Song 8: Born In The U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen is another of a small handful of artists to have two songs in the Top 100. The two songs, My Hometown and Born In The U.S.A., are both perfect examples of where the political and the personal come together to wreck lives. My Hometown is about discarded workers, dying towns, and wanting to plant your feet but being pushed to the ground. Born In The U.S.A. is about discarded veterans, a brutal war, and being kicked after you've already been pushed to the ground.

Halifax freelance music writer Ryan McNutt:

Ronald Reagan thought it was a patriotic anthem. Countless writers have considered it a protest song. And somehow, they're both right. "Born in the USA" is an statement of nuanced, complicated nationalism written against the background of the ultimate 'stars and stripes' decade. The song's title and refrain are ironic when paired up against the verses, but not insincere: this is an anthem about what happens when one's love of country runs headfirst into the harsh reality of the times. Springsteen is bemoaning the phrase "Born in the USA"; he's howling for it to mean something profound again.

For more info on how people can learn more about music by actually, you know, listening to music, check out this 2009 article on the 25th Anniversary of this tune.

Song 9: Day After Tomorrow, Tom Waits

Death - the fear of it, the fight against it, creates some beautiful songs.  I do wish more political songs would celebrate life, but the spectre of death and the rich seam of material to mine it creates for artists like Tom Waits will also help your heart grow.

Here's Day After Tomorrow:

Song 10: This Land Is Your Land, Woody Guthrie

Halifax journalist Alex Boutilier demanded This Land Is Your Land be Song No. 1 on the Top 100 Political Music Countdown. I'm contrarian by nature though, and dropped it to No. 10.

Here's Boutilier's defense:

This Land is Your Land has got to be #1. I’m not saying, of course, that anybody who has a lick of political sense is a communist, as Woody was labeled by various critics and friends. To paraphrase Woody: he was never a communist, but he was in the red all his life.

But listen. If you have a song that was recorded in the 1940’s that is still taught to school children – in Canada, no less – and still has some of the verses censored, you’ve got yourself one king hell of a political song.

Verses of Woody Guthrie they don't sing at summer camp:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;

Sign was painted, it said private property;

But on the back side it didn't say nothing;

This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

Song 11: The Partisan, Leonard Cohen

In Ira Nadel's Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen, he writes about a 16 year old Cohen's work as a camp counsellor at Camp Sunshine, where he was introduced to The People's Songbook - they sang from the book every morning: union songs and protest songs - songs of freedom. Parents! Send your kids to soccer camp!

Leonard Cohen's version of The Partisan is haunting. The first time I heard it, I was terrified for the narrator and desperate to figure out the French translation to see what happened next. There are a lot of songs about the futility of war on this Top 100. This one's different:

Song 12: What's Going On?, Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye's album What's Going On is told from the point of view of an American soldier returning from the Vietnam war wondering when the fighting would end. Here's the title track:

Mother, mother

There's too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother

There's far too many of you dying

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today

Father, father

We don't need to escalate

You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today

Song 13: Sunday Bloody Sunday, U2

The military beat of drummer Larry Mullin in Sunday Bloody Sunday could help soldiers step in formation to U2's preacher pacifism. 

Song 14: War, Edwin Starr

Young men are often sent to fight old men's wars. Edwin Starr served 3 years in the military, and asked America what War was good for. The politicians of the day didn't answer.

Here's Starr from '69.

And from the Soul Circuit in England.

Song 15: Redemption Song, Bob Marley

Marcus Garvey visited Nova Scotia in the 20's and 30's and gave a speech in Cape Breton that included this passage: 

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind, because man is related to man under all circumstances for good or ill.

And here's Bob Marley's Redemption Song:

Song 16: Highway Man, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristoffersen, Johnny Cash

The battle continues. Here and there throughout the Top 100 Political Music Countdown, you see references in lyrics to the same fight, sometimes righteous and sometimes futile, re-occuring again and again and again and again.

The Highwayman by Willie Nelson, Kris Kristoffersen, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash is a story of reincarnation and of unending struggle of outlaws, labourers, and spacemen everywhere.

Song 17: Black Boys On Mopeds, Sinead O'Connor

No subtlety here, and no apologies for that either. Margaret Thatcher was awful.

Song 18: Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell

Canadian women make up 22% of the House of Commons, and there are 22 women on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown. Joni Mitchell's on this list twice, one of a handful of artists to break that barrier - a soft voice with big music. 

