United States singer David Rovics

This music video from the USA says about itself:

Why Don’t They Play You On The Radio?

David Rovics

A song for Clear Channel and independent artists around the world, but especially in that most oppressive of media environments, the U$A.

Lyrics:

It happened again last night, it happens every time I play
When the gig is over someone has to say
A question that appears to be on everybody’s brains
As they’re driving down the highway in the commuter lanes
It sure is not just me, it’s the 99%
Of artists who are wondering about the thousands they just spent
On a CD that will never make it on the air
Now all of us are grownups here, we know life isn’t fair
But the answer to the question is one I’d also like to know
Why don’t they play you on the radio?

Perhaps my songs are too cerebral, they don’t make you dance
My melodies are boring, there’s no Spandex in my pants
Maybe it’s because I don’t use a drum machine
Maybe I’m too red or maybe I’m too green
Maybe folks just don’t want to hear it, they don’t want to analyze
Anything more complex than the space between your thighs
Maybe I should wear more glitter, go to parties in an egg
Perhaps I need to go electric or show a bit more leg
But it’s something I must wonder at the end of every show
Why don’t they play you on the radio?

I’m sure there’s an exception to each and every rule
But perhaps I’m too political, and not a useful tool
To keep the music in the background and the commercials in the fore
To keep the shoppers shopping, not protesting the war
To keep the lemmings humming the same three hundred songs
The songs they play throughout the year, each night and all day long
Maybe I just don’t make the grade to be one of the chosen few
Perhaps there was a sign somewhere and I just missed the cue
Or I need to change my name to Bruce or Silvio
Why don’t they play you on the radio?

It could be I just don’t have the talent that’s involved
I’m lacking the commitment, I’m insufficiently resolved
Or maybe there just aren’t a million people who might buy
More records made by some whiny leftwing guy
Or maybe they would, but I’m just out of luck
Because I don’t have a label that can spend a million bucks
Because Sony and Clear Channel have taken over every thing
And you’ve got to pay the piper if you want to make the piper sing
And it’s the king who tells the piper where to go
Why don’t they play you on the radio?

By Jillian Littel:

The radical alternative

Tuesday 07 May 2013

A profile of David Rovics, one of the most progressive singer-songwriters in the US, who’ll be touring these islands with songs of ‘rage and love’ in a few weeks’ time

David Rovics, indie musical activist, makes his living writing and performing what he calls “songs of social significance” – a line that’s truthful and alliterative but which in no way encapsulates the insight, rage and occasional whimsy of the artist’s output.

Rovics produces some of the best music available today but as he notes in his song Why Don’t They Play You On the Radio? he’s “too red or maybe I’m too green” to make it onto the mainstream airwaves.

He’s keen that his music reaches as wide an audience as possible and that’s why he supports file sharing of his work.

“Feel free to download these songs,” he says on his website. “Use them for whatever purpose. Send them to friends, burn them, copy them, play them on the radio, on the internet, wherever.

“Music is the Commons. Ignore the corporate music industry shills who tell you otherwise.”

His songs have an honest, folky sound and his lyrics are far from meek.

In some, there’s a contrast between the harsh words and his calm voice which highlights the difference between the world as it is and the world as it should be.

Concern for the welfare of people and anger at their oppressors come through loud and clear in most of his songs.

“I think inevitably this kind of rage is naturally inextricably intertwined with love,” he says.

Rovics comes from a family of classical musicians but was drawn to populist themes early on.

Today his material reflects rampant social and economic injustice and he tours the world to lends his voice to many movements on the left, recently including Occupy and the Greek resistance to austerity policies.

“I would say that the underlying root cause of pretty much most of the things that I write about can be boiled down to in a really broad way to the conflict between the haves and the have-nots,” he explains.

Rovics has an unusually keen sense of history and the struggles of working people in songs like The Last Lincoln Veteran, Sugihara and St Patrick’s Battalion.

In all of them, he tells the stories of heroic people who chose to do the right thing in spite of the demands made by their governments.

