Political Songs - A Chart

With a General Election coming up in Britain in May, thought I'd unearth some political-related songs. I've already done an earlier chart on the related theme of Revolution - "A Little Light Molotov Cocktail Music" 


1) Heaven 17 - "We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thang"
Never liked all that New Romantic floppy quiff and high mounted bass thing, but this song popped out completely unexpectedly from the genre. Respect!



2) Crucifucks - "Democracy Spawns Bad Taste"
American hardcore punks, all throbbing bass and rumbling drums, somewhat undermined by the squeaky vocal.



3) Circle Jerks - "Coup D'Etat"
More US hardcore punk. I've ben going through university courses with my son who wants to do American studies, two of the courses offer a module on American punk, one on hip-hop. *Sigh*



4) Killing Joke - "Democracy"
Almost has the feel of one of those songs politicians commission for a campaign to get more young people to vote. Killing Joke had definitely lost it by this time. However, couple of years ago they released a dub remix of their songs, knockout it was, one my best albums of that year.



5) Muse - Exo-Politics
It's Muse, so it's about space politics right?



6) Nas - "Black Republican"
Bit of a specious one this, as it's really about ghetto hip-hop politics and very little to do with Congressional representatives.



7) The Sex Pistols - "Anarchy in The UK"
The grand-daddy of them all, although their concept of anarchy is a bit underdeveloped! Still a great song even after all these years.



8) Radiohead - "Electioneering"
I assert my democratic right to state that I have never liked Radiohead. This is just bad early genesis to me.



9) Dead Kennedys - "We Got A Bigger Problem Now"
Ronald Reagan provided a whole music sub-genre of American hardcore devoted to ragging on him. This song is one of the best, but was itself an updating of their earlier song "California Uber Alles" when Reagan was Californian Governor.



10) Dillinger - "Natty Socialist"
Jamaica, the land of heavy political violence.

A Little Light Molotov Cocktail Music

The firemen are going on strike on bonfire night in response to the threat of redundancy unless they sign their new employment contracts. They could be the first of many with the recent announcement of cuts to public spending here in the UK. Will there be a significant outcry, will the British rise up in a swathe of civil protest and disobedience? At the end of this post is a snippet of my novel "Not In My Name" which considered this question against the backdrop of the Iraq War. But before then, here's ten top tunes for you while you siphon petrol from cars and fill those milk bottles...

1) The Clash - "White Riot"

Now if all those people crushed like sardines bobbing their heads could just take to the streets... What interests me in this clip is the role of the hangers on & wannabe cheerleaders. Ultimately, they are the ones who stifle any militancy by their pathetic leeching. They just want to be stars...

2) Ice Cube - "We Had To Tear This Mother Up"

The whole Ice Cube album "The Predator" from which this is taken, was a devestating response to the Rodney King farrago and the subsequent riots. Righteous indignation and a searing soundtrack to a burning city.

3)Rolling Stones - "Street Fighting Man"

You wouldn't know to look at them now, but the Stones were sort of there on the front line with their drugs' bust forming part of the public discourse on the issue. But this time round we probably won't call on them to lead the charge.

4) Dead Kennedys - "Riot"

The eight or so people who get up on stage and turn it into a mini riot, only evidence the 99.9% who are content to stand in the auditorium and watch them. Cadre moshers... The song also points out that in riots, people mainly end up burning their own communities.

5) Kaiser Chiefs - "I Predict A Riot"

A predictable choice perhaps. People getting lairy just about sums it up. Or pissed and peevish as I prefer to term it.

What? it's called subversion...

6) Sonic Youth - "Teenage Riot"

Hormones frequently get in the way of political action...

7)Crass - "Bloody Revolution"

Ah happy daze...

8) Gang Of Four - "Capital (it fails us now)"

Don't say we weren't warned back in the early 80's

9) Billy Bragg - "Which Side Are You On"

One man and his guitar leads the vanguard to the promised land. Or not.

10) Cornershop - "England's Dreaming"

I quite like this song actually

Okay, I've set myself up for a grand fall by my snarkiness. For what it's worth, here's my fictional analysis of why there won't be any revolutionary uprising in the UK.

"The idea of a radical Left in this country is a joke. A contradiction in terms. Shall I tell you why -?”

“No, but I’ve a feelin’ ya gunny anyway”.

“In Latin countries, in Europe and the Americas, the foot soldiers of the Revolution can discipline and hone themselves out in the wild, sultry outdoors. Stay hidden in jungles, live out of sight in mountain ranges. Back here, we just don’t have the space. Would-be sans culottes such as the likes of you, are left to fulminate in dingy public houses and ferment your flabby beer bellies. Our climate only lends itself to beer and sandwiches militancy. Pickled onions and scotched eggs. Little Napoleons with their miniature armies of flying pickets. Your activities were responsible for the destruction of those industries as much as economic forces”.

“Is that right?”

“Too damn right it is!”

“Even ostriches have to come up from the sand for air. Your Clydeside may well have been Red, but further upstream, the only thing turning pink under the sun, wasn’t any cadres on exercises, but poached salmon. As in stolen. See, what you fail to comprehend, is most people actually quite like the quality of their life in Britain. There are some birthrights, that even the most foaming fanatic would be loathe to relinquish. How would the new order guarantee such a range of beers in our glasses, from Real Ale to imported lagers? Or maintain a languidly thrilling five test match series against former colonies? Or foster such a thriving music industry, so as to soundtrack their own personal embitterment?”

