It might be Sloan and McGuire jumping on the protest bandwagon created by Dylan but it is a song which still has a lot of pertinence fifty five years later.
This world is still exploding!
What a stupid, violent species we are!
We’re still teetering on the edge of a nuclear holocaust.
Are we completely mad??
I think this is the strongest song that has been recorded. It tells the story of genocide.
Buffy Sainte Maire – “My country ‘Tis Of Thy People You’re Dying” – YouTube
I have to play this from time to time. It helps me keep my sanity and perspective.
Millionaires – Phat Bollard – Busking in Bath (Best Vid of this) – YouTube
Where would we be without unions? I tell you where. We’d be working the gig economy to put bloated profits in the hands of the wealthy owners. We’d be on low pay with no benefits, long hours and no holidays – like they are in the States!
The USA managed to convince people that unions were socialist – a bunch of commies – so US workers have the worst conditions, shortest holidays and poor pay. The richest country in the world chooses to put its money in the hands of a small elite.
I’ve been a union man all my life and still am. Without unions we are abused and downtrodden. The union gives us the strength for fair negotiation.
This great song from Pete Seeger says it all.
Pete Seeger – Talking Union Blues
Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you.
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
But if you all stick together, boys, it won’t be long.
You get shorter hours, better working conditions,
Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore.
It ain’t quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train.
‘Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We’ll all be a-waitin’ ’til Judgment Day.
We’ll all be buried, gone to heaven,
St. Peter’ll be the straw boss then.
Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
To go to your meetin’ and act like a stool.
But you can always tell a stool, though, that’s a fact,
He’s got a yaller streak a-runnin’ down his back.
He doesn’t have to stool, he’ll always get along
On what he takes out of blind men’s cups.
You got a union now, and you’re sittin’ pretty,
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.The boss won’t listen when one guy squawks,
But he’s got to listen when the union talks.
He’d better, be mighty lonely
Everybody decide to walk out on him.
Suppose they’re working you so hard it’s just outrageous
And they’re paying you all starvation wages.
You go to the boss and the boss would yell,
“Before I raise your pay I’d see you all in hell.”
Well, he’s puffing a big seegar, feeling mighty slick
‘Cause he thinks he’s got your union licked.
Well, he looks out the window and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree:
He’s a bastard, unfair, slavedriver,
Bet he beats his wife!
Now, boys, you’ve come to the hardest time.
The boss will try to bust your picket line.He’ll call out the police, the National Guard,
They’ll tell you it’s a crime to have a union card.
They’ll raid your meetin’, they’ll hit you on the head,
They’ll call every one of you a goddam red,
Unpatriotic, Japanese spies, sabotaging national defense!
But out at Ford, here’s what they found,
And out at Vultee, here’s what they found,
And out at Allis-Chalmers, here’s what they found,
And down at Bethlehem, here’s what they found:
That if you don’t let red-baiting break you up,
And if you don’t let stoolpigeons break you up,
And if you don’t let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don’t let race hatred break you up,
You’ll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!
We can change the world !!! We can make a better world!!
If ever protest was necessary it is under the lies, hate and division of the Trump tyranny. He is inflaming Americans towards a civil war. His repudiation of the media and blatant telling of lies is a dangerous game. He is dismantling the fabric of democracy.
Back in the heady days of the 1960s when there was division and hostility between the younger generation and the older generation centred around the Vietnam War, Crosby Stills and Nash spoke up against the war and called for peaceful protest.
Young people took to the streets to protest the tyranny of that time.
This is Chicago by CS&N. They believed that we could change the world and so do I. When things are wrong it takes peaceful protest in millions to put it right!
We can change the world
Rearrange the world
It’s dying to get better
Politicians sit yourselves down
There’s nothing for you here
Won’t you please come to Chicago
For a ride
Don’t ask Jack to help you
‘Cause he’ll turn the other ear.
Won’t you please come to Chicago
Or else join the other side.