A quote from Mitchell on the meaning of Big Yellow Taxi:

I wrote Big Yellow Taxi on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was this parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart... this blight on paradise.

Song 19: Changes, 2Pac

These guys work well together.

2Pac's Changes:

Bruce Hornsby's That's Just The Way It Is:

Song 20: If I Was President, Wyclef Jean

I find Haiti politics very confusing. Wyclef Jean was allowed to vote in the Haiti election but not allowed to run. While campaigning in Haiti for another candidate, he was either shot or "cut by broken glass".

This is a blog about political music, but please take the time, right now, to read Graham Greene's The Comedians, set in Haiti under the rule of Papa Doc Duvalier and then make up your own mind who you think should be able to be president of Haiti.

Here's If I Was President, with the terrifying line "I'd be assassinated on Saturday" and the true "then go back to work on Monday."

Song 21: Rockin' In The Free World, Neil Young

Anger at the Mid-East and anger at a kinder, gentler, America. Throughout Neil Young's career he's been all over the political map. Keep on Rockin' In The Free World is one good bloody rant.

Song 22: Spanish Bombs, The Clash

I couldn't have 3 punk bands in a row, so after Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys, I'm putting The Clash, a very nice rock band. 

The voice of the vanquished, Federico García Lorca, makes an appearance in Spanish Bombs. Lorca was poet and one of thousands the right-wing killed during the Spanish Civil War.

Song 23: Holiday In Cambodia, Dead Kennedys

Yuppie-baiters Dead Kennedys brought British punk to sunny California and attacked Western complacency to world events in Holiday in Cambodia.

Song 24: God Save The Queen, Sex Pistols

This isn't so much singing as it is snarling. The Sex Pistols had anger and attitude and proved punk rock could be popular and pervasive. 

God Save The Queen has appeal for anyone, in Britain or out, who grows tired of a rigid class system of good people and bad people, blue collar and white collar, the right side of the tracks and the wrong.

Song 25: Intervention, Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire BOUGHT A CHURCH to record their Neon Bible album.

It's beautiful. If you've been following this list you just knew I'd slip a song about God into the Top 25.

The whole album is inspiring and pessimistic, with characters that are confused and clear, apocalyptic and brimming with life.

From Intervention:

You say it's money that we need

As if we're only mouths to feed

I know no matter what you say

There are some debts you'll never pay

Working for the church

While your family dies

You take what they give you

And you keep it inside

Every spark of friendship and love

Will die without a home

Song 26: Not A Pretty Girl, Ani DiFranco

The patriarchy needs damsels in distress to survive. 

Not A Pretty Girl, by the righteous babe Ani DiFranco, is a must-hear for kids taking Feminism 101.

Song 27: Fortunate Son, Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival's song Fortunate Son was inspired by the marriage of David Eisenhower, the grandson of President D.D. Eisenhower who married Julie Nixon, the daughter of President Nixon.

Guitarist and lead singer John Fogerty told Rolling Stone:

Julie Nixon was hanging around with David Eisenhower, and you just had the feeling that none of these people were going to be involved with the war. In 1969, the majority of the country thought morale was great among the troops, and like eighty percent of them were in favor of the war. But to some of us who were watching closely, we just knew we were headed for trouble.

Song 28: Fast Car, Tracy Chapman

Friends, many of you suggested Tracy Chapman's Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution for this list. But Fast Car is a far superior song. The personal is political.

You got a fast car 

And we go cruising to entertain ourselves 

You still ain't got a job 

And I work in a market as a checkout girl 

I know things will get better 

You'll find work and I'll get promoted 

We'll move out of the shelter 

Buy a big house and live in the suburbs 

You got a fast car 

And I got a job that pays all our bills 

You stay out drinking late at the bar 

See more of your friends than you do of your kids 

I'd always hoped for better 

Thought maybe together you and me would find it 

I got no plans I ain't going nowhere 

So take your fast car and keep on driving 

Song 29: Don't Feel Right, The Roots

Album after album, The Roots deliver a song or two with political heat and light. The Return to Innocence Lost from their breakthrough Things Fall Apart will make you weep after it's through making you ill. Rising Down from the album of the same name tells the story of the earth spinning out of control (metaphorically). The song featured here, Don't Feel Right from Game Theory, was suggested by one of Halifax's best journalists, Metro reporter Alex Boutilier:

It’s a song about the invisible hand, specifically about how the invisible hand lifts a big invisible finger to entire sections of the population.