Unfortunately, most today are unaware of these histories.

“I think people need to tell about this history and need to be inspired by it. Often the most inspiring stories and episodes in history are the ones that people don’t really know about,” says Rovics.

According to him, that’s not a coincidence. Even if mega media corporations like Clear Channel don’t recognise his genius, some very big names in the music industry do.

Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave, cites one of Rovics’s songs Halliburton Boardroom Massacre as an influence and the two artists recently collaborated on a track London Is Burning about the police violence and systemic racial injustice which sparked the disturbances throughout Britain in 2011.

Rovics expects great things from Morello’s new band Street Sweeper Social Club. He believes their great sound and Tom Morello’s name will give them the rare opportunity to successfully work as leftists in the corporate music environment.

He does a fantastic job of portraying much of what’s wrong with our world. But if injustice is the disease, what’s the remedy?

“What we need is well organised militant mass movements,” Rovics says.

And after the revolution? Apparently he’s planning to learn to play the accordion.

This article first appeared in People’s World. David Rovics is touring England, Ireland and Scotland from May 25-June 21, including a benefit for the Morning Star at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on June 9. Details: www.davidrovics.com.

Related articles

• US singer David Rovics concert in England (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Robb Johnson. (radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.com)

US singer David Rovics concert in England

This music video says about itself:

“Song For Hugo Chávez” by David Rovics @ ALBA @ Copenhagen 17.12.2009.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Folk legend Rovics on board for Star fundraiser

Sunday 28 April 2013

Legendary political folk singer-songwriter David Rovics will perform a Morning Star fundraiser gig at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds this summer.

The musician from Portland, Oregan, will headline the event in Queens Road on Sunday June 9, with support from folk-inspired songwriter Duncan Evans and guest speakers Aslef vice-president Tosh McDonald and Morning Star editor Richard Bagley.

…

Tickets are £7 in advance or £9 on the door. Doors open at 7.30pm. You can buy tickets online now at www.leedsgigtickets.co.uk/tickets/83333.

Related articles

• Australia and the Bomb (workersbushtelegraph.com.au)
• Antje Duvekot on life as a folk singer, her family and her music (toddroth61.wordpress.com)
• Robb Johnson. (radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.com)
• ‘Talk Of The Nation’ Remembers Folk Singer Richie Havens (npr.org)

Singer Richie Havens dies

This music video from the USA is called Richie Havens, Freedom, (Woodstock).

From Wikipedia:

Richard P. “Richie” Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013)^[1] was an American folk singer and guitarist.^[2] He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style (often in open tunings), soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. …

Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children.^[2] At an early age, he began organizing his neighborhood friends into street corner doo-wop groups and was performing with The McCrea Gospel Singers at 16.^[2] At age 20, Havens left Brooklyn, seeking artistic stimulation in Greenwich Village. “I saw the Village as a place to escape to, in order to express yourself,” he recalls. “I had first gone there during the Beatnik days of the 1950s to perform poetry, then I drew portraits for two years and stayed up all night listening to folk music in the clubs. It took a while before I thought of picking up a guitar.”^{[citation needed]}

Havens’ reputation as a solo performer soon spread beyond the Village folk circles.^[2] After cutting two records for Douglas Records, Havens signed on with Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman, and landed a record deal with the Verve Forecast label. Verve released Mixed Bag in 1967, which featured tracks like “Handsome Johnny” (co-written by Havens and future Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr.), “Follow”, and a cover of Bob Dylan‘s “Just Like a Woman“. By 1969, he had released five more albums. Something Else Again (1968) became Havens’ first album to hit the Billboard chart and also pulled Mixed Bag back onto the charts.

