My Post-Election-Results Playlist

[hrj]

(Reposted from facebook)

My "feeling charged up and political" playlist, assembled from items already in my music library, plus some recommendations from Twitter. (With annoatations about what each song means to me.

Power and the Glory (Phil Ochs) - This is the most patriotic song I know (personal opinion). "Here is a land for power and glory, beauty that words cannot recall. Oh her power shall rest on the strengths of her freedoms, her glory shall rest on us all." And I can't sing the lines of "she's only as free as a padlocked prison door" without choking up.

Not Ready to Make Nice (The Chicks) - Someone posted a youtube link of this today and it was the impetus for putting this playlist together. It speaks to me strongly. I'm not ready to make nice to those who supported and enabled T.

Do You Hear the People Sing? (cast of Les Miz) - Ok, yeah, they all died on the barricades. But it's a great "power of the people" song.

Anthem (Andersson/Ulvaeus, from Chess) - OK, yeah, the character singing it is singing about Russia, but the sentiment of crossing borders and love of country being in your heart is a core part of how I feel about nations and nationalism.

Respect (Aretha Franklin) - This one's for you Kamala.

Movin' Out (Billy Joel) - The song's about rejecting the rat race and taking your own path, but I think we can read it more directly at the moment.

Yma o Hyd (Dafydd Iwan) - Again, a song about a different country (Cymru) but the theme is "Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth ry'n ni yma o hyd" despite everyone and everything we're still here.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Diana Ross) - We're going to need to climb mountains and cross oceans to approach our goals.

I'm Coming Out (Diana Ross) - Always a protest anthem for any occasion.

The Times They Are a-Changing (Bob Dylan) - Let's hope so. But we've been fighting for change a long time.

Sisters are Doin' it For Themselves (Eurhythmics) - This one's for the sisters in Georgia doing what the Democratic establishment didn't think was possible.

Tan yn Llyn IPlethyn) - Another Welsh resistance song. "Beth am gynnau tan fel a tan yn Llyn? (How about kindling a fire like the fire in Llyn)" Fire in our heart, fire in our work, fire in our faith, fire through our language. Very brief background: the reference is to the burning of a RAF bombing school whose presence was seen as an act of colonialism. The protest became associated with the rise of Plaid Cymru. I include it to represent the often-uncomfortable place of civil disobedience.

I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor) - Not everyone did survive the last four years, but we need songs like this to keep us going.

We Will Rock You (Queen) - It's funny that this gets used as a sports-fan song, though maybe not so funny given the participatory nature. But I get strong activist vibes from it.

I Am Woman (Helen Reddy) - Yeah, it's corny, and it's a bit gender essentialist. But dammit we've been struggling a long time against sexism. And bringing "numbers too big to ignore" is what got us through. You can read this song more generally than being about women's progress, and yet the struggle continues.

The Mary Ellen Carter (Stan Rogers) - You, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow, with smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go, turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain, and like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again. Nuff said.

This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie, performed by the Weavers) - Another solid patriotic anthem that recognizes that the dream is not yet achieved for all.

If I Had a Hammer (Seeger/Hayes, performed by the Weavers) - This job calls for the hammer of justice and the bell of freedom.

Won't Get Fooled Again (The Who) - The last verse may undermine the message a bit, but still a nice driving beat and message.

Liar (Kayzo with OST) - A twitter recommendation. What it says on the label.

Yorktown (Lin-Manuel Miranda, cast of Hamilton) - Immigrants, they get the job done.

Americans (Janelle Monae) - Another twitter recommendation. I've liked what I've heard of hers, but this hasn't come up yet in the playlist so I have yet to have a context for it.

Don't Come Around Here No More (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) - A message for a certain someone.

Philadelphia Freedom (Elton John) - A twitter recommendation. Not a revolutionary song, per se, but a hat-tip to everyone in Philly. I should find some songs for Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona to balance.

What's on your playlist, real or imagined?

Comments

[ursula]

There's a new cover of All You Fascists Bound to Lose with Rhiannon Giddens.

[aurumcalendula]

National Anthem: Arise! Arise! by Jean Rohe is going on mine (I just heard of it via sovay's post)

[lferion]

This is an excellent list. I can't think of an AZ song off the top of my head, but if I do I'll tell you!

[affreca]

I don't have a playlist for this, but Tracy Chapman's Talking 'Bout a Revolution is pretty timely.

[luscious_purple]

Oh, gosh, my "pandemic of 2020" playlist is almost 8 hours long. But it includes a lot of the standard "pandemic playlist" songs as well as the favorites of a couple of SCA friends who died earlier this year.

I find "March March" by the Chicks to be a good current protest song. I was also thinking of "Yorktown/The World Turned Upside Down" from Hamilton.

[damont]

I can't agree with "Won't Get Fooled Again" for my playlist, much as I like it and think it's the second-best song of 1971... partly because I know exactly where it fits in the intended storyline for Lifehouse (near the end when the Big Bad comes in, just at the start of the climactic final scene), but partly because for the last 49 years since it came out I have heard this song as a lament for the tattered remnants of the dreams of so many. ("The world looks just the same, and history ain't changed..." "Nothing in the street looks any different to me" and the rest of verse 3... and of course the quickly cut off verse 4).

My playlist includes "Save The People" from Godspell... I may be a little less optimistic than many here. Perhaps I'm overestimating the amount of work needing done, and/or the amount of resistance there will be, up to and including actual organized violence with the supprt of local governments.

Also, on a similar down-but-not-out note, "Praying" by Kesha. Because Kesha's producer/abuser/rapist is only the first and most obvious person this song can be aimed at.

This is the day the Lord has made.

[gurdymonkey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IwIa1ZBgT0