Nel prologo di questa poesia, l’autrice spiega infatti di averla
scritta nel 2009, perché, mentre Gaza era sotto i bombardamenti israeliani, e lei lavorava come portavoce dell’ufficio stampa di una coalizione pacifista, un giornalista che la voleva intervistare, le aveva chiesto: “Non pensa che tutto andrebbe bene se smetteste di insegnare ai vostri figli a odiare?”. È una domanda tipica dell’antipalestinismo, una delle tante che vengono rivolte a ogni palestinese, colpevole soltanto della sua identità culturale; un classico caso dell’oppressore che colpevolizza le vittime della sua oppressione. Ziadah ha risposto a quel giornalista scrivendo questo testo, in cui lei ripete per ben undici volte il termine soundbite, coniato dai media statunitensi negli anni 1970, per indicare una “breve frase incisiva” o “battuta ad effetto”, estratta da un discorso pronunciato da una figura politica a... (continuer)

(2024)
Album: Flare


THERE SHOULD BE SKY ABOVE YOU is the last track I worked on among those featured in FLARE. It was born with the intention of offering a word of comfort to those who suffer and live their lives managing a pain. A sense of oppression arises in a context in which one is not serene and free to think lightly and confidently about one’s own future and self-determination.

Living overwhelmed by heavy clouds makes us powerless as a Queen in exile from her own kingdom. No one deserves to experience and suffer violence.

In making the video of THERE SHOULD BE SKY ABOVE YOU, it seemed natural to devote space to the denunciation of what is happening in Gaza right now. I find it impossible to remain indifferent to such a horror. In a context where missiles and bombs are raining down on civilians, it is inevitable to think that there should be only the sky over those heads, nothing... (continuer)

[XIX]
Lyrics / Testo / Paroles / Sanat:
Thomas Cooper

Music / Musica/ Musique / Sävel:
Louis Bourgeois

Album: Songs of Slavery & Emancipation

John Lovell ( 1907-1974), professore di Letteratura inglese, scrisse un libro sulla musica afro-americana , una pietra miliare nel genere. Una tesi centrale nella sua opera è che negli spirituals è presente una forte carica simbolica di rivolta che Lowell analizza sistematicamente. Chi fosse interessato a consultare il suo saggio Black Song: The Forge and the Flame può farlo attraverso Internet Archive per una buona parte della pubblicazione.
A pag. 106 troviamo il seguente commento che riguarda la canzone proposta:

The Reverend Thomas Cooper ca. 1775—ca. 1823), who had dozens of trying experiences with slave stealers after he broke free, was more militant in his hymn writing. He preached in the Northern United States, in England, and in... (continuer)

Album: Still Time (2021)



The Bluegrass Situation

2024
Comfort Food (Kiran Music, 2024)

This song is a musical response to cultural intolerance. My words are aimed at reminding us that we all bleed the same red; our tears taste of the same salt – we’re the root of one tree – we’re all part of the same human species, but can we call ourselves humans when we lack humanity? The impetus for this song is the rise of Hindu fundamentalism. This movement marginalizes Muslims and other ethnic minorities and is an ideology embodied in the political party which currently governs India. This wave of religious hatred has also spread in the Indian Diaspora, and many who are against it do not speak out for fear of repercussions. Social preservation dictates that they stay quiet even in the face of injustice to others. The wound I refer to in these lyrics is the partition of India and Pakistan – once a united people – it is the story of the loss of brotherhood.... (continuer)

2024
Comfort Food (Kiran Music, 2024)

This song is about feeling overwhelmed with the current state of political polarization in the world. Nationalist politicians around the globe are targeting ethnic minorities and immigrants. Most of us have strong opinions on these issues and it’s sadly often impossible to talk with those we disagree with without the conversations turning into yelling matches. I’ve found it very hard to control my anger when talking to family members about the cons of fundamentalism and tribal thinking. So instead of talking, I‘m singing my opinion – this song reminds us that we are all from one root; we all bleed the same shade of red.

English translation from the Album booklet.

“Tera Jugg” parla del senso di sopraffazione dovuto allo stato attuale di polarizzazione politica nel mondo dove i politici nazionalisti stanno prendendo di mira minoranze etniche e immigrati.
blogfoolk.com

2022

Residents in an eastern German town found a novel way of protesting against neo-Nazis – by buying up beer.
Their action at the weekend was aimed at fans attending a far-right German rock festival called Schild und Schwert Festival (Shield and Sword or SS) in Ostritz, a small town in Saxony on the German-Polish border.
Police had seized 4,400 liters of beer from festival-goers after an alcohol ban was imposed by a court near Dresden, which ruled the event had an "aggressive character". The court felt there was a risk that alcohol could make violence more likely.