Havens’ reputation as a live performer earned him widespread notice. His Woodstock appearance proved to be a major turning point in his career.^[2] As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd for nearly three hours (in part because he was told to perform a lengthy set because many artists were delayed in reaching the festival location), and was called back for several encores. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual “Motherless Child” that became “Freedom”. The subsequent Woodstock movie release helped Havens reach a worldwide audience. He also appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in late August 1969.^[3][4] …

Increasingly, Havens devoted his energies to educating young people about ecological issues. In the mid-1970s, he co-founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum on City Island in the Bronx. That, in turn, led to the creation of The Natural Guard, an organization Richie describes as “a way of helping kids learn that they can have a hands-on role in affecting the environment. Children study the land, water, and air in their own communities and see how they can make positive changes from something as simple as planting a garden in an abandoned lot.” …

Havens died of a heart attack on April 22, 2013. He was 72 years old.

See also here. And here.

Related articles

• Richie Havens’ Unchained Freedom (mraybould.wordpress.com)
• Richie Havens (lawsonsotherdog.wordpress.com)
• Interviewing Michael Lange (woodstockremains.wordpress.com)
• A Mixed Bag of Ends That Literally Need to Meet at the End of the Day (ctworkingmoms.com)
• Richie Havens Dies at Age 72 (jambase.com)
• Richie Havens, 72, has died (timesunion.com)
• Richie Havens Dead: ‘Freedom’ Singer Dies of Heart Attack at 72 (spinner.com)
• Richie Havens Dead (4umf.com)
• Agent: US folk musician Richie Havens dies at 72 (itv.com)
• Folk Music Legend, Woodstock Opener Richie Havens Dies (newyork.cbslocal.com)

Cleotha Staples, United States singer, RIP

Thisd music video from the USA is called THE STAPLE SINGERS -”Freedom Highway” (1965).

By Hiram Lee in the USA:

Remembering Cleotha Staples and the Staple Singers

10 April 2013

Cleotha Staples, a member of the popular gospel, folk and R&B group the Staple Singers, died recently at the age of 78. Staples passed away at her home on the South Side of Chicago on February 21. She had been struggling with Alzheimer’s disease for some 12 years.

Perhaps best known today for their hits of the 1970s, including “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself,” the group’s career spanned almost half a century. Their most successful artistic period, lasting from the late 1950s through the 1960s, was bound up with the struggles of the civil rights movement and the fight to end the Vietnam war.

Roebuck “Pops” Staples formed the Staple Singers with daughters Mavis and Cleotha and son Pervis in 1948. Daughter Yvonne would also join the group in the late 1950s. Cleotha, a soprano, would play a vital role in providing the richly textured harmony vocals that gave support to the lead lines of Mavis and Pops.

The Staples were a working class family who knew something of real life. Prior to her career in music, Cleotha had trained as a dressmaker at the Dunbar Trade School, eventually getting a job sewing shoulder pads into coats for the Hart, Schafner and Marx clothing company. Family patriarch Pops Staples (1914-2000) grew up on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, before finding work in the steel mills and stockyards of Chicago in the 1930s. These experiences counted for something. There was a sense in which the Staples’ gospel music had its feet planted on the ground as much as in the heavens.

The family made their first appearances as a music group in Chicago churches and would make their first recordings by 1953. Listening to their early recordings, one is struck by the shimmering, blues-influenced guitar of Pops (he had studied with blues pioneer Charley Patton as a younger man), the warm harmonies of Pervis and Cleotha. Mavis’s sensibilities as a lead vocalist seemed to reach beyond her young age.

The 1959 album Uncloudy Day is certainly worth hearing . The single of the same name was enormously popular, selling a million copies. The hypnotic “This May Be The Last Time,” later adapted by the Rolling Stones for their 1965 hit “The Last Time,” is another standout.

Galvanized by the struggle against official segregation then underway in the South, the Staples’ music began to change. The fight for equality became the central concern of their work. Songs like “Freedom Highway” or “Why Am I Treated So Bad” movingly expressed the anger and hopes of masses of black workers and all those outraged by inequality in the southern US.