Song 30: Solidarity Forever, Pete Seegar

If you're interested in politics that works for the people, and need a good laugh, read Helen Creighton and the Rise of Folklore.

Here's a passage from a letter Creighton wrote:

A few days ago I received a copy of Edith Fowke's new book, Songs of Work and Freedom. It is very well done, but what a subject, for these are communist songs. I am embarrassed to know how to thank her. She does this documentary type of study well; I would say it is her forte. But why is it that people like Alan Lomax, Pete Seegar, Peggy Seegar and now Edith, apply folk songs to communist propaganda? ... I remember years ago recording the song Solidarity Forever from a very nice young professor, and it made me shiver. Evangelist songs stir people to good, but trade union songs stir people to hate and to seek their own advancement!

And since we're less then a week from a Canadian election, here's a version by Leonard Cohen:

Song 31: Get Up, Stand Up, Bob Marley

Don't give up the fight.

Song 32: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron

The New Statesman put it best:

Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's 1956 "Howl", or Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues. It is the liner notes to a generation, a relentless stream of cultural references against hand-beaten drums.

Listen to this one twice.

Song 33: Your Revolution, Sarah Jones

Sisters are doing it for themselves. Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah are feminists and rappers who easily could have made this Top 100. But the best critiques of sexism and the patriarchy in rap music is from Sarah Jones. She turns Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised into "Your Revolution will not happen between these thighs".

Warning: the  Federal Communications Commission declared this song INDECENT. Although they later reversed their decision, writing, "the most graphic phrase ('six foot blow job machine') was not repeated," and "We take cognizance of the fact presented in this record that Ms. Jones has been asked to perform the song at high school assemblies." It may offend some guys out there.

Check out The Strange Case of Sarah Jones from the Free Expression Policy Project.

Song 34: Ain't Got No - I Got Life, Nina Simone

I've never understood why fans and critics will, on occasion, take offense with a singer's audacity to take a stand. Why should political questions of poverty, justice, equality and elections be left only to politicians and media moguls? The world is wiser for the artists we've listened to so far on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown. The world needs Nina Simone.

Ain't Got No - I Got Life was on an album released three days after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Song 35: Bread And Roses, Judi Collins

Mary Lu Redden, Director of Halifax Humanities 101, wrote in to pitch Bread and Roses for the PoliMusic countdown:

This is one of my favourite songs of all time, especially as sung by Judy Collins, whose beautiful voice sustained me through some crazy teenage years.

Halifax Humanities 101, the education program of which I am director, is perfectly captured in the lyrics of this song. People who have experienced harsh lives and live on low incomes need all kinds of practical supports - "bread". However, to live a truly full life we all need art and beauty and literature. These are the "roses" for which the song pleads so beautifully. "Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread but give us roses!". I am so privileged to have a job that brings the richness of Humanities education into lives that have experienced poverty, disadvantage and hardship. This song has become something of an anthem for me.

Listen to Judy Collins' version of Bread and Roses here.

And follow Halifax Humanities on Twitter here.

Song 36: Burn Hollywood Burn, Public Enemy

As I walk the streets of Hollywood Boulevard

Thinkin' how hard it was to those that starred

In the movies portrayin' the roles

Of butlers and maids, slaves and hoes

Many intelligent black men seemed to look uncivilized

When on the screen

Like a guess I figure you to play some jigaboo

On the plantation, what else can a n!gger do?

And black women in this profession

As for playin' a lawyer, out of the question

For what they play Aunt Jemima is the perfect term

Even if now she got a perm

So let's make our own movies like Spike Lee

Cause the roles being offered don't strike me

There's nothing that the black man could use to earn

Burn Hollywood burn

Song 37: Somalia, K'naan

Somali-born Canadian rapper K'naan's albums The Dusty Foot Philosopher and Troubador are equally fantastic. It was a very difficult task to decide which one song to include on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown.

I love the brave and fierce Smile:

(Smile) When you're strugglin'

(Smile) When you're in jail

(Smile) When you're dead broke

(Smile) And the rent's due

(Smile) You ain't got friends now

(Smile) And no one knows you

NEVER LET THEM SEE YOU DOWN SMILE WHILE YOU'RE BLEEDING

From his challenge to the warlords of Africa in Soobax to his heart-breaking Fatima, K'Naan is the best political artist to come out so far this century. He's not the next Bob Dylan, he's the first K'naan.

