Top 20 political songs

[Baldhead Selector]

The 20 songs below were voted for by New Statesman readers and members of the Politcal Studies Association.

The list, published in this week's magazine, features spoken word, punk nihilism and folk protest. To listen to the songs, together with a commentary by Jonathan Derbyshire and Professor John Street, go to newstatesman.com/podcasts.

Meanwhile, we take you through the top 20 political songs, looking at the ideas that gave rise to them and the reasons for their success. Please feel free to comment on our inclusions, and to point to anything or any songs that we might have missed.

1. Woody Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land
2. The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela
3. Bob Dylan - The Times They are a-Changin'
4. Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit
5. Claude de Lisle - La Marseillaise
6. U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
7. Eugene Pottier - The Internationale
8. Robert Wyatt/Elvis Costello - Shipbuilding
9. Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen
10. William Blake - Jerusalem
11. The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
12. Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name
13. Tracy Chapman - Talkin' 'bout a Revolution
14. Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam
15. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?
16. Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
17. Bob Marley - Redemption Song
18. John Lennon - Imagine
19. Pete Seeger - Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
20. Tom Robinson - Glad to Be Gay

[lankou2]

Wot ? No God Save The Queen nor any SLF tunes from their first 2 LP's ?

5. Claude de Lisle - La Marseillaise
That's Rouget de Lisle, btw. As a french person, i think some verses should be obliterated into oblivion, they should belong to the past, full stop. They reflect a certain era, of course, but they just portray a blood-thirsty nation, with all its xenophobic references. Well, anyway, its orginal title was Warsong of the Rhine Army. Covered in reggae by Serge Gainsbourg and a lot of the main JA musicians of the roots reggae days. All national hymns should be instrumentals.

[finbar]

"Impeach the President" - The Honeydrippers (1973)

[gryffe]

no6 - haha

[lankou2]

Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Won't be Televised
What surprises me is that there's always some room for Marvin Gaye but all too rarely for Curtis Mayfield, who mostly wrote superior lyrics, imho. Lots of political stuff in his songs, among which Mighty Mighty.
some other pointers :
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy : Television the Drug of a Nation or, on a similar vibe, stuff by Consolidated.
Well, well, well, no song by the Dead Kennedys ? that's highly suspicious, eh eh !
List-mania sucks, people even make money outta them !

[DJ Greedy G]

Maggie's Farm - Bob Dylan and an honorable mention to Solomon Burke's version.

G

[zapatoo]

Pass me the razor blades - my wrists look very inviting!

Love that Honeydrippers' shot David (checked that on Alaga back in '73)

[Deleted]

Mar 26, 2010 17:27:48 GMT lankou2 said:

Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Won't be Televised
What surprises me is that there's always some room for Marvin Gaye but all too rarely for Curtis Mayfield, who mostly wrote superior lyrics, imho. Lots of political stuff in his songs, among which Mighty Mighty.
some other pointers :
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy : Television the Drug of a Nation or, on a similar vibe, stuff by Consolidated.
Well, well, well, no song by the Dead Kennedys ? that's highly suspicious, eh eh !
List-mania sucks, people even make money outta them !

Love the Disposable Heroes lanky,especially their cover of California Uber Alles,so 2 birds with one stone there. Personally I'd include White Riot,Birmingham Six by The Pogues,Think Again by Billy Bragg (one out of many),any of many by Public Enemy & the entire output of Crass,Conflict,Subhumans,Zounds,Flux Of Pink Indians etc etc.