The latter song was among the Staples’ best. Easy-going, “cool” even when angry, the song slinks its way forward with a kind of unshakeable determination. “This old world is in a bad condition,” says Pops, recalling the mistreatment of black youth breaking through the segregated schools system. The song urges the students forward. Reportedly a favorite of Martin Luther King Jr., the Staples would perform the song at several civil rights rallies at which King spoke.

Departing from the gospel music world, the Staples associated themselves with more politicized folk music circles and would give memorable performances at the Newport Folk Festival. They came to know Bob Dylan when he was making his most compelling and oppositional work, and recorded his startling “Masters of War” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” “Even Jesus would never forgive what you do,” sang the top-selling gospel group to the “masters of war.”

Following their increasing shift to “secular music,” the Staples in 1968 began recording for the Memphis-based Stax Records label, home to such remarkable Soul and R&B artists as Otis Redding, Carla Thomas and Sam & Dave. In addition to the recordings made with her family, Cleotha would at this time also share lead vocal duties with the talented Eddie Floyd on the song “It’s Too Late.”

The Staples’ recordings for Stax are among their most popular today. The hit singles “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself” continue to find an appreciative audience decades after they were recorded.

These and other later Staples recordings, however, seem slight compared with much of their earlier work. An inability to go beyond the limited, reformist perspective of the civil rights movement had its consequences for the Staples’ music. They had reached a kind of artistic impasse.

The end of Jim Crow was a victory, but one which did not guarantee social rights and an end to oppression for the masses of black workers, or any other section of the working class, in the US. That would have meant a break with official political channels and a fight against capitalism. Instead, a black middle class layer was cultivated and permitted entry into official life, while the living standards of black and white workers alike continued to come under attack.

The Staples—and not just they—were unable to dig further down into the more fundamental questions of class and social life. In this context, the moral appeals for “respect” and the songs of self-empowerment the group continued to turn out, however well-intentioned, felt increasingly weak.

In spite of these difficulties, the Staples continued to be a popular group throughout the 1970s and would continue to have hits in the decades that followed. They disbanded following Pops Staples’ death in 2000, just one year after their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

At their strongest, the Staple Singers, gifted with a powerful and moving stage presence, communicated the democratic aspirations felt by millions. They placed those concerns at the very heart of their work. Their contribution deserves to be remembered and revisited.

Related articles

• Cleotha Staples, eldest of the Staple Singers siblings, dies at 78 (mercurynews.com)
• Respect Yourself singer Cleotha Staples of Staple Singers dies (cbc.ca)
• Gospel Legend Cleotha ‘Cleedi’ Staples of ‘The Staple Singers’ Dead at 78 (blackchristiannews.com)
• Cleotha Staples of the Staple Singers Has Died (eyeoncelebs.com)
• Cleotha Staples (guardian.co.uk)
• Cleotha Staples Of The Staple Singers Dies Aged 78 (noise11.com)
• Cleotha Staples of the Staple Singers Dead at Age 78 (theboombox.com)

Mary Barbour, Scottish rent strike organizer

Mary Barbour (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This music video from Scotland is Alistair Hulett, Mrs Barbour’s Army.

The lyrics are:

MRS. BARBOUR’S ARMY

(Alistair Hulett)

Chorus:

‘Cos I’m frae Govan an’ ye’re frae Partick
This yin here’s fae Bridge o’ Weir and thon’s fae Kinning Park
There’s some that’s prods, there’s some that’s catholic
But we’re Mrs. Barbour’s Army and we’re here tae dae the wark

In the tenements o’ Glesga in the year one nine one five
It was one lang bloody struggle tae keep ourselves alive
We were coontin’ oot the coppers tae buy wor scraps o’ food
When the landlords put the rent up just because they could
A’ the factories were hummin’, there was overtime galore
But wages they were driven doon tae subsidise the war
Oot came Mrs. Barbour from her wee bit single end
She said, I’ll organise the lassies if I cannae rouse the men

