Thursday, April 06, 2006

Protest Songs

There were days when AG or I would protest at the amount of unfair teasing we were getting from the other by singing "We shall overco-o-ome" hand over heart, eyes to the sky. Hearkening back to the civil rights movement and the anti-war protests.

I have asked myself if I have heard any good protest songs, lately.

I went to a Unity March in which we all sang Bob Marley's "Get up Stand up." - "you can fool the people sometimes but you can't fool all the people all the time."

Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" is also a good one. "I'd rather be a free man in my grave, than living as a puppet or a slave."

The Tom Petty Song "I Won't Back Down." is a good one - "Well I know what's right. I've got just one life, in a world that keeps on pushing me around but I'll stand my ground."

I have dearly imagined scenario in which hundreds of pro-choice people at a rally sing "My Country 'tis of Thee" or "Jesus Loves Me" at throngs of counter protester.

And then today I watched a chick flick called "Life or Something Like It." Which has some very interesting work from Angelina Jolie in an unflattering bleach job but is a leave your ambitions and career for that snarky slacker guy in flannel slow down and smell the roses kind of movie. That aside, she gets a group of protesting transit workers to sing "I can't get no satisfaction." Not bad.

Got any suggestions?

1 comment:

Lever said...

Hmmm... they're all so well known I think my unknown tracks will not be sung by so many people...

I was thinking of a song by the thrash metal band Overkill the other day... the line "We don't care what you say - Fuck You!" was a rather mature line...

And New Model Army's "The Charge" has a great line "on, on, on cried the leaders at the back"; but then their track "White Coats" states "How do we tell the people in the white coats enough is enough!"...

I was listening to System Of A Down tonight and on "Toxicity" the hook "Pushing little children, with their fully-automatics, they like to push the weak around" was poignant after I was listening to their track "Boom!" yesterday, which I remember they released around the time of the anti Iraq War protests...

Talking of 2003... check these out :)

Waffling... sleepy... must... get... some.... ZZZzzzz