“Fer sad English bastards mebbee, do’nae tar the Scots wi’all that”.

“You never know, global warming might now foster the conditions for developing a year zero tendency in our midsts, even in Bonny Scotland. You've got the mountains there after all”.

“Yer talking pish and you know it!“

Suffragette Ditties - Politics and Pop

Music and politics make for specious bedfellows. Three minute potted versions of ideologies or praxes tend to sell them a bit short. Or maybe by punching your fist in the air to the anthemic chorus, the walls of Jericho/Babylon/Disneyland will inevitably crumble and fall. But generations of youth WILL persist in believing they can dance their way into wreaking radical change. Mind you, with the boot on the other foot, when politicians try and hitch to the music bandwagon, they just end up looking risible. Anyone remember Red Wedge?

Yes there are the occasional successful yokings, Jerry Dammers' "Free Nelson Mandela" twinned with a Wembley concert being one. But Rock Against racism for example, ended up by being a battle to win hearts and minds of sections of its own audience attracted to skinhead bands such as Madness and Sham 69, while being diametrically opposed to the politics being espoused from the stage. And what prompted the rise of the movement in the first place? Outrage at Eric Clapton expressing support for the views of Enoch Powell.

Anyway, for your delectation and possible amusement, here is a list of 11 political songs. Don't get me wrong, I love all 11, but let's just say some of their sentiments fall a tad short of reality.

1) "Motor City Is Burning" - MC5

Ah the 1960's, the Vietnam War, Civil Rights and students up in arms. Detroit residents MC5 take John Lee Hooker's song and give it some pep to mark the denizens of their home town taking it upon themselves to indulge in some urban clearance. Only everybody forgot the renewal part of the process.

2) "Up Against The Wall" - Tom Robinson Band

THE late 1970's political band with songs such as "Glad To Be Gay" and "Ride On Sister". This ditty named a lot of the issues that saw the Labour government booted out in 1979, and anticipated generational confrontation. But the "Panic in County Hall" line didn't really come to fruition. Instead, under the free market, County Hall is now an aquarium.

3) "Handsworth Revolution" - Steel Pulse

Released prior to the 1980's riots, "If it takes ammunition/ Then we revel in Handsworth Revolution" came true. Except the revolution bit that is. It is still rather a beautiful song, giving a hint to the gospel influence behind it, but "Babylon is falling/ It was foolish to build it on the sand" could have been said of UK reggae music itself, having been eclipsed by rap, hip-hop, grime and dub step.

4) "English White Boy Engineer" - Three Johns

Three lads from Leeds all called John and not a drummer between them. This was an anti-apartheid song that actually reveals great intelligence, but the Three Johns were never a band with the mass appeal for the song to help bring down some regime in a far away land.

5) "We've Got A Bigger Problem Now" - Dead Kennedys

San Francisco punks rewrote their own earlier song about Californian Governor Jerry Brown and updated it for another son of the Golden State made good, Ronald Reagan. In the era of Silicon Valley and Friedman's Monetarism, American punks and fans alike got in their gas guzzling cars and played gigs in towns which would have them. The nation didn't fall. "California Uber Alles" is a nice touch though.

6) "1824 Overture" - Conflict

Don't be misled by the seeming erudition of the title, (the year the Vagrancy Act was introduced), for this song rhymes "SUS" with "bus".

7) "Armagh" - Au Pairs

The Troubles in Northern Ireland was the backdrop to many a song. Some of the actual natives like Stiff Little Fingers directly confronted the issues, others like The Undertones opted to ignore them and concentrate on songs about chocolate and girls. Birmingham band Au Pairs were all about sexual politics, showing that men and women together could make, like music man. This song was about a women's prison in Armagh, which by curious numerological coincidence contained 32 female prisoners, accused of fighting for the unification of the 32 counties.

8) "Illegal Attacks" - Ian Brown

Recipient of the New Musical Express' 2006 "Godlike Genius Award" wears his heart on his sleeve about the recent wars the UK has been dragged into. His planetary sized brain offers that they are in all likelihood "Commercial crusades", but neglects to offer the legal proofs suggested by the song's title. "How many mothers to cry?/How many sons have to die?" is a really rather tired lyric these days. Not quite so god-like after all. But the video is rather good.

9) "Cry No More" - Poison Girls

Poison Girls were a hardcore (politically not musically) anarchist band associated with the likes of communards Crass. But this song rather beautifully enunciates compassion fatigue before we had a name for it, even if that isn't its original intention.

10) "Police And Helicopter" - John Holt

I'm not going to get flippant about this one at all, since it's possibly the most searingly militant song I've ever heard. It's a single issue song about the battle over Jamaica's marijuana production. Holt's slice of roots reggae starts with the class deference of "Yes boss, yes, boss, yes boss" but ratchets up the stakes with the ferocious eye for an eye declaration "But if you continue to burn up de herbs, we gonna burn down the cane fields". And cannabis is supposed to be a becalming drug?

Special bonus track (this one goes up to 11)

11) Public Enemey - "Fight The Power"

Cos I like it!