We can change…yes we can change…the world
Rearrange…rearrange the world
Find more lyrics at ※ Mojim.com
It’s dying…if you believe in justice
It’s dying…and if you believe in freedom
It’s dying…let a man live his own life
It’s dying…rules and regulations who needs them
Open up the door
Somehow people must be free
I hope the day comes soon
Won’t you please come to Chicago
Show your face
From the bottom of the ocean
To the mountains of the moon
Won’t you please come to Chicago
No one else can take your place
We can change…yes we can change…the world
Rearrange…rearrange the world
It’s dying…if you believe in justice
It’s dying…and if you believe in freedom
It’s dying…let a man live his own life
It’s dying…rules and regulations who needs them
Open up the door
In light of Trump’s proposed vandalism of the environment in Utah opening up National Parks to drilling and mining I thought this was relevant. The madman really doesn’t care about nature – just money. What with pulling out of the Paris agreement, shutting down environment monitoring, relaxing environmental legislation and opening up parks for plunder he is really going out of his way to trash the planet for short-term gain.
Well I care about animals and nature and I think the man is an abomination. The sooner he is got rid of the better! Impeach the piece of shit.
The dollar went down and the President said
“Who’s in charge, now?” I don’t know, take your pick.
A new disease every day and the old ones are coming back
Things are looking kind of gray, like they’re going to black
Don’t turn on the TV, don’t show me the paper
(I) don’t want to know he got kidnapped or why they all raped her
I want to go on vacation till the pressure lets up
But they keep hijacking airplanes and blowing them up
It’s been a hard day on the planet
How much is it all worth?
It’s getting harder to understand it
Things are tough all over on earth.
It’s hot in December and cold in July
When it rains it pours out of a poisonous sky
In California the body counts keep getting higher
It’s evil out there, man that state is always on fire.
Everyone has a system, but they can’t seem to win
Even Bob Geldorf looks alarmingly thin
I got to get on that shuttle get me out of this place
But there’s gonna be warfare up there in outer space
I’ve got clothes on my back and shoes on my feet
A roof over my head and something to eat
My kids are all healthy and my folks are alive
You know, it’s amazing but sometimes I think I’ll survive
I’ve got all of my fingers and all of my toes
I’m pretty well off I guess, I suppose
So how come I feel bad so much of the time?
A man aint an island John Dunn wasn’t lyin’
Its business as usual; some things never change
Its unfair, it’s tough, unkind and it’s strange
We don’t seem to learn; we can’t seem to stop
Maybe some explosions would close up the shop
You know, maybe that would be fine: we would be off the hook
We resolved all our problems, never mind what it took
And it all would be over, finito, the end
Until the survivers started up all over again
(Refrain)
This is one of Roy’s anti-war songs. Always in war it is the poor civilians and children who suffer most.
Someone has his/her finger on the button that launches the drone strike or sets off the ballistic missile. We harness technology to do our dirty business. We take our stupid belligerence and tribal conflict into space. Is there no hope for the future?
The Unknown Soldier – Roy Harper
I am an old soldier
I’ve been in the wars
Backwards and forwards,
Creeping on all fours
And I travel the pulses
Unseen and alone
Dogfights in the cosmos
Feeling the unknown
And I laugh in my sleep
Sitting in the gutter
Picking dog-ends from the deep
I am an old soldier
I see in your face
Times repeating
Uniforms in space
Looking forward to Doomsday
Telepathy wars
Dogma daydreams
Imaginary doors
And I laugh in my sleep
Sitting in the gutter
Picking dog-ends from the deep
But in the night a little boy is dreaming mysteries
And looking after laughter with his sister climbing trees
And somewhere there’s a button and a silent satellite
And a bastard who would press it and an everlasting night
I’d hunt him like a tiger and I’d tear him to a shred
There’s nowhere you can hide man
Me and the kids we’d feed you to the dead
And I cry in my sleep
For all the hungry children
And the unbelieving sheep.
This is the tale of the death of a community built around an Iron Ore smelting works that shut down.
It seems very pertinent to me. All over America and the North of England we have old industries in decay and workforces thrown on the scrapheap. Where are the present-day Bob Dylans to document it and point out the social tragedy it leaves in its wake, to hold politicians and the wealthy owners to account?