From Somalia:

We used to take barb wire

Mold them around discarded bike tires.

Roll em down the hill in foot blazin’.

Now that was our version of mountain bike racing

Here's a good article from The Coast after The Dusty Foot Philosopher was released.

And an article on K'naan's work to try to get the Canadian government to pass an NDP bill that would make it easier for Canada to export life-saving drugs to developing countries.

Song 38: Everyday People, Sly & The Family Stone

And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo-bee do

(Oh sha sha) We got to live together

Political songs can build bridges. After war overseas and poverty at home, after assassinations and riots, Sly & The Family Stone's 1969 hit Everyday People was a call for justice that you could dance to.

Song 39: Woodstock, Joni Mitchell

With her call to get back to the Garden of Eden and her bombers that turn into butterflies, Joni Mitchell's Woodstock captured a new consciousness of the late 60's and early 70's.

I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm

Gonna join in a rock 'n roll band

I'm gonna camp out on the land

And I'm gonna try and get my soul free

Song 40: Imagine, John Lennon

Asking people to imagine a world without God, country, or possessions is a dangerous thing to do. Sugar-coating that pill with beautiful piano playing made John Lennon's Imagine even more dangerous - it was perfectly crafted for radio play.

Paul McCartney, in an interview with Melody Maker, said: 

I like 'Imagine' which is what John is really like, but there was too much political stuff on the other albums.

Lennon replied in an open letter, writing:

So you think 'Imagine' ain't political, it's 'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself! Join the Rock Liberation Front before it gets you.

Imagine means a lot of things to a lot of people. It's a call to imagine utopia. It's a sign that rock and roll is the devil's work. It's a funeral hymn for a society repressed by an authoritarian culture. It's a song about how far we have yet to go. 

Song 41: Bad Housing Blues, Josh White

Yes, even Presidents listen to music.

Just after Josh White played at Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration, he released Southern Exposure, an album of 6 anti-segragationist songs including Bad Housing Blues.

Roosevelt heard the album after it caused some anger in the American South and he invited White to the White House for a performance. After the show, they spent a few hours talking about White's life, music and the Jim Crow South. At one point, Roosevelt reportedly asked White if the song Uncle Sam Says was about him. White answered:

Yes Mr. President, I wrote that song to you after seeing how my brother was treated in the segregated section of Fort Dix army camp. . . However that wasn't the first song I wrote to you. . . In 1933, I wrote and recorded a song called `Low Cotton,' about the plight of Negro cotton pickers down South, and in the lyrics I made an appeal directly to you to help their situation.

Read more about Josh White in this article from Living Blues Magazine.

Song 42: Get Thee Behind Me Satan, The Almanac Singers

The Almanac Singers believed music could play a role in achieving the goals of the left: equality, good jobs, and a government that worked for the people. 

Almanac members over the years included Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Josh White and Burl Ives. Their greatest and most influential album was their second one - Talking Union - a collection of six labour songs: Which Side Are You On?, Union Maid, Get Thee Behind Me Satan, I Don't Want Your Millions Mister, Union Train and Talking Union, all of which are worth checking out.

There's power in the union, yes, but there's humour too:

Song 43: The Message, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five

Released at the peak of the Reagan recession in the United States, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five's song The Message captured the fear of living in the ghetto: unemployment, poverty and police brutality and was one of the first rap songs to get the attention of mainstream music fans with this depressing but catchy hook:

It's like a jungle sometimes

It makes we wonder

How I keep from going under

Song 44: Definition, Black Star

Black Star (a Talib Kweli and Mos Def project) only made one album. They touch on politics starting with their name, which is a reference to the shipping line of Marcus Garvey, the leader of 1920's pan-African movement.

After the deaths of artists Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., this album, with its message of love, passion and the call to represent and do good, filled a lot of people with the sense that the most important time in history is the moment you're in.

