Political songs
So the Political Studies Association is holding a ballot to identify the top ten political songs as part of their 60th Anniversary celebrations. Below the break is the list of the songs they’ve put forward – I’m listing them all because you can’t get to it unless you’re a member of the PSA (members can also nominate one song of their own…)
The songs are: “chosen to represent different times and places, but also to reflect the various ways in which music is allied to politics – in expressions of protest, but also of patriotism and propaganda.”
Annie Lennox & Aretha Franklin Sisters are doing it for themselves
Anon. Bella Ciao
Barry McGuire Eve of Destruction
Billie Holiday Strange Fruit
Billy Bragg Which side are you on?
Bob Dylan The Times They Are a changing
Bob Marley Redemption Song
Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA
Carl Bean I was born this way
Cecil A. Spring-Rice I vow to thee my country
Charles A. Tindley We Shall Overcome
Charly García Nos siguen pegando abajo
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle Le Marseillaise
Donovan Universal Soldier
Edwin Starr War
Elvis Costello Tramp The Dirt Down
Enoch Sontonga Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika
Eugène Pottier The Internationale
Fela Kuti Zombie
Gil Scott Heron The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Horst Wessel Die Fahne hoch
Jim Connell The Red Flag
John Lennon Imagine
Joni Mitchell Big Yellow Taxi
Leornard Cohen The Partisan
Li Youyuan The East is Red
Marvin Gaye What’s Going On?
Midnight Oil Beds are Burning
Nena 99 Luftaballons
Nina Simone Mississippi Goddam
Pete Seeger Where have all the flowers gone?
Peter Gabriel Biko
Plastic Ono Band Give Peace a Chance
Public Enemy Fight the Power
Randy Newman Political Science
RATM Killing in the name
Robert Wyatt Shipbuilding
Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter
Sex Pistols God Save The Queen
The Beatles Revolution
The Clash Know Your Rights
The Cranberries Zombie
The Jam Eton Rifles
The Police Invisible Sun
The Specials AKA Free Nelson Mandela
The Strawbs Part of the Union
Tracy Chapman Talkin’ ’bout a revolution
U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday
UB40 1 in 10
Verdi Chorus of Hebrew Slaves
Victor Jara Te Recuerdo Amanda
William Blake Jerusalem
Woody Guthrie This Land is Your Land
You can see they’ve tried, but this is one middle class playlist, isn’t it? One rap track? And, I might be wrong here, but I think the most recent song on the list is Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of (which is only 18 years old).
Some of the choices are just total head-scratchers. Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction (really?), Charly García’s Nos siguen pegando abajo (have they listened to it) and while the Horst Wessel Song (Die Fahne hoch) might be of interest as a piece of history, as a piece of music it’s a baleful dirge as hollow and empty as the rest of NAZI art.
I know a list like this will be trying to include more than a token number of women, but if Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves is the best they can manage then it isn’t a task worth undertaking. But then what sort of weird system includes that but not Aretha Franklin’s immeasurably superior Respect?
And it gets worse before it gets better…
UB40? Midnight Oil? Nena? The Cranberries?
Please god, no!
I have a soft spot for Tracy Chapman – I saw her at the Nelson Mandela concert in Wembley where she first came to people’s attention by literally stopping the show with an acoustic performance of tenderness amongst an awful lot of bluster – but if Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution is one of the great political songs of all times, then I’m a Tory.
This is all political music for people who own a Bang and Olufsen stereo.
Some of the artists were inevitable but the song choices odd. Billy Bragg had to be there, but Which Side Are You On? might be strident but it’s not a patch on A World Turned Upside Down, Between the Wars or Waiting for the Great Leap Forward.
Born in the USA might be Bruce Springsteen’s most recognisable anthem, but as a song about the lives of the blue collar workers forgotten by Reagan’s America The River or anything on the Nebraska album knocks it into a cocked hat.
And, personally, I’d choose Who is the Leader? as Edwin Starr’s best political song over War, although that is funky song.
There are, to be fair, a number of songs I wouldn’t argue deserve their place…
Billie Holiday Strange Fruit
Bob Dylan The Times They Are a changing
(although Maggie’s Farm might be better)
Bob Marley Redemption Song
Marvin Gaye What’s Going On?
Jim Connell The Red Flag
Robert Wyatt Shipbuilding
The Specials AKA Free Nelson Mandela
William Blake Jerusalem
Woody Guthrie This Land is Your Land
…all, more or less, demand inclusion. But how can I vote on a list that doesn’t include (off the top of my iPod):
Outkast Bombs Over Baghdad
KRS 1 Sound of the Police
NWA Fuck tha Police
The Beat Stand Down Margaret
Desmond Dekker Israelites
Al Green A Change is Gonna Come
That Petrol Emotion Big Decision
James Brown Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud
Alabama 3 Mao Tse Tung Said
The Men They Couldn’t Hang The Ghost of Cable Street
Skunk Anansie Yes It’s Fucking Political
The The Mercy Beat
And then there are the specifically Irish songs…
Stiff Little Fingers Alternative Ulster
(I mean, I like Invisible Sun by The Police as much as the next man who has been forced to listen to it by someone holding an industrial nailgun to his head, but if you absolutely have to have a song about the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, this is the one)
The Wolftones James Connolly
The Chieftains The Foggy Dew
(Well there’d have to be a couple of rebel songs in there)
The Fureys The Green Fields of France
(best anti-war song ever)
The Pogues The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda
(the second best anti-war song ever)
And while I was writing that list, I thought of these…
Skinnyman Council Estate of the Mind
The Beastie Boys It Takes Time To Build
Kanye West Diamonds
(I know, he’s an asshole – this is a great song)
Everlast The Stone in My Hand
Faithless Mass Destruction
Hard-Fi Cash Machine
Dead Kennedys California Uber Alles
Dead Kennedys Holiday in Cambodia
The Who Won’t Get Fooled Again
Pete Seeger Casey Jones (The Union Scab)
Pete Seeger Guantanemera
The Chieftains & Sinead O’Connor The Foggy Dew
MC5 Motor City is Burning
The Housemartins Build
The The Heartland
All that being said, it’s a no-brainer as to what should win the greatest political song of all time. If Le Marseillaise doesn’t make you want to man a barricade in the name of some cause – even if it is sinking Greenpeace ships – then you’re probably already dead. It’s rousing, it’s brilliant when sung en masse and it’s stood the test of time.
The Pogues – The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
I don’t know I’d count this as specifically Irish, although it is high on my list of anti-war songs.
You’re right, it probably shouldn’t be listed as Irish, but y’know it’s The Pogues and I’ll bend the rules for any band containing the son of SE Finer!
Enjoyed the comments (as compiler of the list).
The You Tube version of Le Marseillaise from Casablanca is great.
I would have had more Irish entries but it is the PSA of the UK so no Men Behind the Wire or The Sash. I also tried to make it only one from any singer – maybe too artificial. Also the list is not just Anglophone. The New Statesman will run a more open poll and I will pass on any suggestions.
I will try to keep in touch with this discussion.
Hi Neil,
See the thing about writing on the internet is that the people you’re writing about have a nasty habit of turning up!
I don’t envy you the job of coming up with the list, I keep adding extra songs… (it’s why my music collection now requires two iPods).
My dad always said there were three things that there’s no point arguing about politics, religion and music. Which goes to show how much attention I paid to my parents…
Seriously, though, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves and not Respect?