Mrs. Barbour made a poster sayin’, We’ll no’ pay higher rent
Then chapped on every door of every Govan tenement
She said, Pit this in the windae an’ when you hear me bang the drum
We’ll run oot an’ chase the factor a’ the way tae kingdom come
When the poor wee soul cam roon’ he was battered black and blue
By a regiment in pinnies that knew just what tae do
Mrs. Barbour organised the gaitherin’ o’ the clans
And they burst oot o’ the steamie armed wi’ pots an’ fryin’ pans

Mrs. Barbour’s Army spread through Glesga like the plague
The maisters got the message and the message wisnae vague
While oor menfolk fight the Kaiser we’ll stay hame and fight the war
Against the greedy bastards who keep grindin’ doon the poor
If ye want tae stop conscription stand and fight the profiteers
Bring the hale big bloody sandpit crashin’ doon aroon’ their ears
We’ll no’ starve, said Mrs. Barbour, While the men we ca’ wor ain
Are marchin aff tae hae their hairt’s blood washed like watter doon a drain

Well it didnae take the government that lang tae realise
If you crack doon on the leaders then the rest will compromise
They arrested Mrs. Barbour and they clapped her in the jile
Then they made an awfy big mistake, they let her oot on bail
She ca’d the men oot o’ the factories on the Clyde and on the Cart
They marched up tae the courthoose sayin’, We’ll tear the place apart
Mrs. Barbour’s Army brought the maisters tae their knees
Wi’ a regiment in pinnies backed by one in dungarees.

By Maria Fyfe in Scotland:

The forgotten woman behind the Glasgow rent strikes

Sunday 07 April 2013

by Maria Fyfe

The Glasgow rent strikes during the first world war in 1915 are a part of working-class history that is a fairly familiar story.

Yet few know anything about Mary Barbour, the woman who led the tenants to victory. Willie Gallacher in his book Revolt On The Clyde vividly described what happened, and it was he who dubbed the women she organised “Mrs Barbour’s Army.”

The story began with the greed of the landlords, who, seeing that so many men were away fighting in the war or in German prison camps, thought the women left behind would be a soft touch when they imposed massive rent increases. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

The tenement buildings were not kept in decent condition and sanitation was non-existent. So the rent increases sparked fury.

When the evictions started the women got to work. Barbour (pictured) organised the South Govan Women’s Housing Association and held meetings in the streets and back courts. Posters saying: “We will not pay higher rent” were displayed in hundreds of windows in every street. Then they started defending their fellow tenants from eviction.

They blocked the tenement entrances and threw flour bombs – and, it was said, worse – at the sheriff officers. Another tactic was to humiliate them by pulling down their trousers.

The placards that can be seen in old photographs carried powerful messages. One reads: “While my father is a prisoner in Germany the landlord is attacking us at home.”

The rent strike spread throughout Glasgow and to other cities throughout Britain.

Then the landlords thought up another tactic. They took some of the tenants to the sheriff court for unpaid rent, and if the court found in favour of the landlord the tenants would have the court costs added on.

And here is where history was made. Barbour organised one of the biggest marches ever seen in Glasgow, as thousands of women headed for the sheriff court, joined by the men pouring out of the shipyards and munitions works.

Outside the court Gallacher, teacher and radical John MacLean and Independent Labour Party (ILP) leaders addressed the crowds.

Inside the court there was such alarm that a phone call was made to Lloyd George, at that time the munitions minister in the wartime coalition government.

He instructed them to let the tenants go and said he would deal with it.

Outside a massive cheer went up. The celebrations went on for hours.

In a matter of days, Lloyd George pushed a Bill through Parliament restricting rents for the duration of the war and six months after. This was the first legislation of its kind anywhere in Europe.

But that is not the whole of Barbour’s story. She joined the Co-op Women’s Guild and the ILP. She campaigned against the war. In 1920 she became the first female Labour councillor in Glasgow, only having won the right to vote two years before.

Then she got to work. She fought for baths and wash houses, child welfare centres and play parks. Better housing was a key demand.

She was the first to organise a family planning centre in the city, facing down opposition from the church.