Here's Definition, their dedication to 2Pac and Biggie:

Song 45: And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, The Pogues

Scotsman Eric Bogle wrote And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, after watching a parade in remembrance of a battle, and he incorporated the melody of the Australian song Waltzing Matilda, which some consider to be that country's unofficial national anthem. Irish rock band The Pogues recorded the definitive version.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda

As we stopped to bury our slain

And we buried ours 

And the Turks buried theirs

And it started all over again

Song 46: Joe Hill, Joan Baez

Joe Hill was an activist, songwriter and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He was executed in Utah in 1915 for a crime of which most historians say he was innocent. Just before he faced the firing squad he wrote a letter to a union leader, saying, "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize... Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

Mary Lou Redden, the Director of Halifax Humanities 101, writes about Joan Baez' Joe Hill:

I first heard this song as part of the Woodstock compilation that came out when I was a teenager. I didn't attend Woodstock, but like many of my generation, was  moved by the event and enamoured of the music. But what struck me so much about Joan Baez's performance of Joe Hill was first that it was so pure and simple in the midst of the noisy rock and roll of Woodstock. I've always loved her remarkable voice. But I was also struck by the union of that hippie event with the concerns of the trade union movement. In the city where I lived, there was a strong union movement, based in the dangerous and pollution ridden petro-chemical factories that dominated our landscape. I had naively associated  factory workers with right-wing attitudes towards the concerns of my generation and this song made me reflect on those assumptions and see that the fight for a more just society needed to be inclusive.

Song 47: The Midnight Special, Leadbelly

Midnight Special is believed to have originated from prisoners in the southern US. The first recording was in 1926 but Huddy Leadbetter (Leadbelly) helped to spread the song into the 30's as well. 

The Midnight Special was a train out of Houston. It's lights would momentarily flood the SugarLand prison as it turned down the tracks. Does the narrator see the train as a way out of prison, or is he saying he'd rather be under the train then spend another night in jail?

And another beautiful rendition of this traditional blues song by an artist who deserves to be on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown, but (with apologies) isn't - Odetta.

Song 48: Testify, Rage Against The Machine

When a democracy only has two parties, democracy often loses. And then the people stand up and demand change.

Rage Against The Machine's song Testify uses clips showing the two presidential candidates stating the same policies and views on important issues, from war to (in)action on climate change.

Song 49: Jesus Christ for President, Billy Bragg and Wilco

Woody Guthrie left a thousand song lyrics with no music for them when he died. In 1995, his daughter asked Billy Bragg to write music for an album's worth of songs. Bragg and Wilco released two volumes called Mermaid Avenue in 1998 and 2000.

Christ for President is off the first album. Guthrie often combined biblical references and revolutionary music. This song's less ambiguous. 

Song 50: Hard Rain, Bob Dylan, K'naan and J. Period

In 2009 J. Period and K'Naan made a mixed-tape and did what hip-hop does so very well - sample great music and new material to make a modern powerful composition. They called the mixed-tape The Messengers after three artists that changed music and act as a source of inspiration for K'Naan: Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and Bob Dylan.

From a HipHop DX interview with the artists:

J. Period: If people hear good music they can instantly put that next to bad music and they know which is which. For me, the more people push the envelope in this way, the more Hip Hop goes back to where it began. It was always about taking the breaks and finding the best bits and pieces everywhere. It didn’t matter where it was from. You just put them together in a way that is fresh and new. In essence that is what I try to do with mixtapes. That’s what we’re doing here but on steroids because we have completely different things that are powerful on their own. 

K’Naan: Both Black Thought and Wyclef [Jean] were in the room tonight. Both of them had the same thing to say to me about the project and how they’re really inspired and moved. They wanted to do something. They wanted to go and create. That’s ultimately the job of art. It’s to make us feel like we need to do something.

Song 51: Inner City Blues (Make Me Want To Holler), Marvin Gaye

A few songs on the Top 100 Political Music Countdown thus far have a political take on religion and a few songs bring religion into politics. Marvin Gaye's Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) always struck me as beautiful and interesting for its transition from a fighting stance (Oh Make Me Want To Holler) to a position of prayer (God Bless You, And Keep You). Desperate times for desperate people. The Holy and the Profane.

Song 52: You Haven't Done Nothin', Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder seems like such a sweetheart. Nixon must have really pissed him off. The funk and the trumpets in You Haven't Done Nothin'  hid the anger well enough to make this song a radio friendly hit.

Song 53: My Hometown, Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen is an incredible poet. I struggled with the question of whether to include Youngstown in this list instead of My Hometown. Youngstown is a brilliant song that takes you through the hundred and eighty years in the life and death of Jenny, a Youngstown, Ohio steel blast furnace. My Hometown takes you through three decades of a man's life in a dying town. Youngstown is the more overtly political of the two songs, but My Hometown seems to have touched so many people, seems so real to so many people, that it made the cut.

