2020
Negro

[2013]
Lyrics & music by Alun Parry
Album: When The Sunlight Shines

"I got involved with the Shrewsbury Pickets Justice Campaign during the Summer of 2009.
The campaign is the continued fight for an official pardon for the people targeted by the state during the National Building Strike in the 1970's.
Using the Conspiracy Act, never designed or used before to cover trade union activities, the bosses of the construction industry teamed up with the Tory Government to put our people in jail.
One was Ricky Tomlinson, now well known to all as a famous and talented actor.
Another was a working class hero by the name of Des Warren (1937-2004).

Des had a terrible time in prison. They wouldn't give him his own spectacles, or shoes that fit.
They also gave him the “liquid cosh”. This is where the prison service administers drugs to inmates it considers awkward.
Dessie and Ricky insisted,... (continua)

1968

The song "There in Viet Nam" (Bubbie Records # 1003) - a country music track that took an anti-war position. It placed a strong emphasis on the contrast between the voting age (21) and the draft age (18).

The narrator also expressed moral and religious opposition to the war, quoting the bible: "thou shall not kill". Yet, she also defended the previous generation's conflict as a just war for freedom: "his daddy fought in World War Two so that we can live in peace".

Released in Midwest City, Oklahoma. Written by B. Willow. Produced by Frank Dell.

Vietnam War Songs Project

The country anti-war track "Viet Nam" (Green Mountain # GM-101), by the obscure artists Pat Bohlman and Edwin Maderia, expressed the view that the war was harming the US, but it also noted the ongoing peace negotiations in Paris, which the song described as "doing well". The negotiations started in Paris in 1968, and were mainly conducted by Henry Kissinger (National Security Adviser to President Richard Nixon, 1969-1974) and his North Vietnamese counterpart Lê Ðức Thọ.

Vietnam War Songs Project

(2018)
Words and music by Amanda Shires
Album: To the Sunset

The idea struck when she experienced “cat calling that’s become okay again,” then expanded to include her thoughts on climate change and capitalism, “but it’s bigger than that,” Shires clarifies. “The song deals with fear and all the ways it discourages the expression of our individual identities. It’s about the walls we put up to protect ourselves and the way those walls become prisons.”

Amanda Shires Archives - The Kessler Theater

1970
Single The War Is Over / You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

Anti Vietnam war song "The War Is Over" (RCA Victor # 74-0309) referenced Richard Nixon, criticizing him for ignoring the protesters and prolonging the war. It also noted a protester being killed, which in the case of Michael James Brody Jr. won't make any difference because he will be reborn.

[2000]
Lyrics & music by Jamie Fota
Album: Just Earth: One Planet, One Peole, One Future [2017]

“When I was commissioned to write a song for the annual Westheimer Peace Symposium in Wilmington, Ohio, I wanted to address the root causes of violence, both global and interpersonal. This song is my cry for a world based on justice and peaceful conflict resolution”. — Jamie.

(1996)
Title track dell'ultimo album di Curtis Mayfield
Scritta da Curtis Mayfield, Raimundo Thomas & Brian Fleming

Il 13 agosto 1990 Curtis Mayfield fu vittima di un gravissimo incidente. Durante un concerto a Brooklin l'impianto di illuminazione cadde sul palco colpendo il cantante e fratturandogli la colonna vertebrale. In seguito all'incidente Mayfield rimase paralizzato dal collo in giù. Nove anni dopo, a soli 57 anni, Mayfield se ne andava per le complicazioni dell'incidente e per il diabete di cui soffriva.

Ma nel 1996 era riuscito a incidere, pur con mille difficoltà, il suo ultimo album, che si apriva con questa canzone di speranza che rovesciava il significato del termine impiegato da Bush fin dal 1990 per indicare la Pax Americana, una pace che puzzava fin troppo di guerra. Nella canzone invece il nuovo ordine mondiale è un sinonimo di speranza dei milioni di persone... (continua)

1964

Nathan McKinney recorded the doo-wop track "Weep No More", composed by the blues man Len Johnson. The song, released on the Los Angeles based label Rayco Records (R-526), founded by Floyd Ray, contained themes of the Vietnam War. It is narrated from the soldier's perspective, who tells us that "Uncle Sam is calling for me", and that he is resigned to leaving those he loves: "So I guess I'll have to go".