She fought for home helps and free, pure milk for schoolchildren. She proposed having municipal banks that could lend at lower rates and build funds for the city’s needs – maybe that is an idea we should look at today.

It is nothing less than astonishing that the name of a woman of such achievement is not widely known, even in her own city.

But a small committee has been formed to remedy that. We want to raise funds for a permanent memorial to Barbour.

We want to have her name in the history books along with the famous men of the Red Clydeside days.

I grew up in Glasgow, learning about and admiring the heroes of those times, but knowing nothing of this amazing woman. We owe it to this generation of schoolchildren to let them be better informed – and not just for the sake of better history being taught.

A century ago people like Barbour inspired others to demand decent living standards. We can hardly credit today that even children’s play parks and municipal baths had to be fought for. Today we are in the throes of a battle to save the welfare state.

Barbour’s victories for working-class people throughout Britain can inspire us today. Are we the kind of people who will let the Con-Dems make people who are already poor, poorer still, while they hand out a massive tax cut to the rich? I don’t think so.

Maria Fyfe is former Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill.

Donations to the fund gratefully received, however small. Cheques should be made out to the STUC (Remember Mary Barbour) and send to STUC HQ at 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow G3 6NG.

Related articles

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US singer Woodie Guthrie as novelist

This music video from the USA is called Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston – John Henry.

By Karl Dallas in Britain:

House Of Earth
by Woody Guthrie (Infinitum Nihil, £14.99)

Tuesday 26 March 2013

Woody Guthrie’s novel about hard times in the Texas panhandle is gritty, demanding and verbally exuberant

Woody Guthrie was in love with words, obsessed by them.

They poured from his pen and his typewriter onto scraps of paper and pages and notebooks that have filled hundreds and thousands of boxes and filing cabinets that are still being mined for evidence that he was, and is, one of the great stylists of the American language – possibly the greatest since Walt Whitman.

This book, as far as we know – and who knows what riches still lie undiscovered in those scattered archives? – is his first and only novel. Though there were fictional elements in his two previous books, they were basically first-person memoirs, enriched but not belied by the extravagances of Guthrie’s imagination.

They were also edited and tidied up before publication by editors who felt they knew what made a good book better.

But though House Of Earth edited and with an introduction by actor Johnny Depp and the historian Douglas Brinkley, we get a stronger feeling for the unfettered richness of his creativity.

It tells the story of the struggle for survival of Tike and Ella May Hamlin, two dirt-poor sharecroppers in the Texas panhandle, who are inspired by a five-cent pamphlet distributed by Roosevelt’s New Deal government.

It gives instructions on how to build an adobe home, the “house of earth” of the book’s title, that will withstand the dustbowl winds better than their flimsy and ramshackle shanty.

But this is not just a practical solution to their residence on earth – it’s a way to tame the winds that are driving them from the land.

Ella May tells Tike how to do it, by running out into the dust storm and catching the dust in his hat: “Then you run over to the iron water tank and you stick the hat and all, dust storm and all, down under the water, and you hold it down there till it tames down and all of the wind and air goes out of it and it just turns into soil, dirt again.

“Then you go and you lay it down somewhere, anywhere you want to, and it will be your land. Your farm. Your ranch.”

When Tike agrees, she responds: “Will you, ohhh, will you really? Really? Will yooo? Ohhh. Deah. My deah. You don’t know, you just don’t know, you never will know, how it would thrill me, and fill me, and chill me and frill me and dill me and spill me and drill me and lil me and hill me and till me and bill me and jack me and jill me.

“You just don’t have any idea, any ideeeaa, my dyeahhh, to see you really do something, anything, anything, just so it was something, anything. Ohh. Ahhmm. Tikus. My little Mikus.”

You’ve just got to let such cadences wash over and through you, otherwise reading this book is hard work. There’s an audio version in which Will Patton’s voice carries them off rather well.