From Youngstown:

Well my daddy worked the furnaces

Kept 'em hotter than hell

I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer

A job that'd suit the devil as well

Taconite, coke and limestone

Fed my children and made my pay

Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god

Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

From My Hometown:

Now main streets whitewashed windows 
and vacant stores
Seems like there aint nobody wants 
to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill 

across the railroad tracks

Foreman says these jobs are going boys 

and they aint coming back 

to your hometown

Blue Nuit

Song 54: Anarchy, Utah Phillips

Utah Phillips (mixed and with music by Ani DiFranco) can teach a person a lot in six minutes and 28 seconds. Anarchy from the album The Past Didn't Go Anywhere starts with a freight train ride and covers territory that includes patriotism, power, pacifism and privilege.

Song 55: The Proud, Talib Kweli

Amadou Bailo Diallo was born in Liberia in 1975, just 3 days after me. He  grew up in Liberia, Guinea, Togo and Thailand. He liked to read, play soccer and was fluent in 6 languages. He studied in Thailand and Singapore and France. He believed an education meant you could achieve anything. He moved to the United States when he was 24 to continue studying computer science. One early morning in New York City, outside his apartment, while reaching for his wallet, police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou, and hit him with 19. Amadou Diallo is buried in a village in the highland region of Guinea.

The Dialo shooting has been written about by many artists, including Bruce Springsteen's haunting American Skin (41 Shots) and the furious 41:19 by Public Enemy.

Talib Kweli's The Proud deals with a wide range of topics from terrorism, war, violence, guns, racial profiling, and Amadou. It's both haunting and furious. 

Song 56: Man In Black, Johnny Cash

I just can't picture Johnny Cash wearing a rainbow.

Song 57: Little Boxes, Malvina Reynolds

Little Boxes is a pretty delightful satire. As a country boy who likes cities just fine, I don't find Malvina Reynolds song about the suburbs, urban sprawl and conformity to be particularly sanctimonious, but I can see how the good people of the suburbs would. 

In the blog post Political Music - The Criteria, I mentioned dropping a couple artists from the Top 100 list as I drafted and redrafted this countdown. To make up for leaving off The Decemberists, here's their cover of Little Boxes.

Song 58: Cuyahoga, R.E.M.

R.E.M.'s album Lifes Rich Pageant has some beautiful songs with perfect tiny messages, if you have the time to translate the code.

Hyena's always been a favourite of mine, for the lines:

The only thing to fear is fearlessness
The bigger the weapon the greater the fear
Hyena is ambassador to here

And these are the ONLY lines for Underneath The Bunker:

I will hide and you will hide
And we shall hide together here
Underneath the bunkers in the row

I have water I have rum
Wait for dawn and dawn shall come
Underneath the bunkers in the row

Cuyahoga, though, is the song from that album that has stayed with me the longest.

The Cuyahoga River flows into Lake Erie where Cleveland sits. It was so polluted, the river would catch fire.

Song 59: Prayer For The Refugee, Rise Against

Mosh pits were so much fun in college. 

The verses of this Rise Against song are a bit scattered but that's alright by me. There could be more than one narrator in Prayer For The Refugee but it works as well if there's just one: a weary father talking to his tired son, who's also a slave wage worker thinking out loud about the people who have so much while he has so little, who then wakes his son and tells him they won't suffer in silence any more. And each verse is interrupted by a chorus that's an angry shove against people who might give a helping hand once in a while but just let the narrator down again.

Song 60: Revolution, The Beatles

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

I present Zuppa Theatre director Alex McLean's critique of The Beatles' Revolution:

Viewed by many at the time as a betrayal of the anti-war movement, Revolution is about as politically cautious as a song about revolution can be. Generously, one could say that John Lennon's lyrics tap into a growing disenchantment with the utopian promises of the Left. It is probably more accurate, though, to say that "we all want to change the world" became an easy mantra for those lacking well-formed political opinion (except where the draft was concerned), but hungry for facile spiritualism and California grass.

Revolution is a catchy ditty by an apolitical band that had to say something to address the growing unrest of its target audience. It marks the beginning of a tradition of obligatory pop star activism, complete with its own merchandise and one-size-fits-all slogans. In many important ways the world did change in the late 1960s, but not because of the blind, TM-inspired trust that "it's gonna be all right."