Vietnam War Songs

[1968]
Lyrics & Music by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid
Album: Salty Dog [1999 reissue bonus track]

Produced by Denny Cordell and recorded 10/07/68, this is an unreleased performance mixed down from the original four-track tape, that was originally intended to be included on the Shine On Brightly album. Brooker's vocal on this track is merely there to guide the group as they work out the song in the studio, and is obviously not representative of how any finished version of this track would have sounded. It is, however, the only surviving take of McGreggor to feature any kind of vocal performance, and as such the historical importance of the whole outweighs the technical imperfections of any of its parts!
 

(1969)
Musica un po' copiata da You Ain't Go Nowhere (da The Basement Tapes di Bob Dylan & The Band interpretata anche da The Byrds)



Double-sided Vietnam War single by Chicano soul group Six Pak, released on the Californian label Gordo (# 704), founded by Eddie Davis (a sub-label of his Rampart Records). Both tracks had a Latin Soul feel to it - of course, the label focused on Mexican Americans.

This formed part of the West Coast 'Eastside Sound' music scene. According to the president of Rampart Steven Chavez: "almost 50% of the artists from the East Side Sound era served in combat roles in Viet Nam, losing their innocence to a war in the prime of their youth, and returned to a changed American music scene that pretty much turned their back on them with the advent of new genres like hard rock, heavy metal, punk, disco and the like".

Firstly, the group covered the song "Weep... (continua)

[2017]
Lyrics by Gary Brooker
Music by Gary Brooker and Josh Phillips
Album: Novum

“Soldier” starts pensive and it’s a solid Procol Harum old fashion melody. Everything is as it was during “Shine on Brightly”, – powerful, melodic, haunting, and Whitehorn once again slips into a perfect lead guitar role with that signature Hammond-organ riding the finale with beautiful horns. Pete Brown takes a respectable lyrical page from Keith Reid with political-sturdy verses. No pomposity. This one has an emotional melody that is relevant and time and care to this music: applied. No one in rock music since 1967 has ever approached the literate rock of this band and how it marries their intense music and arrangement to the presentation. Some come close, Van der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, PFM (but what they lack is a solid foundation in the blues - that which Procol Harum possesses and understands). Potency…that’s the word that best describes Procol Harum yesterday…and today as well !

1971
Super Bad



Come al solito ho cercato di integrare all'ascolto il testo parziale pubblicato su Vietnam War Songs, in questo caso con scarso successo...

(1972)
dall'album Back Stabbers

(1971?)

Double-sided anti-Vietnam War single, with the tracks "Why Is It?" and "When I Come Home"

(1971?)

Double-sided anti-Vietnam War single, with the tracks "Why Is It?" and "When I Come Home" (A & G Records # AG 2041) - this label was almost certainly based in New York, with A & G standing for Al Grannum, a radio DJ for WLIB. His program in the late 1960s and early 1970s focused on R&B groups. This record was released under the name "Al Grannum & the Granulated Souls". There is a picture of Grannum in a 1971 article from the The Daily Register, based in Red Bank, New Jersey, in which Grannum was helping out at a community party. Is there a connection to Hugh Grannum, the Detroit based photographer? The record was also released in Jamaica - Why Is It? / When I Come Home (Dynamic Sounds # AG 2041).