Much has been made by some of the more lubricious critics of the steamy sex and it’s true that it’s much more graphic than Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In fact the sex provides some of the more poetic stretches but the odd quoted paragraph couldn’t give more than a taste of the glorious writing, which goes on literally for page after page.

Though it’s not really a political work like the Woody Sez columns Guthrie wrote for the US Daily Worker, the struggle for better things is always there, always implicit: “I wonder if it will ever come to an out-and-out fight,” says one character. “I sometimes hope so. I wish that the families of people that live in debt all of their lives in their trash-can houses would all get together and fight to get out of the miserable stink and mess.”

This is far from the sparse, laconic style of Woody’s singing balladry. But the book ends with a song – which could sing well to the tune of John Henry, the black steel-driving man – in which Ella May’s new-born child, whom she nicknames Grasshopper, triumphs over all adversity: “Well the Grasshopper says to that landlord/You can drive your tractor all around/You can plow, you can plant, you can take in your crop,/But you cain’t run my earth house down, down, down!/No! You cain’t run my earth house down!”

Related articles

• House of Earth by Woody Guthrie: review (telegraph.co.uk)
• Books: Woody Guthrie’s ‘lost novel’ (bostonglobe.com)
• Johnny Depp and Douglas Brinkley to Bring Woody Guthrie Back in Dust Bowl Book Publication (contactmusic.com)
• House of Earth (csmonitor.com)
• Woody Guthrie’s ‘House Of Earth’ Calls ‘This Land’ Home (npr.org)
• This Land is Our Land: Woody Guthrie’s Texas (bookpeopleblog.wordpress.com)
• Depp gives life to Guthrie’s long lost novel (goerie.com)
• House of Earth: Hear Woody Guthrie’s Lost Novel, Published by Johnny Depp, as an Audio Book (openculture.com)

Song about murderer Breivik, video

This is a music video of the song Breivik, about the Norwegian extreme Right mass murderer, by United States singer David Rovics.

Lyrics are here.

Related articles

• Anger as Norway police drop Breivik response probe (nation.com.pk)
• Threat of right wing fanatics is growing warns Home Secretary (telegraph.co.uk)

Dutch folk songs on the Internet

This is a video of the Dutch language version of the klezmer song Bei Mir Bistu Shein, plus other songs (barrel organ and vocals).

The 1930s Yiddish love song Bei Mir Bistu Shein (To me, you are beautiful) was later translated into English and sung by the Andrews Sisters and others.

The Dutch language version of this song is not a love song, but a sarcastical song about how poor people saw the 1930s economical crisis:

Bei Mir Bistu Shein [in Yiddish original in the Dutch lyrics],
we leven van de steun [we are dependent on unemployment benefits]
we leven van het crisiscomitee [we live on rich people's charity].

We krijgen erwtenssoep [We get pea soup]
die lijkt op koeiepoep [which tastes like cow shit].
We krijgen roggebrood [We get rye bread]
daar gooi’n we de kat mee dood [good only for killing the cat by throwing it].

We eten vlees uit blik [We eat canned meat]
van een bedorven sik [of a rotting goat carcass] …

Bei Mir Bistu Shein,
we leven van de steun [we are dependent on unemployment benefits]
en de groeten van het crisiscomitee [and best wishes from the rich people's charity].

The Dutch Internet site Nederlandse Liederenbank says about itself (translated):

In the Dutch Song Bank more than 150,000 Dutch songs have been made available, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.

They include love songs, parodies, songs from the sixteenth revolt against the king of Spain, psalms and other religious songs, folk songs, children’s songs, Saint Nicholas songs, Christmas carols, and much more. Sources of the songs are songbooks, broadsides, song notebooks and field recordings.

Of each song the source is indicated where the lyrics and the melody may be found. In some cases, there is a direct hyperlink to the full lyrics of the song or the melody or a sound recording.

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Mexican composer Ema Elena Valdelamar dies

This music video is called Emma Elena Valdelamar – Mucho Corazón.

From Prensa Latina news agency:

Mexico, Dec 24 – Mexican composer Ema Elena Valdelamar, whose works were sang by popular singers through the years, died, reported the media.