Except in one respect: Revolution is a significant political song because it helped validate the anti-political. In a tumultuous historical moment, it gave listeners an "out" that is not provided by songs like Which Side Are You On? The insignificance of the youth vote in the coming Canadian election is a testament to the success of Revolution's message of disengagement. Why take a stand when you've got your own room in the basement? Why read the news when you've got the music?

Here's the short version, if you're pressed for time:

And the White Album version:

Song 61: Which Side Are You On?, Pete Seegar

In 1931, deputies hired by a Kentucky mining company broke into Florence Reece's home and threatened her family. Which Side Are You On? was written by this wife of a union organizer after the ordeal, and the song has been recorded and rewritten by a great many artists in the decades since.

I'm partial to this Pete Seegar version:

Song 62: Swimsuit Issue, Sonic Youth

I'm just here for dictation 

i don't wanna be a sensation 

bein' on Sixty Minutes 

wasn't worth your fifteen minutes

For two thirds of Sonic Youth's Swimsuit Issue, bassist Kim Gordon launches a verbal attack against sexual assault. Then she hits a wall, and in a voice that's somehow bitter, weary and smirking at the same time, lists the names of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models. 

Row-shaan-da 

Joo-dith 

Pau-lee-naa

Song 63: Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner, Warren Zevon

If this isn't true, it should be. Warren Zevon met a guy in a bar in Spain who previously worked as a mercenary in Africa and the two of them wrote Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner together.

Song 64: Education (Another Brick in the Wall), Pink Floyd

Still a favourite of art class kids when I went to high school in the 90's - Pink Floyd's Education is the second part their three-part song Another Brick in the Wall from their rock-opera album The Wall.

The song was banned in South Africa in the 1980's after it became a sort of anthem for a nationwide school boycott protesting apartheid.

Song 65: Levi Stubbs' Tears, Billy Bragg

Off his fantastic album Talking with the Taxman about Poetry, Billy Bragg's Levi Stubbs' Tears is kinda pretty heart-breaking eh?

Song 66: War Pigs, Black Sabbath

British rock band Black Sabbath's War Pigs is a startling composition that should make you need to pick up a guitar.

And of course, for those who prefer some trumpet with your guitar, here's some Cake:

Song 67: I Ain't Marchin' Anymore, Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs described himself as a "singing journalist". In 1968 Ochs performed I Ain't Marching Anymore at the protests outside the Democratic National Convention, inspiring teenagers to burn their draft cards. Ochs was called as a witness during the subsequent trail of the Chicago Seven, who were charged with crimes around the organization of the protest. The judge wouldn't let Ochs sing the song, so Ochs recited the lyrics instead.

It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all

Saturday Night Special: Lovers In A Dangerous Time

At one point, Bruce Cockburn did make an appearance on an early draft of the Top 100 Political Songs Countdown.

Here's Halifax music writer Ryan McNutt's defense of the best two lines in Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

The greatest lyric ever penned by a Canadian? Depending on my mood, I'd make a case for it. At the very least, it contains probably the greatest couplet ever written by a Canuck: "Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight / Got to kick at the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight." The Barenaked Ladies removed the 80s reverb and made a bluegrass folk song out of it, but "Lovers" is best in its original form, perfectly capturing the thrill of romance against a background of political and military anxiety.

The internet, music and politics

Combining the internet, music and politics should be a good thing. When I began this blog, I wanted people to tune into political music as a way of tuning into the election. Music has a way of engaging people in ways a political stump speech just can't.

Unfortunately, the anonymity of the internet can lead to online bullying by local partisans. I've received a few dozen odd emails from people, who support a party I never could, and who seem to delight in making the world a more hostile place where citizens are afraid to speak up and speak out.

I took a break for a few days, thought about it, and have decided not to let these Liberal partisans silence critics.

I have blocked comments, but you can still send your thoughts about the songs that are important to you by writing music@hammerheaddesign.ca Include your name, town, and a few words to serve as a bio.

Song 68: Sam Stone, Laura Cantrell

Written by John Prine, and performed by many, it's this Laura Cantrell version of Sam Stone that I love best. There are a lot of songs about war on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown. Some are angry, some are anti-establishment, some are are mournful songs for soldiers.

Listen here.

Song 69: You Don't Own Me, Leslie Gore

Leslie Gore's You Don't Own Me held the number 2 spot on the Billboard charts for four weeks, behind the Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand.

To my ears, this song seems almost-feminist-but-not-quite-feminist, but I've been told by people with more wisdom than I that, for the 60's, this song radiated independence and helped influence some pretty fierce teenagers.