But locals suspected that fans heading to the festival – known for "Rechtsrock" music, which promotes white nationalism – would head to the supermarket instead to stock up on alcohol.
So they reacted by buying up more than 200 crates of beer, leaving the festival attendees thirsty.
An Ostritz activist, Georg Salditt, told... (continuer)

Muri, confini, appartenenze e già che ci siamo: Ius soli

For millions of Russians, the invasion of Ukraine presented something of an identity crisis. Previously only identifying with one place for their entire lives while seeing themselves as part of a wider world, being Russian is now something to be ashamed of. While the Russian state should certainly be condemned, it’s often blameless individuals who feel the brunt of negative associations and blanket government actions. For example, the Russian-Tajik superstar and activist Manizha, who represented Russia at Eurovision 2021, finds herself stuck between the country that welcomed her as a child during the Tajik civil war and being currently hindered in her work for human rights. Standing Between Two Walls, directed by DN Alum Director Dasha Guschina, captures this paradox excellently, using movements pulled from everyday life to capture... (continuer)

Мне 30, и кажется, ответ только один:
«Самое большое преступление человека – потерять человека в себе».

Я буду служить собственной музыке. Я буду бороться за человечность. И я не хочу бояться.

Ringraziandovi di avermi fatto scoprire Manizha vi mando altri suoi brani a tema diritti umani

(2024)

Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel::
Doro , Andreas Bruhn

Performed by / Interpreti / Interprétée par / Laulavat:
Doro

Album: Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud

Formazione della band

Doro Pesch – voce
Bas Maas – chitarra
Luca Princiotta – chitarra
Nick Mitchell – basso
Johnny Dee – batteria

(2024)
EP: Unaired

“Nobody’s Soldier” focuses on the experience of witnessing war and violence worldwide in the digital age, including the mental health strain of being exposed to others’ suffering and the frustration of feeling helpless or complicit. Hozier reacts to these feelings by rejecting the pressure to tacitly support war and expressing uncertainty over his own position and impact.

Genius


The civil rights movement that took place here in the United States directly inspired the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, very shortly afterwards in a time and place where not every single person was guaranteed the right to vote.

We’ve been singing this song in solidarity with anybody who has contacted their representatives or put their feet on the street in honest goodwill and human witness of the lived experience of other people on the other side of the world that say... (continuer)

2012
When Our Grandfathers Said No

The Battle of Stockton, took place on 10 September 1933 at the Market Cross in the High Street of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. It was a clash between members of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and anti-fascist demonstrators from the small local Communist Party and National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM).

2023
tiny notes

t ends with one last unaccompanied number, Iuventa, which is about the ship belonging to [Jugend Rettet, a Berlin non-governmental organisation dedicated to rescuing drowning people in the Mediterranean. To date she’s saved some 14,000 but was seized in 2017, the crew now awaiting trial accused of colluding with people smugglers. It’s a quietly rousing anthemic reminder that we are one world and one planet, echoing the refrain from the album opener as they declare “We’re not the clothes we wear/We’re not the scars we bear/We are the song we share”.
brightyoungfolk.com

2023
tiny notes

There’s one final real life story of an inspirational figure. Cooney was commissioned to write The Surgeon, a slow waltzing ballad with sweeping strings and sparse, plangent, piano, for the BBC’s 21st Century Folk project, in tribute to David Nott, a British surgeon who, putting his Christian principles into action, has volunteered to work in many war zones. This song is about a time in Aleppo where he found himself operating on “a man in distress/With a bullet hole wound torn in his chest” only to discover when six men “with knives and machine guns and uniforms black” burst in and watched as he worked, that he was saving the life of a young ISIS fighter. Asked later if he regretted saving him, his reply was no, “for life it is precious and life it is rare/And may my arms always be able to bear”.
brightyoungfolk.com

2023
tiny notes

In 2018 Rachel Robertson asked us to write a song for her brother, Tim Burman. Tim was one of 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing on 21st December 1988 when flight PanAm 103 broke up above the small Scottish town killing all those on board and 11 people on the ground. He was 24 and on his way to New York to spend Christmas with his girlfriend, Rose. Rachel said she didn’t see it as being a sad song but a love song and a song to keep the Lockerbie families' campaign for justice alive.
genius

2023
tiny notes

Trespassers is the last of the 17 songs written for our theatre show The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff. It’s the story of Johnny’s participation in acts of civil disobedience in the 1930s to advocate the Right to Roam – that ‘the right of walking was free’. The most famous trespass took place at Kinder Scout, Derbyshire in April 1932 and led, eventually, to the creation of the National Parks.