[steverice]

Wicked Act YT

[I]

That's hardly surprising Lanky, considering that these lists are always compiled by white people, or what our good friend Hitler described as Aryans, ie descendants of Noah's son Japhet. Whiteys have always loved Marvin, while blacks have generally preferred Curtis. You only have to look at this trendy list to know exactly who are the Hampstead lefty liberals in their Georgian flats that compiled it. It looks like the same gatekeepers with limited musical knowledge who always compile these lists. There is nothing political about The Sex Pistols' silly song. It was just a contrived rant to make money for a creepy elderly man from Stamford Hill and his band of nihilistic working class thugs. Dylan likewise only wrote his "political" songs because he thought they would be credible in Greenwich Village. I always though Jerusalem was a poem. I don't see Tom Robinson's bleat as political either. So what! Actually, every song here is foul and exhausted by overplay. My own choices would include Floyd's 'Minute By Minute' with it's line "it's hard to take when it comes from some fat, rich Yank", Junior Byles' 'Beat Down Babylon', Niney's 'Blood And Fire', King Sounds' 'Kill Them Dead Before Them Spread'. 'Who Killed Liddle' by the Angelic Upstarts, The Social Deviants' 'Let's Loot The Supermarket', plus 'James Connolly The Irish Rebel', ' Joe McDonnell', 'The Ballad Of Bobby Sands', 'A Man You Don't Meet Every Day' and other resistance songs of the brave Celtish people against the cruel, pitiless, fascistic German invaders (ie Saxons, Normans, Angles, Vikings). Other great political songs are 'Over The Wall We Go (All Coppers Are Bastards)', 'Harry Roberts Is Our Friend', 'Wicked People' by Sonny Burke, 'The Palestinian Liberation Front' by The Arab Fats, 'Idi Amin' by Militant Barry, 'Let's Gas The Yoks' by Maccabi Challenge and 'Malcolm X' by Earl 16.

Observer

[steverice]

Harry three coppers nil..hallelujah

Sam Cooke Change is gonna come
Bill Withers I can't write left handed

[finbar]

>It was just a contrived rant to make money for a creepy elderly man from Stamford Hill and >his band of nihilistic working class thugs.



Penny, when the punks came along, were people in the reggae community suspicious, or welcoming?

I always thought that the parallel between both groups "fighting against prejudice" to be a little bit strecthed, the same way homosexuals often liken their struggle to that of the black struggle. The difference of course is that both punks and gays are visible minorities by choice, whereas you don't opt for your skin colour (Michael Jackson aside....).

[dubbindub]

That is a contentious issue Finbar. Do you really choose your sexual orientation? And Penny throwing his lot in with songs that romanticise " the irish struggle" is just laughable. A modern political Irish song of class would be Banana Republic by The Boomtown Rats. SLF wrote some classy political songs. I do agree about these trendy lists, they are meaningless fodder for characterless morons who waste their time on lifestyle magazines trying to find out how to be "cool".

[finbar]

Mar 29, 2010 14:27:48 GMT @dubbindub said:

That is a contentious issue Finbar. Do you really choose your sexual orientation?

@dubs:

Please read the post again. I didn't say that gays choose to be gay, nor do I believe that. I said that they are only a visible minority if they choose to be, just as punks are. They have an option when it comes to being perceived as "different". Those of a different skin colour don't have that luxury.

[dubbindub]

Point taken Finbar. And a valid point it is too

[dubbindub]

And for once I agree with the Armchair Republican as the U2 song was as meaningless an exercise as the fool himself replicating the Marley moment at the peace concert when he "United" Adams and Trimble together. Made me want to vomit.

[I]

Flubinsky, how does on differentiate a "republican" from your description of Grytte as an "armchair" republican? Is James Martin Pacelli McGuinness aka Máirtín Mag Aonghusa an "armchair" republican or a true Derry Repub? Why is my identification with the Irish republican cause any more ludicrous than you own fascination with black men in Jamaica singing about "peace and love in the Warsaw ghetto"?

Observer

[Ekki]

Whiteys have always loved Marvin, while blacks have generally preferred Curtis.

