9/11. The dying firefighter, by David Rovics

From the Google cache of Dear Kitty ModBlog.

9/11/05 at 3:51PM

To commemomerate 11 September 2003 in New York City, from the site of David Rovics:

The Dying Firefighter

by David Rovics

I saw the plane hit the building
The flames and the billowing smoke
I saw the glass, paper, metal and stone
Everything shattered and broke
I was there with my people
Engine Company 24
We rushed into the building
Got as far as the 35th floor

The black smoke and the heat was like nothing
I’d seen in all of my years
With each step in that blazing inferno
You could feel destiny near
In the midst of the falling girders
The sheet rock and God knows what else
I tried to find the survivors
Those who made it to the stairwells

I carried the wounded to safety
If that’s what you might call the street
With bodies and boulders and metal
All crashing down by your feet
As #2 was collapsing
When only ten floors still stood
Everything was falling around me
Like it was made out of cardboard and wood

It was just then I heard someone
Trapped underneath the debris
I started pulling at something
And that’s when the fire got me
I was pinned ‘neath the rubble
And the flames were licking my coat
And the pain, the unbearable agony
And then that was all that she wrote

But I just wish I could tell you
Before I am taken away
That I’ve seen a lot of this world
And there’s something that I gotta say
I don’t believe in politics
I believe in the human race
I believe in the goodness of people
In New York or some far-away place

I believe in my daughter
And I believe in my wife
And may nobody’s father be taken
To avenge the loss of my life
People may call me a brave man
And this may very well be
But the firefighters of Kabul
Are just as brave men as me.

From the Google cache:

USA: David Rovics song for Cindy Sheehan

Date: 8/24/05 at 4:24PM

From ClickPress:

Song for Cindy Sheehan By David Rovics

Media Outlets Use New Tune In Their Camp Casey Coverage

[ClickPress, Tue Aug 23 2005] CampCasey, TX –David Rovics’, internationally acclaimed activist/singer/songwriter/blogger, new tune, “Song for Cindy Sheehan” is now the number one song on the SoundClick.com Acoustic — Folk Charts.

Hours after the song was released on the Internet, it was used for stories from Camp Casey by radio station KPFA and television network Democracy Now.

Video blogger Steve Garfield also created a video using the song and scenes he filmed of a vigil in Boston.

RocketBoom.com, a daily Internet video show, used Steve’s video the next day.

The MP3 studio recording is available to hear online or as a free download for portable music players like Apple’s iPod at: http://www.soundclick.com/davidrovics.

“Feel free to link to the online media or to use the MP3 for any purpose,” explains David Rovics.

“Same goes for the other songs you find there, including many related songs (“Four Blank Slates,” “Waiting for the Fall,” “When Johnny Came Marching Home,” many more).

Thanks to William Rivers Pitt for his article in Truthout entitled ‘Every Mother’s Son’.”

Song for Cindy Sheehan (Excerpt)

Casey was a good boy
He treated people well
And his momma loved him
Anyone could tell

She’d send him off to school
Pack his lunch with care
When he came back home she hugged him
With her fingers in his hair

Cindy, she loved Casey
And when all is said and done
She is every mother
And he was every mother’s son

David Rovics Bio

David Rovics has been called the musical voice of the progressive movement in the US.

Amy Goodman has called him “the musical version of Democracy Now!”

Since the mid-90’s Rovics has spent most of his time on the road, playing hundreds of shows every year throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

He and his songs have been featured on national radio programs in the US, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere.

He has shared the stage regularly with leading intellectuals (Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn), activists (Medea Benjamin, Ralph Nader), politicians (Dennis Kucinich, George Galloway), musicians (Billy Bragg, the Indigo Girls), and celebrities (Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon).

He has performed at dozens of massive rallies throughout North America and Europe and at thousands of conferences, college campuses and folk clubs throughout the world.

He makes all of his recordings available for free download on his website, http://www.davidrovics.com, and the downloads are in the many hundreds of thousands.

More importantly, he’s really good. He will make you laugh, he will make you cry, and he will make the revolution irresistable.

Resources:

SoundClick Acoustic Folk Charts
Meet with Cindy
Crawford Blog
David Rovics Website
David Rovics Blog
KPFA’s Flashpoints
Democracy Now
Steve Garfield Video Blog
RocketBoom

Contact:

David Rovics
DRovics@aol.com
(617) 872-5124
P.O. Box 995
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 U$A

JOlmsted
f911@yahoogroups.com
http://f911.blogspot.com