2023
tiny notes

Lyra McKee was an investigative journalist from Belfast. She was killed whilst observing a riot in Derry, Northern Ireland in April 2019. She was 29. In her 2017 TED talk she spoke movingly of the moment she came out to her mum. ‘Don’t tell me there’s no hope,’ she said. Her family are still campaigning for #Justice4Lyra. The first three lines are taken from the traditional song The Croppy Boy.
genius

2023
tiny notes

Richard Moore grew up in Derry, Northern Ireland. He described his childhood as growing up in a war zone. When he was 10 years old in 1972 he was hit by a rubber bullet on his way home from school. He was blinded for life. With the help of his devoted family and community he rebuilt his life and went on to found Children in Crossfire, a charity which has for 30 years helped vulnerable young people in developing nations. In 2007 he found, befriended and forgave the soldier who fired the bullet. The Dalai Lama wrote ‘I preach forgiveness, Richard Moore lives it.’
genius

2023
tiny notes

Jack Merritt ‘lived and breathed fire in pursuit of a better world for all humanity’. He worked for an organisation called Learning Together which put Cambridge undergraduates alongside prison inmates to share their unique perspectives on justice. On 29th November 2019 he was killed, along with his colleague Saskia Jones, in the Fishmonger’s Hall terror attack. He was 25. His dad, David Merritt, wrote an incredible tribute to his son in the Guardian a week later, urging people to ‘borrow his intelligence, share his drive, feel his passion, burn with his anger, and extinguish hatred with his kindness’ and to ‘walk through the door he has booted down with his black Doc Martens’.
genius

Jack was proud. Jack was absorbingly intelligent. Jack was fiercely loyal. Jack loved music, art, eating good food with his family, and having more than one pint with his mates. Oh, and in... (continuer)

[2023]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel::
Hannes Braun & Anna “Ace” Brunner

Performed by / Interpreti / Interprétée par / Laulavat:
Rockers United

Album: Stop The War (Fight For Love)

Rock Antenne, la principale rete radiofonica rock nei paesi di lingua tedesca è intervenuta nel 2023 per prendere posizione contro la guerra in corso in Ucraina. Ha coprodotto il disco “Stop The War (Fight For Love)” con un gruppo di noti artisti metal che per l’occasione hanno formato una band con il nome Rockers United . Ne fanno parte gli artisti Doro, Nico Sallach (Electric Callboy), Hannes Braun (Kissin' Dynamite), Nic Maeder (Gotthard), Alea (Saltatio Mortis), Guernica Mancini e Anna “Ace” Brunner (League of Distortion & Exit Eden).
Tutti i proventi del progetto sono stati devoluti all’organizzazione Straßekinder e.V., che sostiene i bambini nelle zone di guerra a livello locale come parte del suo programma “Aiuti d’emergenza all’Ucraina”.
[Riccardo Gullotta]

A parody of Bingen on the Rhine.
From Folk-Songs of the South, Cox
Recorded by Doc Watson
DT #644
Laws H3
@hobo @train @death
filename[ DYINHOBO
RG

Mudcat Cafe' 1998 - 2024

Shannon Wright - Hobos on Parade - 1999.

Shannon Wright.
La primula di Jacksonville.
Polistrumentista, vocalist e cantautrice, Shannon Wright è una delle rivelazioni della nuova scena folk-rock americana. Il suo stile è un raffinato ibrido tra rock e musica da camera. Ma le sue canzoni nascono tutte "dal profondo delle viscere". 
OndaRock.

"The Last Of The Hobo Kings" by Mary Gauthier
Album: Between Daylight and Dark (2007)

Mary Gauthier (New Orleans, 11 marzo 1962) è una cantautrice statunitense di genere alternative country.

2023
Fire Must Cease

Scritto, registrato e prodotto da Adriano Bono per la Adrian Good Records.

Questo nuovo singolo nasce su invito e a supporto della campagna di finanziamento avviata da I.A.F.G., International Artists For Gaza, un collettivo di artisti da tutto il mondo che sta pubblicando diverse compilation su Bandcamp, l'intero ricavato delle quali andrà a finanziare le attività dell'associazione Gaza Freestyle a supporto dei bambini e civili Palestinesi.

La musica, nella migliore tradizione del Reggae, diventa così strumento di solidarietà e di riflessione, oltre che un forte invito all'opinione pubblica affinché si faccia pressione sui governi occidentali sull'attuazione di un immediato "cessate il fuoco" e sull'abbandono della linea dell'appoggio incondizionato al Governo Israeliano.

Enjoy the Music!
LET'S STAY HUMAN!

12 agosto 2024
Bloodbath in Sant’ Anna

Music & Lyrics by Alessandro Baccelle

Il 12 agosto 2024, il gruppo veneto Nabla Operator uscirà con il loro potente singolo e video ‘Bloodbath In Sant’Anna’, un tributo commovente e profondo agli eventi tragici di 80 anni fa a Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

Hobo Jungle – The Band - 1975
Compositore: Robbie Robertson.

