We need some good contemporary protest songs and you can help.
Something is very wrong in this land of ours. The ruling class is systematically looting the public trust. The nation's wealth, built up over the last century by a strong working class, is being drained through financial chicanery into obscene private fortunes while the living standard for the rest of the population is in sharp decline. Today Obama looks like he is capitulating to to tax cuts in direct conflict with his sincere campaign promise. Like it or not we are in a class war. We didn’t ask for it, but the working class and the middle class must stand up and protect this country from these thieves. We have to take back the power that has been taken away from us, and we must use every organizing tool at our disposal including songs of protest.
This is the second installment of the Contemporary Protest Song Challenge. In the first diary we had two contemporary songs, one historical protest song, Woody Gurthrie "This Land Is You Land", and lots of good suggestions. The two contenders where:
- 2004 Steve Earle "The Revolution Starts Now"
- 2007 The Nightwatchman "The Road I Must Travel"
....and the winner is #2, "The Road I Must Travel"
So Tom Morello moves on to this diary:
Contemporary Protest Song Champion - 2007 The Nightwatchman "The Road I Must Travel"
Compared to a modern day Woody Guthrie with a ripping guitar, Tom Morrello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave performs solo 'folk' numbers as The Nightwatchman. One of the most politically outspoken contemporary artists, Morrello has sued the US Government over the use of rock music in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. "Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured -- from waterboarding to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts -- playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums. Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me."
...and this installment's challenger:
Contemporary Protest Song Challenger - 2008 Billy Bragg "Power In A Union"
I'm still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I'm much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that's because they've moved, not me.
I'm trying to make a case for those people who don't have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history.
Historical Protest Song - 1967 Pete Seeger- "Which Side Are You On"
Dedicated to President Obama!
"Which Side Are You On?" is a song written by Florence Reece in 1931. She was the wife of a union organizer for the United Mine Workers in Harlan County, Kentucky. In 1931 the miners of that region were locked in a bitter and violent struggle with the mine owners. In an attempt to intimidate the Reece family, deputies hired by the mining company illegally entered and searched the Reece family home. Sam Reece had been warned in advance and escaped, but Florence and their children were terrorized in his place. That night, after the men had gone, Florence wrote the lyrics to "Which Side Are You On?" on a calendar that hung in the kitchen of her home. She took the melody from a traditional Baptist hymn, "Lay the Lily Low", or the traditional ballad "Jack Munro". Florence recorded the song and it can be heard on the CD Coal Mining Women.
Which side are you on Mr. President? Which side are you on?
Thanks for voting, and please feel free to suggest a few good protest songs for these hard times.