So in the first track, "Why Is It?", the narrator, in spoken-word, said that he was "sick and tired" of hearing about children starving and "soldiers dying". He wanted to... (continua)

1972

1968

In the blues / gospel track "Viet Nam" (Gospel Corner Records # GC-127) Madame Nellie Robinson pleaded for the conclusion of the Vietnam War - "settle this war in Vietnam" - in order to stop people from dying: "lord have mercy, a child is dying". It considered the pain felt by those fighting: "soldiers laying in mud". It also looked at the family and friends of soldiers in the US: "mothers and fathers at home crying". Robinson signed to the label Gospel Corner, based in Los Angeles, California, by Brother Hudson in 1968, a subsidiary of Proverb Records.

Composed by Madame Nellie Robinson. Produced by Bro. Henderson.

Vietnam War Songs Project

(1971)

The 1971 track "See What You Done, Done (Hymn No. 9)" about a Vietnam veteran who became a drug addict, was composed by Atlanta, Georgian soul singer Delia Gartrell and her husband James T. Shaw, otherwise known as The Mighty Hannibal (he also released a Vietnam War song in 1966 with a similar name, but different theme - Hymn No. 5). This Delia Gartrell single, originally released on the obscure Atlanta label Demin-Kalo (# JS-2/JS-3), was soon after picked up by the larger New York label Right-On Records (RR0-109).

Hannibal explained in an interview the inspiration for writing "See What You Done, Done": "Me and my wife were watching the news and Walter Cronkite was talking about how all the soldiers were coming back from Vietnam addicted to opium". Thus, the song provides a representation of veteran drug addiction associated with the Vietnam War:

Vietnam War Song Project

(2015)

The massacre at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June is just the latest in a string of racially charged events that have broken my heart. There are a lot of things to fix in this world, but history says if we don't address this canker, centuries in the making, these things will continue to happen. No matter what level privilege you have, when the system is broken everybody loses. We all have to speak up when injustice happens. No matter what. And music is one of the best way I know to do so. — Rhiannon Giddens

Il massacro nella chiesa di Charleston non è che l’ultimo di una serie di atti razzisti che mi hanno spezzato il cuore. Ci sono molte cose da sistemare in questo Paese e la storia dice che continuerà a succedere se non ci occupiamo di questo flagello che è in corso da secoli. Quando il sistema non funziona perdono tutti, anche i privilegiati. Dobbiamo... (continua)

1971
(David Sheffield)

Soul song called "Bring My Buddies Back" (Stone Lady # SL-006), which had a very similar sound and theme to Freda Payne's "Bring The Boys Home" - except in this case the plea came from the perspective of a war veteran, asking the government to end the war and send his friends home.

The very first line actually referenced Payne, saying: "Hey Freda, maybe you were right". The song went on to recall one of his friends dying in Vietnam because of the "lack of doctors". Not much is know of this group. They probably came from the East Coast - their label Stone Lady was based in New Jersey, founded by David L. Sheffield, who composed this and most of the songs on their album. The members of the group were Luis Farinas (tenor vocals), Doug Green (lead vocals), Greg Jackson (tenor vocals), and Tony Matthews (bass vocals).

This song also featured on the album "Bring My Buddies Back" (Stone Lady # 1001), the front cover of which has a painting of marching troops in Vietnam.

Vietnam War Songs Project

1967

From the album "Hey, Hey...LBJ! Songs of the U.S. Antiwar Movement" (Crisis Records # LP-001 / US / LP / 33rpm)

Dean Rusk (1909-1994) segretario di stato dal 1961 al 1969 sotto le presidenze di Kennedy e Johnson e convinto sostenitore della guerra in Vietnam.

1970

Citazione della canzone popoloare When Johnny Comes Marching Home (vedi Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye)

Pubblicato in Broadside #83 (Agosto 1967)

1970
alla chitarra Peter Green dei Fleetwood Mac

The title referred to several people arrested outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago in August 1968 for inciting riots. Originally eight people stood trial, all high profile activists - Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin from the hippie movement, the Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, political activists Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, and Tom Hayden (married to Jane Fonda . The trial began on 24 September 1969, but soon after the Judge, Julius Hoffman, ordered Bobby Seale to be bound and gagged for contempt of court. He was tried separately, and thus the eight became seven .

