deepest red
A new dawn of peace and freedom clearly shining in her head
Katharina Jacob first was sent to jail
When the trappings of democracy all began to fail
She was frequently arrested, in and out of custody
While her first husband was in hiding from the Nazis
Katharina Jacob was acquitted of a crime
But the gestapo had the last word and they weren't finished with her this time
She was sent to Ravensbrück, a killing hunger at her side
She heard of the execution, how her second husband died
For Katharina Jacob the end was close at hand
She was on a death march with a ragged, starving band
Marching through a forest, being led by the SS
What would happen hours later seemed impossible to guess
When the sun rose the next morning, it was the first of May
And they all sang the Internationale
Katharina Jacob thought about her children
And the friends and comrades taking care of them
Not knowing yet if any of them survived
Not knowing that soon she'd see her daughters both alive
Katharina Jacob watched the German soldiers fleeing
Streaming from the east, that's what she was seeing
Allied bombers flew above them, she thought they all might die and then
Soon there was the silence of all the SS men
Chorus
Katharina Jacob saw red flags flapping in the breeze
Above the Russian tanks and she fell upon her knees
And so many different voices in so many different tongues
Sang the most beautiful song that could ever have been sung
In German, Lithuanian, in Polish and in Dutch
A myriad of melodies as never had been such
In Russian and in Yiddish, Italian and French
Emerging from the forests beneath a trench
Chorus
Völker, hört die Signale! Auf zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale erkämpft das Menschenrecht
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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).
go to album
Ryan Harvey of Baltimore is another of my favorite songwriters, writers and organizers on the planet.
go to album
Heart First Aid Kit
by Grace Petrie & the PC Brigade
Moving across the pond, here's one more of my favorite rabble-rousing songwriters -- Grace Petrie.
go to albumIf you like David Rovics, you may also like:
In The Ruins They've Left Us, We'll Plant Gardens Still
by Wooden Shoe Ramblers
supported by 5 fans who also own “Viral Solidarity”
Radical ("from the root") politics and music. Good stuff.
go to album
Well Soon
by Walter Mitty and his Makeshift Orchestra
Summer sounds from San Luis Obispo just waiting for a backyard BBQ, mason jar cocktails, and fairy lights.
go to album
