Song from a Cotton Field.
Bessie Brown ( 1895-1955 )
Fonte: Musixmatch.
Compositore : Porter P. Grainger ( 1891-1948 )

Porter P. Grainger was a prolific songwriter, pianist, and arranger who on occasion was also a singer. He can be heard playing piano on records of noted musicians and singers during the 1920s and 1930s.

PRISON WORKSONGS
Recorded by Dr. Harry Oster at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, La. and other locations, mostly in 1959

Let Your Hammer Ring,
Big Louisiana, lead; Willy Rafus, and Arthur Davis.

Originally this song accompanied the driving of spikes into the wooden ties which held railroad tracks in place. The basic tool was a ten-pound hammer with two heads, hardly more than two inches in diameter. The steel-driving man swung freely in a complete circle about his head, then brought the hammer unerringly down on the spike. Since the railroad's disappearance at Angola, the same song has often been sung, as it is here, to facilitate wood-chopping. Unlike many of the group worksongs, "Let Your Hammer Ring" has artistic unity. The subject in this magnificent song swings naturally from the ring of the hammer to ringing a plea to the governor for pardon; the desire for a pardon... (Continues)

2015
Guantanamo Blues

January 11, 2015 marks 13 years since the opening of US detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Supporters of human rights and due process are today joining together from all corners of the world to mark the event in the form of protests and peaceful actions. In Australia, Dr. Aloysia Brooks, torture prevention advocate, and songwriter and human rights advocate, Les Thomas, have released the song ‘Guantanamo Blues’, and included an open letter (below) to President Barack Obama calling for him to close Guantanamo, restore due process and human rights.

The song was written to raise awareness about the ongoing situation of those detained in the facility. Most of the 127 prisoners that remain have been cleared for release, but remain imprisoned without charge or trial. An unknown number of men are participating in a hunger-strike to protest their ongoing detention... (Continues)

2019
The Great Betrayal (Rojava)

[2010]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Sivert Høyem

Album: Prisoner Of The Road

2021
Tricks of the Trade

Your Kin che tratta il caso dei bimbi e parenti divisi dalla polizia alla frontiera messicana

(2010)
Album: Hey-Ho Believe

Missouri State - Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
Fort Smith Jail
Cat. #1388 (MFH #254) - As sung by Joan O'Bryant, Wichita, Kansas

(1994)
dall'album Superunknown dei Soundgarden pubblicato l'8 marzo 1994
Parole di Chris Cornell
Musica di Matt Cameron

In occasione dei trent'anni di un album fondamentale che, come scrisse il giornale online The A.V. Club, "ridefinisce e trascende il grunge", inseriamo questa canzone tenebrosa dalla penna e dalla voce indimenticabile del grande Chris Cornell.

La prossima canzone è un racconto che arriva da un impiegato del servizio postale statunitense. Fanno meravigliosamente il loro lavoro. Indossano pantaloncini corti d’estate, sono cortesi, attenti, sono gentili con i cani, e poi ogni tanto entrano in un ufficio postale e sparano a ogni singolo collega che incontrano. A parte questo, però, il loro lavoro viene svolto in modo esemplare.
(Chris Cornell)


“This next one is about killing your boss. It’s about coming to work early one morning cause you have a special agenda and... (Continues)

"Roger David Casement (1864 – 1916) was a humanitarian campaigner and an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist. He was a British consul, famous for his reports and activities against human rights abuses in the Congo and Peru and also for his dealings with Germany before Ireland’s Easter Rising in 1916. An Irish nationalist and Parnellite in his youth, he worked in Africa for commercial interests and later in the service of Britain. However, the Boer War and his consular investigation into atrocities in the Congo led Casement to anti-Imperialist and, ultimately, to Irish Republican and separatist political opinions. He sought to obtain German support for a rebellion in Ireland against British rule. Shortly before the Easter Rising, he landed in Ireland and was arrested. He was subsequently convicted and executed by the British for treason. His remains were buried in the yard... (Continues)

Missouri State - Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
Hard Times in Jail
Cat. #0475 (MFH #254) - As sung by Mr. Alford, Delmar, Arkansas on February 2, 1960

(2024)
Bearing Witness

On February 25, 2024, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the United States Air Force, died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. Immediately prior to the live-streamed act, Bushnell said that he was protesting against "what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers" and declared that he "will no longer be complicit in genocide", after which he doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire.

As he burned, Bushnell repeatedly shouted "Free Palestine!" while one Secret Service officer pointed a gun at him and two others attempted to extinguish him.
Self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell - Wikipedia

Words & Music Ruth Hazleton
Album: DAISYWHEEL (2019)



Nûdem Durak is an ethnic Kurdish singer from Cizre, Turkey. She is well-known throughout her community for teaching local folk songs in the Kurdish language to young children in sing-alongs. Kurds are one of Turkey’s most heavily persecuted minorities, with a long history of tensions between Kurds and the governments of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, where sizable minorities live.

Up until 1991, the Kurdish language was entirely banned in Turkey. A law passed that year allows the language for communication but bans the purposefully vague “spreading of propaganda.”

To the Turkish government, which even banned the word “Kurd” until the 1990s (calling them “Mountain Turks” instead) simply singing was unacceptable. Nûdem was arrested in 2015, and charged under the vague notion of propagandizing because the songs she sang were in her own... (Continues)

Written and performed by Claus Zimmermann at the F-Dur event "Free Nudem Durak" at Barmbek-Basch/Hamburg.

(2016)

SONGS FOR NUDEM

The war against the Kurds...

Nûdem Durak is a ethnic Kurdish singer living in Cizre, Turkey. She is well-known throughout her community for teaching local folk songs in the Kurdish language to young children in sing-alongs.

In April 2015, Nûdem Durak was sentenced to ten-and-a-half years in prison for the charge of “promoting Kurdish propaganda” by performing in her native language. In July of 2016, with no additional charges or convictions, her sentence was increased to 19 years.

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Nûdem Durak è una cantante curda originaria di Cizre, in Turchia. È conosciuta nella sua comunità per aver insegnato canti popolari curdi ai bambini in sessioni di canto corale.

Nel mese di aprile 2015, Nûdem Durak è stata condannata a dieci anni e mezzo di carcere con l'accusa di "propaganda curda" per essersi esibita nella sua lingua madre. Nel luglio del 2016, senza ulteriori accuse o condanne, la sua pena è stata aumentata a 19 anni.

[1963]
Tema originale dal film "Lord Of The Flies", diretto nel 1963 da Peter Brook.

[1972]

From the EP The Urgent Call of Palestine
Music by Zeinab Shaath
Lyrics by Lalita Panjabi

"More than 50 years ago in Beirut, teenager Zeinab Shaath recorded a set of revolutionary folk music — the first English-language songs to lift up the Palestinian cause to the wider world. Inspired by Vietnam-era protest music from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, “The Urgent Call of Palestine’’ record was intended to share the stories and messages of Palestinian resistance to an international audience."
in: Bandcamp: The Urgent Call of Palestine, by Zeinab Shaath

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Più di 50 anni fa a Beirut, l’adolescente Zeinab Shaath registrò un album di musica folk rivoluzionaria — le prime canzoni in lingua inglese a sostenere la causa palestinese di fronte al mondo. Ispirato alla musica di protesta dell’era del Vietnam di Bob Dylan e Joan Baez, il disco intitolato “The Urgent Call of Palestine” aveva lo scopo di condividere le storie e i messaggi della resistenza palestinese con un pubblico internazionale.