It tells the story of poverty and despair.
These protest songs helped raise the sensibilities of a whole generation. It spoke of justice, fairness and compassion. There is more to life than money. There are real people suffering. They need caring for.
“North Country Blues” – Bob Dylan
The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door
The drag lines an’ the shovels they was a-humming
‘Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him.
Well a long winter’s wait
From the window I watched
My friends they couldn’t have been kinder
And my schooling was cut
As I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner.
Oh the years passed again
And the givin’ was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born
The work was cut down
To a half a day’s shift with no reason.
Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
‘Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin’.
They complained in the East
They are playing too high
They say that your ore ain’t worth digging
That it’s much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing.
So the mining gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelted heavy from drinking
Where the sad silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking.
I lived by the window
As he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
Then one morning’s wake
The bed it was bare
And I’s left alone with three children.
The summer is gone
The ground’s turning cold
The stores one by one they’re a-foldin’
My children will go
As soon they grow
Well there ain’t nothing here now to hold them.
Paul Simon wrote this early on in his career when he was still a solo act. It is a brilliant song that captures the violence and ugliness of the terror tactics being used by the Klu Klux Klan to terrorise the black population in a vain attempt to stop the civil rights movement.
The civil rights movement came out of the Baptist Church and the white supremacists often targeted churches and the homes of activists for arson attacks. The stuck burning crosses in front of houses, rode through at night firing guns and actually lynched and shot people.
Fortunately a head of steam had been got up and people were not going to be intimidated. They wanted the vote and they wanted equality and freedom.
As Paul said – the idea of emancipation was not merely embellished in bricks and mortar; it was in the minds of the people and their bravery was indestructible.
There’s a way to go! We need more of that bravery now!
Help build a positive zeitgeist!
“A Church Is Burning”
Three hooded men, their hands lit the spark
And they faded in the night, they vanished in the dark
And in the cold light of morning, there was nothing that remained
But the ashes of a Bible and a can of kerosene
A church is burning
The flames rise higher
Like hands that are praying
They glow in the sky
Like hands that are prayin’
The fire ascends
You can burn down my churches
But I shall be free
A church is more than just timber and stone
And freedom is a dark road when you’re walking it alone
But the future is now, and it’s time to take a stand
So the lost bells of freedom can ring out in my land
A church is burning
The flames rise higher
Like hands that are praying
They glow in the sky
Like hands that are praying
The fire ascends
You can burn down my churches
But I shall be free
Bob Dylan was a master at writing poetic songs of freedom and civil rights. Back in the early sixties the Civil Rights battle was raging. There was segregation and no votes for negroes in the Southern States.Bob encapsulated the mood and determination of the civil rights movement. White activists joined with black activists and set about confronting the tyranny of the Klu Klux Klan and the collusion of the authorities.
Together they fought for equality and freedom. There was a need for basic human rights.
It still seems incredible that in a civilised country this should have been an issue only fifty years ago. Yet it is an issue that still persists in a small racist minority to this very day.
Check out our ancestry. We all came from Africa – black, yellow and white. We are only 200,000 years new as a species. We are all brothers and sisters.
Bob’s song was a celebration of the victory that was to come.
Where are the new Bob’s? The new voices of dissent? The new protests about the inequality going on around us?
Help build a new positive zeitgeist! We can change the world! Long live freedom, tolerance, peace, love and harmony!!
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
I shall walk.
The trail is dusty
And my road it might be rough,
But the better roads are waiting
And boys it ain’t far off.
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.
I walked down by the river,
I turned my head up high.
I saw that silver linin’
That was hangin’ in the sky.
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.
The evenin’ dusk was rollin’,
I was walking down the track.
There was a one-way wind a-blowin’
And it was blowin’ at my back.
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.
The gravel road is bumpy,
It’s a hard road to ride,
But there’s a clearer road a-waitin’
With the cinders on the side.
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.
That evening train was rollin’,
The hummin’ of its wheels,
My eyes they saw a better day
As I looked across the fields.
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.
The trail is dusty,
The road it might be rough,
But the good road is a-waitin’
And boys it ain’t far off.
Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.