[2017]
Music & lyrics: Shaun Friedman

Song responding to too many killings and school shootings ..

(2012)
Album: Banga

Smith penned this prayer-like rocker for the people of Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated their country in 2011.

The New Yorker uses Japan's highest and most symbolic mountain to help convey her feelings about the tragedy.

"Knowing that my country dropped two atom bombs on Japan and killed a couple of hundred thousand people has always been something I've felt a certain amount of pain about. I imagined the people having to deal with this new situation with the threat of a nuclear disaster. I didn't want to write something directly about that but I wanted to show the Japanese people solidarity and love."

*

Smith ha scritto questa sorta di preghiera per il popolo giapponese in seguito al terremoto e allo tsunami che hanno devastato il loro paese nel 2011.

La newyorkese usa la montagna più alta e simbolica del Giappone per esprimere i... (continuer)

2019
Natural Born Sinners

[1947]
Lyrics & music by Homer Harris and Lester Melrose
Album: Chigago Blues: The Beginning [1971]

.. and suddenly the cold war (never ended) turns into a hot one and with it the nightmare of "The Bomb" returns .. Let's start all over again ..

(2020)

1992
Deserters

Elena’s Shoes looks at the remnants of a toppled regime, noting the excesses of those in power as the people starve. Riffing on the infamous footwear collections of Elena Ceaușescu and Imelda Marcos, the band use a ludicrous image to make a powerful point.

1992
Deserters

1992
Deserters

(1999)
Album: To the Teeth

I wrote this song after Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot and killed by an anti-choice zealot in my hometown of Buffalo and then, soon there-after, the Southside Abortion Clinic was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

The year was 1998. i have been digitizing my old master tapes and this is an out-take (not the version that appeared on the album) so Julie Wolf’s piano is not there, which was done as an overdub. this is just me, Jason Mercer on bass and Daren Hahn on drums.

I share this today because i am so very grateful that i was not forced to give birth at age 18 and then again at age 20. i had my two children at age 36 & 42 and being their mom has been the greatest joy of my life. I owe such a huge debt to the incredibly brave women and men who have risked their lives on a daily basis to provide abortion services. I owe you my life. the life i have chosen and... (continuer)

Testo dal video della CBS 1959

Water,boy where you hidin'?

An important liberation song in the history of slavery and the civil rights movement is Water, Boy. It is a slave work song, a somber reminder of the conditions black people were forced to live through. Water is as valuable as saffron on the field of a plantation, but I assume it's absence was as normalized as the sun rising and setting everyday. I assume the enslaved weren't given enough water (or anything, if anything) to keep them in good health as forced laborers. I'm sure the white overseers and slaveowners made sure to keep their thirst quenched, though. It's been said, they demanded water and would get the attention of the waterboy by singing Water, boy where you hidin?

Today when this song is performed it is titled “Waterboy” instead of “Water, Boy” and I equate this to trying to soften up the history, but let’s not forget... (continuer)

Volodymyr the Brave
© 2022 Tony Smith

While the song mentions the President of Ukraine specifically, it is meant as praise for all Ukrainians in their resistance against the illegal and brutal Russian invasion. President Zelensky stands for Ukraine in a way which few politicians could claim to do in their countries.

2020
Dall'album / From the album In The Ruins They've Left Us, We'll Plant Gardens Still

Richard Carlile (8 December 1790 – 10 February 1843) was an important agitator for the establishment of universal suffrage and freedom of the press in the United Kingdom

1993

Inspired by the Warrington bombings of 1993, similarly to ''Long Long Way to Go'' it discusses that people can get too familiar with violent events when they are part of the daily news, but when it affects them personally, that's a different story...

1985

Painful realisation that for some people war in another part of the world is just "bad news", never realizing that behind their 5 minute entertainment there is the death and suffering of other people. But sure, switch it off....

6 marzo 2022

A QUIET LIFE, an original song from Richard Jenkins. The inspiration for this song was a poem call A Quiet Life, written by Alexander Pope (1688-1744). In fact I've only used seven words from the original which was a bucolic ode to living, working and being buried in your own soil. When I wrote it I was thinking of the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya.

I recorded and posted it thinking of UKRAINE

2002

(1990)
dall'album Headroom

Tristissima e bellissima canzone su un amico morto in Vietnam nel fatidico anno 1967. Non ho idea come tra le più di 34000 canzoni presenti finora, questa ancora non fosse stata inserita!

(1977)

(8 aprile 2022)
poi nell'album RUSH! pubblicato nel gennaio 2023

I Måneskin tornano con una instant song in inglese che si rivolge direttamente a Putin e all'esercito russo. Come fate a dormire? Il sangue delle vittime che avete provocato non vi tiene svegli la notte? Non un messaggio originalissimo, ma comunque efficace. La canzone fa parte del progetto “Stand Up for Ukraine”.

Here Måneskin talk to Putin/the Russian army, asking them how they can live with the guilt of causing the death of thousands of people in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Doesn’t the blood of all those people on their hands keep them up at night?
Genius

We’ve been writing a lot of music these past few months, so of course this whole fucking insane situation with Ukraine really affected us. We just felt like we could do something to use our privilege and the people that look up to us to stand for what’s right,... (continuer)

[1987]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Christine Lavin

Interpreti / Performed by / Interprétée par / Laulavat:
1.Christine Lavin
Album: Beau Woes and other problems of modern life

2.Meghan Glogower

M come Minchiate
Tra la pace (armata…ssst… non si dice) e il condizionatore acceso nessun dubbio: il condizionatore acceso

Sunflowers of Ukraine
© Tony Smith 2022

2021

I wrote this song dedicated to JULIAN ASSANGE.
I would have liked to release it on the disc scheduled for the end of 2022, but it is necessary to pay everyone's attention so that as many voices as possible are raised to defend a man who fought for our freedom.
It is a battle for human dignity for the defense of rights.
It's about us all. We cannot look away.
This song is for Julian Assange.

1995
Decolonize

2016
January 26

Described by The Guardian as being a ‘mic drop on the nation’, ‘January 26’ is a protest anthem unlike any other.

Penned by Indigenous MCs Briggs and Trials and featuring a hook from Dan Sultan, ‘January 26’ sees A.B. Original tear into the celebration of Australia Day on January 26 when James Cook first docked in Botany Bay: a date which many Aboriginal Australians associate with the ongoing persecution and systematic genocide of their people.

Although the date is set to be changed, ‘January 26’ undeniably flung the conversation into the conscience of the mainstream, and acted as a history lesson for many a young Australian raised in an educational system that tends to glance over such details.