( da Vietnam War Song Project )

The lyrics suggested that large coverage of the Chicago Seven, as well as the "four dead in Ohio" - a reference to the Kent State shootings on 4 May 1970 - was because those involved were white: "nobody seems worried about all the black blood spilled". The song ended with a guitar solo with police siren sound-effects in the background.

( da Vietnam War Song Project )

(2020)
Scritta da BloodPop®, BURNS & Lady Gaga
dal nuovo album Chromatica

Lady Gaga è tornata con un album tutto da ballare, che contiene praticamente solo potenziali hit da dancefloor. Chromatica ha segnato il ritorno della cantante ai ritmi dance che ne hanno decretato il successo, mettendo parte il pop-rock di Joanne e le ballate country della colonna sonora di A Star is Born.

Nonostante il titolo prometta tanti colori diversi, il disco non risulta particolarmente vario, e anche a livello di testi non si vola molto alto (a parte la splendida 911, descrizione accuratissima degli effetti degli psicofarmaci contro i disturbi bipolari), ma spicca sicuramente questa coinvolgente Replay, in cui la cantante parla apertamente del PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) che si porta dietro dallo shock per la violenza sessuale subita a diciannove anni. "Le cicatrici che ho in testa non se ne vanno, e continuano a suonare in loop". Una canzone onesta e toccante.

(1973)
Words and music by Ron Turner
Broadside #123

Frank James Clearwater (1925-1973) – Find a Grave...

Frank Clearwater era un Cherokee (e non Apache come dice la canzone) ucciso da un maresciallo dell'esercito statunitense durante una protesta per i diritti dei nativi americani nel luogo simbolico di Wounded Knee.

1973
album: Broadside Number Seven

(1968)

(1968)

Scritta per la campagna del democratico Eugene McCarthy che alle primarie democratiche per scegliere il nuovo candidato in vista della fine del mandato di Johnson, presentò una piattaforma pacifista criticando aspramente il suo compagno di partito LBJ e denunciando la sua volontà di escalation in Vietnam.

McCarthy non vinse le primarie, gli fu preferito Hubert Humphrey, vice di Johnson che fu comunque sconfitto dal candidato repubblicano Richard Nixon.

[2020]
Notes from a Failed State

(2013)
Album: Build Me Up From Bones
Parole e musica di Sarah Jarosz

June 1970



Il testo non è completo. Cercheremo di completarlo all'ascolto.

I Can't Breathe
[2020]

Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Major Myjah

A George Floyd,


[Riccardo Gullotta]

Songs of the Wall

A double-sided Vietnam War single released in 1984 in the classic rock style, took a strong anti-war position. The record was released by Vietnam War veterans from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Words and music by W.B. Scherer. The song "58000+" is certainly one of the most interesting on this list lyrically, which suggested breaking-up the Memorial Wall in D.C., to build a road of peace: "there's a black wall...we'll break it up and turn it all to gravel". The song called for people to stop politicians from leading people to war: "we are to blame if we haven't learnt...fight politicians of war to pave the future". The beginning of the song focused on the impact of the memorial on veterans, who may have felt guilt, having lost many friends in the war, as well as dealing with war memories (which may be a reference to PTSD *). The picture sleeve featured a drawing of the memorial... (continua)

A beautiful contemporary folk song, "Long Black Wall" , one of the first songs written and released about the memorial. It looked back at the idealistic early days of the war, wanting to fight communism and become a soldier.
Then he recalled the growth of the protest movement, referencing demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968.
It then looked at the college days
with a reference to President Richard Nixon , and hippie culture. The song then turned to the impact of the war on the returning veterans.
( da Vietnam War Song Project )