Cardboard Box City -The Levellers - 1990

The Levellers are an English rock band, founded in 1988 and based in Brighton, England. The name of the band is drawn from the Levellers, a 17th-century radical democracy movement founded in England during the English Civil War.

Homeless Brother - Don Mc Lean - 1974

[2015]
Testo e musica / Lyrics and music / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Rigolò

Album: Tornado

By refusing to abide by a wall, map, property line, border, identity document, or legal regime, mobile people upset the state's schemes of exclusion, control, and violence. They do this simply by moving.
Rifiutando di rispettare un muro, una carta geografica, un tracciato di proprietà, un confine, un documento di identità o un regime legale, le persone in movimento sconvolgono gli schemi di esclusione, di controllo e di violenza dello Stato. Fanno ciò in modo semplice: spostandosi.

Homeless – Guy Clark - 2002
Fonte: Musixmatch
Compositori: Guy Clark / Ray Stephenson

A Tramp on the Street
Hank Williams Sr. ( 1923 -1953 )

HOMELESS WASSAIL - Ian Robb - 1998
As sung by Finest Kind
From : The Mudcat Cafè
Subject: RE: Homeless Songs - RTim - 06 Aug 24

Credo che il titolo sia sufficiente per descrivere questa meravigliosa canzone........abbiamo bisogno....si abbiamo bisogno di un grande cuore!!!

On Hiroshima Day we remember the massive devastation inflicted by a nuclear attack on civilians. But in so many ways the impact of war on people's lives and on the environment is like many mini Hiroshimas happening in so many places so many times.

Hobo Bill - Cisco Houston

The Folkways Years, 1944-1961

As performed by Cisco Houston
Written by Waldo Lafayette O’ Neal (1908–1980) specifically for Jimmie Rodgers & first recorded by him November 13, 1929.

Lyrics

[recording :1919]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Harry Castling , Arthur John Mills

Performed by / Interpreti / Interprétée par / Laulavat:
Harry Fay

Album: Oh! It's A Lovely War (Vol 4)

Fu una canzone in voga tra le truppe britanniche nella I Guerra Mondiale. Risalire agli autori e al cantante non è stato immediato. Proponiamo qualche nota biografica di quest’ultimo,Harry Fay, per contribuire alla sua memoria.
Henry Thomas Fahey (22 maggio 1878 – 4 settembre 1956) è stato un cantante e comico inglese che ha registrato canzoni popolari tra il 1900 e la fine degli anni '20. Nacque a Liverpool in una famiglia di origine irlandese. Si esibì sul palco nei music hall, prima di incidere dischi per tutti gli anni '10 e '20. Registrò per la Zonophone Records.
Tra le canzoni popolari che registrò ci furono "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?", "By the... (continuer)

Hobo Blues - Cisco Houston

The Cisco Houston Collection 1944-61 - Released 2023

The words don't look like much when removed from Cisco's wonderful singing and playing. This is a splendid performance, worthy of being remastered and certainly among the very best of the Vanguard Years. The same song appears with Woody singing on Muleskinner Blues, Volume 2 of the Asch Recordings, with a different first verse but the same wonderful guitar. He must have liked this tune, for he plays it with a gusto that is a treat.

Cisco Houston: Hobo Blues: Lyrics

Cryderville Jail ( Traditional )

As performed by Cisco Houston ( 1918 – 1961 )

Appears on: LP The Asch Recordings, 1939 to 1945 - Vol. 2

A fine performance that sounds as if it is based on intimate knowledge. The downtrodden get an even shorter end of the stick, with the corrupt lawmen taking advantage.

(2019)
Album: Leylines
feat Ani DiFranco

[1969]
Bert Jansch - Danny Thompson - Jacqui McShee - John Renbourn - Terry Cox
Album / Albumi: Basket of Light

Ma Bert Jansch e John Renbourn si saranno fatti anche loro, verso il 1969, l’operazione alla cataratta…? Sì, perché questa canzone, piuttosto famosa, sembra descrivere alla perfezione ciò che “vedevo” mentre, due pomeriggi fa, l’oftalmologo mi stava demolendo il cristallino vecchio per mettercene uno nuovo e restituirmi alla luce. E’ stata una mezz’ora di visioni bellissime, con un caleidoscopio di colori mai visti (specialmente un turchese di una tonalità che non scorderò mai). E poi, sempre come dice la canzone, sono svanite le nebbie avvolgenti nelle quali ho vissuto gli ultimi mesi...insomma sì, sembrava scritta proprio per me anche se ho il sospetto, neanche tanto vago, che i bravi Pentangle non stessero descrivendo un’operazione di cataratta oculare, ma un bel viaggetto... (continuer)