I feel very black now

[dubbindub]

Gryffe is a stereotype who pontificates about the concessions made since Collins, under the authority of De Valera, set up the free state. He rants about standing firm but provides no evidence of his solidarity with the provos. If he was that hardline, where the fuk was he during the war, so the "armchair" bit rings true. I don't have a "fascination" with black men singing about peace and love, I feel a solidarity in the face of oppression with them. Coming from an area in Dublin where you were rejected for employment on the strength of your address and coming from a history of 800 years of oppression I have more in common with Black Jamaicans then I do with most white English. To answer your question directly I find it abhorrant that people sing to drums of war and hatred that is meted out by bands like The Wolfe Tones and the patriotic language of Pearse and Sands. War is ugly, peace is lovely. The romanticism of nationalism leads to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, surely you know this to be true. Connolly had it right, there was no point in replacing the flags unless you changes the system of governing. All Ireland has done in its infancy has replaced one oppressor with another. Burn it all to hell, and watch it glow yellow and orange.

[gryffe]

reel, the idiot flubba stole the phrase "armchair" in a feeble attempt to divert attention from me calling him an "armchair" supporter. or perhaps it might have been me stating on a few occasions that at least he wasnt an "armchair" idiot that prompted him to use it. now i'm not claiming to have copyright on the term, but one things for sure i used it long before this armchair "irishman" did.

stiff little fingers were a cartoon punk band at the time, they seem even worse now with the passing of time. jake burns didnt have the intelligence to write meaningful lyrics and its widely recognised that their brit journalist manager wrote most of the early laughable political lyrics

i dont need to justify my republican credentials on here. i have been there, wore the tshirt, took the bruises, been in the company of some real irishmen, been on the marches etc etc

[jackson]

Mar 29, 2010 16:42:48 GMT @dubbindub said:

I find it abhorrant that people sing to drums of war and hatred that is meted out by bands like The Wolfe Tones....

Mar 29, 2010 16:45:26 GMT @gryffe said:

i have been there, wore the tshirt, took the bruises, been in the company of some real irishmen, been on the marches etc etc

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8565067.stm

Alternative Ulster

[steverice]

Being English you have to endure all kinds of crap from here and there but at least i wasn't given a hundred ton chip for my shoulder at birth

[I]

Of course, the truly greatest political song ever written is of course 'Dancing In The Street' by Martha Reeves And The Vandellas. To me, that was really what is was all about, the freedom for beautiful black women to dance in the street unmolested by racial or gender considerations. All the things that were fought for in the 1960s came down to that same basic principle: the right to dance in the streets.

Reel

[Me]

Living Colour - Cult Of Personality covers it quite nicely.

-Me-

[steverice]

Mar 29, 2010 22:35:43 GMT I said:

Of course, the truly greatest political song ever written is of course 'Dancing In The Street' by Martha Reeves And The Vandellas. To me, that was really what is was all about, the freedom for beautiful black women to dance in the street unmolested by racial or gender considerations. All the things that were fought for in the 1960s came down to that same basic principle: the right to dance in the streets.

Reel

What about the ugly gyal dem?

[dubbindub]

Mar 29, 2010 19:21:10 GMT steverice said:

Being English you have to endure all kinds of crap from here and there

Did you ever ask yourself why Steven?

[edwardgeorge]

here's a few.

1. reverend king - john & alice coltrane
2. to be invisible - curtis mayfield
3. unknown black shapes - population one
4. now's the time - charlie parker
5. 2000 seasons - reflection eternal
6. 400 years - wailers
7. coffin for head of state - fela
8. electronic warfare - underground resistance
9. a minute to pray a second to die - scarface
10. mississippi goddamn - nina simone
11. slavery - burning spear
12. well you needn't - thelonius monk
13. river of dreams - paul robeson

1 3 4 and 8 have nothing in the way of lyrics but speak volumes.

edwardgeorge

[steverice]

Mar 30, 2010 8:59:15 GMT @dubbindub said:

Mar 29, 2010 19:21:10 GMT steverice said:

Being English you have to endure all kinds of crap from here and there

Did you ever ask yourself why Steven?

No Michael..there's no need i get told often enough and besides we're not as a rule a blaming nation despite being invaded several times..i hold no grudge against the Vikings

[dubbindub]

You are a gas man Steve.. Do you bring the kids to the beach wearing union jack shorts and a hanky over your head?

[steverice]

Not at all ..i just hold my corner..