Il Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("Memoriale dei veterani del Vietnam") è un memoriale di guerra degli Stati Uniti. Si trova a Washington, e onora i membri della forze armate americane che combatterono e persero la vita durante la guerra del Vietnam. In ordine cronologico vengono elencati i nomi delle 58.318 vittime... (continua)

from The Other Side, released August 31, 2015



I Can't Breath, non respiro! Le stesse parole di Eric Garner 5 anni fa e oggi di George Floyd, afroamericano di 46 anni, ucciso per soffocamento da un agente di polizia a Minneapolis, USA davanti a diversi passanti che hanno iniziato a riprendere la scena. Nel video si vede il poliziotto che lo blocca a terra con un ginocchio all'altezza del collo rimanendo in quella posizione con tutto il peso del corpo per diversi minuti nonostante le proteste dei presenti.

[1930]
Parole e musica di Geeshie Wiley, nata Lillie Mae Scott (1908-1950?), cantante e chitarrista country blues, forse originaria della Louisiana. Si sa pochissimo di lei, salvo che, in duo con l'amica L.V. Elvie Thomas (1897-1979), incise 6 canzoni per la Paramount pubblicate tra il 1930 ed il 1931.
Riprendo il testo di questa sua canzone dalla tesi di laurea di AnneMarie Cordeiro intitolata Geechie Wiley. An Exploration of Enigmatic VirtuosityGenius, Arizona State University, 2011.
L'unico articolo in italiano significativo su questa oscura figura di blueswoman è di Licia Vignotto, "Geeshie, sulle tracce del più intricato mistero del blues", pubblicato qualche anno fa su Soft Revolution. Però l'autrice, nell'assenza quasi totale di informazioni attendibili sulla vita e sul destino di Geeshie Wiley, si sofferma di più sulla figura di Elvie Thomas. All'interno dell'articolo c'è un rinvio... (continua)

1985
Theatre Of Pain

The Tree of Forgiveness - 2018

L' Autore dichiara palesemente , con il suo abituale tono bonario ed ironico, di non identificarsi piu' con un mondo condizionato da un certo tipo di Scienziati. Preannunciano la fine del mondo, hanno umiliato Plutone degradandolo da Pianeta a Star di Hollywood, nei loro laboratori fanno esperimenti sulle capre di montagna . Dovrebbero invece lasciare l'universo integro. Lui da tempo vive rifugiandosi negli affetti dei suoi famigliari e del suo cane. Note personali .

Album: Here We Rest (2011)

A song about a soldier returning home from war, grateful for how much better “home” is than the world he’s seen during he’s service, and grateful that’s still alive to enjoy it. Namely, he’s grateful for the woman he’s returning to and makes repeated promises to appreciate her.


“When you’re in a small town, there’s a higher percentage of people that fight overseas. I’m not an anti-war person, but I do think a stupid idea is a stupid idea. It’s hard to filter through the media and see what the truth is nowadays. It’s almost impossible, but some ideas seem like good ones and some seem like bad ones. I try to go on a case-by-case basis. Surely I wouldn’t say we shouldn’t have participated in World War II, but at the same time, I don’t necessarily think the Iraq war was the best idea.

But either way, I’m not here to make policy. My main concern is with individuals... (continua)

[2018]
Parole e musica di David Rovics
Album: Historic Times

Soldier
[2011]

Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel:
Amatorski

Profesjonalny anziché Amatorski avrebbe dovuto scegliere come nome, secondo me, questa band che ha fatto dell’understatement un punto di merito.
Una voce sussurrata, fragile, come fragile sembra l’intersezione delle parole con una musica semplificata ma non semplice. Attenzione però, dietro il lamento disarmato, la sofferenza pulsante della carne, c’è uno dei più forti atti di accusa contro la guerra e i guerrafondai. Un esempio tipico del detto anglosassone: “Good things come in small packages”.

Le parti interpretate dal coro sono trascritte con il rientro.
[Riccardo Gullotta]

(2020)
Parole di Eddie Vedder
Musica di Mike McCready
dall'album "Gigaton"

Il video di Retrograde diretto dal regista australiano Josh Wakely esplicita il significato di questa bella canzone dall'ultimo dei Pearl Jam.