Mucho corazón, Cheque en blanco, Mil besos, Por qué no fuiste tú and Vivir sin tí are some of the most relevant songs, widely heard nationally and internationally.

Her compositions, mostly boleros, have been sung by Luis Miguel, Paquita la del Barrio, Benny Moré, Pedro Vargas, Maria Victoria and Marco Antonio Muñiz, among other celebrities.

Her latest tribute was held last October by the National Sound Archive, in the framework of the program Mexican Popular Music through her Songs.

Valdelamara’s body lies in a funeral in the south of the capital, and various figures of the national cultural will go.

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Occupy Wall Street anniversary, David Rovics song

In the USA: Occupy Wall Street Begins “Year II” With Call to Debt Resistance: here.

This music video by David Rovics in the USA says about itself:

Stay Right Here

by David Rovics – Vocal and Guitar
Drums Jerrod Kaplan
Bass Arcellus Skyes

Recorded at Big Red Studio by Billy Oskay
Video Edited by Chris Chandler and Jen Delyth
Shot by Chris Chandler
with clips by Anonymous, Public Domain, The Bouyaomar and Ericu510

Because this is where they buy the politicians
Because this is where power has its seat
Because ninety-nine percent of us are suffering
At the mercy of the madmen on this street
Because all of us are victims of class warfare
Being waged on us by the one percent
Because these greedy banksters rob the country
Leaving us without the means to pay the rent
Because the last time that we had a decent government
Was about 1932
Because we the people are supposed to run the country
But instead it’s all run by and for the few
Because now we know the rich do not pay taxes
But when they need a hand it’s us who bail them out
Because we suspected we lived in a plutocracy
But suddenly of late there is no doubt

And so we’re gonna stay right here (2x)

Because both my parents lost their savings
Because I have never opened an account
Because the interest on my credit card just doubled
And now I can’t pay the minimum amount
Because these budget cuts are just immoral
With our schools as overcrowded as they are
Because there are no buses where I live
But I can’t afford to drive a car
Because so many of us don’t have health insurance
The rest of us have it but it sucks
Because the rich are riding in their private jets
While the rest of us are slogging through the muck
Because capitalism isn’t working
This system has just failed to produce
Because the one percent is prospering
While the rest of us just suffer their abuse

Because it has been demonstrated amply
That the winners are the ones who stick around
Because this world should belong to everyone
Not just the banksters who would smash it to the ground
Because we’ve noticed voting doesn’t change things
When the politicians are mostly millionaires
Because we’re learning how to stand up like Tunisians
Like they did in Tahrir Square
Where a young man named Mohamed Bouazizi
Struck a match that lit up all the Earth
And all around the world the spell was broken
And a movement for the future was in birth
Because there’s only so much sh** the rich can feed us
Before we figure out which side we’re on
Because we’ve learned if we want our liberation
It will come only if we stay here til the rising of the dawn

Because corporations are not people
And we can’t just let them choose
Because if we leave our fate to them
Then all of us will surely lose
Because the climate clock is ticking
And we can’t just leave our world behind
Because corporate rule isn’t working
And it’s time for humans’ hearts and minds
Because you can’t take it with you
Because the rich just do not care
Because it doesn’t matter how much you make
But how much you can share
Because these moments don’t come often
Because we want truly to be free
Because we know what really matters
Something called society.

A year ago, thousands converged on Wall Street, leading to a wave of global anti-capitalist protests. Laurie Penny visits Zuccotti Park in New York and talks to the remaining ‘Occupiers’ trying to rejuvenate the movement: here.

Occupy‘s protest is not over. It has barely begun: here.

You Can’t Evict An Idea: What Can We Learn From Occupy? Here.

Police block Occupy march on Wall Street one year on: here.

Bank of England official: Occupy Movement right about global recession. Andrew Haldane said protestors were correct to focus on inequality as the chief reason for 2008 economic crash: here.

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