Songs of Hope and Protest for Election Day!

Here are a bunch of tunes for today, to be updated all day, so return for more.  If you don't know me, or know me only from my days at Editor & Publisher or The Nation--or through my books (some of them very "resist-y," especially the latest,  The Tunnels, on dramatic escapes under the Berlin Wall, see covers at right)--then you probably are not aware that I started in rock 'n roll:  serving as #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy for almost the entire 1970s.    Thanks for visiting, and raising your voice, and now listening...

Classic from Al Kooper way back in 1970 in midst of Nixon's first term...

Funny and then inspirational "Sand in the Gears" from Frank Turner.

............................Written by the great Jason Isbell after 2016 shocker, "There can't be more of them than us."  
U2 with Woody Guthrie's take on famed resister "Jesus Christ."

For Trump, John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen live.


Bob Marley with "Redemption Song."


Tom Morello, with Ben Harper, "Save the Hammer for the Man."

...........................Hoping this is how a lot of former Trump voters now feel today. Tom Petty with The Byrds' classic:
The death of Allen Toussaint should have drawn as much attention and lamentation as a Bowie or Prince but sadly did not.   One of the great musicians, writers, producers, and New Orleans ambassadors.  Here's his "Yes We Can"--you may have only heard the Pointers' hit version.  And I'll be adding some of his other classics such as "Freedom for the Stallion" later.


Two of the greatest songwriters of our time, going back well over five decades, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann (now my Twitter friends), teamed with Brenda Russell on "None of Us Are Free," made famous by Ray Charles but I prefer this amazing Solomon Burke/Blind Boys of Alabama version.

 From '70s Brit punk band--still around--Sham 69: "If the Kids Are United (They Will Never Be Divided):


I posted the actual song below but can't miss this amazing video of Leonard Cohen reciting his classic "Democracy."

The great guitarist Ry Cooder with "No Banker Left Behind," inspired by Occupy Wall Street.


 Vintage 1989 Public Enemy "Fight the Power" video...



The Beatles "Revolution" with long-hidden video.

  

Muse's "Uprising" came from an album actually titled The Resistance, so there you are.  

Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and hundreds of thousands at Obama Inaugural concert, with some of those little heard lyrics.


The viral sensation of the 2017 women's march, here in great Samantha Bee segment.


Gil Scott-Heron has rightly been called the Godfather of Rap for his  early 1970s work (also, he wrote for me at Crawdaddy).    Here's his classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."  Nixon era.  See how it holds up.

And now a young Billy Bragg with the classic protest tune, "Which Side Are You On?"  Get ready to roll it out if there's a General Strike....


Tracy Chapman, live on Austin City Limits, with "Talkin' About a Revolution."


I've long felt Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" was his most perfectly realized poetry.  Springsteen doing it at the Berlin Wall, helping to speed its fall, figures in my The Tunnels book (see my article).  Here's Dylan's original in a rare "bootleg" outtake from the 1964 session.


One of U2's greatest, "One," has special resonance to me for its link to fall of Berlin Wall and hopes for a new Germany.  Here's the first video they made, which was soon pulled for some reason--see my post about it and its link to my The Tunnels book.



Old friend Steve Van Zandt wrote and sang the anti-apartheid anthem (when it really counted) "Sun City," here live with some famous friends not named Bruce.   No I will not now be adding Dylan's "Silvio."


One of the most important songs of our era--because it helped launch the reggae craze in the USA and made Bob Marley's mass popularity here possible--was Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come (The Harder They Fall)," from the movie of that name...


From our patron saint,  Woody Guthrie...here's his little-known "All You Fascists Bound to Lose" in a rollicking live session...

 In a departure, here's "This Land Is Your Land" as sung by America--no, not the old "Horse With No Name" group but protestors in more than a dozen cities at demonstrations around the USA in the early days of Trump.   Lady Gaga sang a snippet at Super Bowl.


Hard to top this call for Resistance--as I noted in this article, and in my new The Tunnels book, David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen helped bring down the Berlin Wall with performances at the Wall in the 1980s.  And here's Bowie that day singing his amazing "Heroes" with images of Berliners behind him waving a family members over the Wall.





And my favorite Clash song, which opens with what might be the theme of this blog: "What are we gonna do now???"
The consistently political and great songwriter (and Treme veteran) and anti-death penalty activist Steve Earle with "The Revolution Starts Now."    In your own backyard, in your own hometown.  What's the use of sittin' around?


Bob Marley was rasta-political his entire career, which ended far too soon in Jamaica. We published first Marley cover at Crawdaddy and later I caught an amazing double bill at tiny Max's Kansas City:  Springsteen and the Mailers, for several nights, coin flip to decide who opened....Here's Bob's "Get Up, Stand Up, For Your Rights." 

 
Phil Ochs, one of the greatest topical songwriters ever (I knew him in NYC in the 1970s) until mental issues struck, recorded "The Power and the Glory" as a demo below, with key final verse not in the famous  released version. "You can stop them if you try!"


Patti Smith (I published her first essay in a national magazine at Crawdaddy) and late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith live, with "People Have the Power."  And don't forget to check out The Tunnels.


I've always loved this song and video from Joseph Arthur, an early performer for Occupy at Zuccotti Park who has gone on to great things.


John Lennon, with advice to Trump (no doubt in one ear, out the other) and the media, "Gimme Some Truth," with great video.   H/t  David Hazan.


From the late, great, Leonard Cohen (who also saw "the future...it is murder"), he envisions "Democracy coming to the USA."   It's "coming from the sorrow in the streets / that holy place where the races meet."


The greatest song of any sort of our era, written and sung by Sam Cooke, and tragically the last song released at the time of his death in 1964.   He was inspired by Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," then topped it.  Good video:


I have a long history with Bruce Springsteen, going back to 1972,  and the last time I spoke with him he was still doing "The Ghost of Tom Joad"--inspired by Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck--only acoustically.  That changed with this epic live performance with Tom Morello, one of my favorite videos.



Arlo Guthrie and friends sings the classic by his dad, Woody, "Deportee."



Neil Young, here on  SNL live, with some sage advice for us all for the long haul--Keep on Rockin.'