Un uomo guida attraverso la pioggia e arriva ad un centro commerciale, dove si trova lo studio di un sensitivo. Guardando in una sfera di cristallo, l'uomo vede la devastazione della Terra: i ghiacciai si sciolgono e le inondazioni investono città e monumenti in tutto il mondo, tra cui la Torre Eiffel e lo Space Needle a Seattle. I membri della band escono dalle carte dei tarocchi e iniziano a marciare. Mentre le acque continuano ad alzarsi si scopre che la chiromante è Greta Thunberg.

The song is That’s How Every Empire Falls. It was written by a hitherto unknown Knoxville singer-songwriter, R.B. Morris (website), and appears on his Spies, Lies and Burning Eyes. John Prine recorded a masterful, haunting (as only John can do) cover in 2008 on his Fair and Square EP.

da :

Tikun Olam תיקון עולם

Album John Prine

Notable covers: Jackie DeShannon, John Denver, Johnny Cash

"Paradise" is a song written by John Prine for his father, and recorded for his 1971 debut album, John Prine. Prine also re-recorded the song for his 1986 album, German Afternoons.

The song is about the devastating impact of strip mining for coal, whereby the top layers of soil are blasted off with dynamite or dug away with steam shovels to reach the coal seam below. The song is also about what happened to the area around the Green River in Kentucky because of strip mining. The song references the Peabody Coal Company, and a town called Paradise in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where the Tennessee Valley Authority operated the Paradise Fossil Plant, a coal-fired electric generating station.

The area has suffered serious economic downturn because of the decline of coal mining, caused mainly by the abundance of natural... (continua)

(2005)
Album: Fair & Square

This is political commentary from Prine on George W. Bush. Prine said in song notes at his website that he didn’t want to die with people not being sure where he stood on Bush.

[1966]
Lyrics & music by Barry Sadler
Album: Ballads of the Green Berets

Ballads of the Green Berets topped the album charts in 1966 and the title track reached number one and number two, respectively, on the pop and country charts. Despite the Hollywood heroism of the hit single, the album offered an occasionally gritty portrait of the war and, unlike Johnny Seay's American Reflections album from the same year, focused on the dedication and hardships of American men and women in Vietnam rather than explicitly political or patriotic concerns. Sadler wrote all of the material himself, and his sentimental vignettes struck a chord with Americans who were desperate for a less-contentious perspective on the war. Mostly a historical artifact today, Ballads of the Green Berets is a nostalgic trip back to a tumultuous time. The 1997 CD reissue offers "The 'A' Team,"Sadler's only other hit... (continua)

[1982]
Lyrics & music by William Aylesworth
Album: Organic Plante [2004] by Frances Plante-Scott (1)

This is a political protest song against nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Originally recorded by Malibu, CA band Flashback in 1982. This is a reboot recorded for Frances Plante-Scott's 2004 album 'Organic Plante' on Orchard Records.
Nuclear-Bomb.jpg

"I wrote this song when Ronald Reagan was president of the US and there was a large cold war arms race going on and the Three Mile Island meltdown disaster had just happened. The movies The China Syndrome and Silkwood all came out around this time as well.

Duet with Frances Plante-Scott(1) and Bill Aylesworth on vocals. All instruments performed by Bill Aylesworth.

[1991]
Album: Swain's First Bike Ride

Canzone pacifista dei Fifteen, un inno all'umanità.
Sfiderei chiunque a dire di essere contrario al mondo ideale creato dal gruppo in questa canzone, se ti è rimasta anche solo un minimo di umanità non potrai che essere d'accordo con il messaggio passato da Jeff Ott e gli altri componenti del gruppo.

[1991]
Album: Swain's First Bike Ride

Canzone pacifista dei Fifteen, un inno contro la guerra e contro le divisioni tra essere umani, il gruppo sogna un mondo in pace e armonia, senza né vincitori né vinti, ma solo cooperazione e fratellanza