Re: Poems of Liberation & Revolution

[John Cox <hazel_motes52@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At the risk of committing the sin of "ageism," I must point out to all
you old-timers that there have been many great political bands and
lyricists in the last 25 years. I am not completely up to date myself,
to say the least -- I am pretty much mired in the early years of the
punk/post-punk movements -- but I just got turned on to a great new
band called "The Pinkos," from Seattle, whose first album, released
last year, denounces U.S. imperialism, capitalist inequalities and
crimes etc, and celebrates the Cuban revolution. Rage Against the
Machine produced many strong (and sometimes rather thoughtful and
poetic) statements; I would particularly recommend their album "The
Battle of Los Angeles." Fugazi, a D.C. punk band that's been around
for about a dozen years, is one of the most politically committed
bands in the punk/alternative seen in recent years.

There were a number of bands in the late 1970s and early 1980s that
recorded some great material; The Minutemen, a U.S. band that broke up
in 1985 after its lead singer´s death, wrote one of the most memorable
anti-war songs I have heard, "The Price of Paradise," among many other
excellent and uncompromising songs. And of course the greatest band in
the history of the world -- aka The Clash -- produced dozens of great
songs, many of which were quite sophisticated lyrically. I am unable
to cut and paste, but their "The Guns of Brixton," one of the most
militant songs ever in the rock idiom, can be found at:
www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palladium/1028/lyr_complete_lyrics_04.html#GunsofBrix

Gang of Four, from Leeds, recorded two brilliant albums, followed by a
pretty good album and then a dreadful album, around 1977-83 --
"Entertainment" and "Solid Gold" are classics, and very influential
both musically and lyrically. I had a record guide that wrote
something like, "If the Clash were punk's guerilla fighters, Gang of
Four were its Marxist theoreticians."

I noticed that Lou, I believe, forwarded a Marley song; also check out
Peter Tosh's album "Equal Rights," which includes "Downpresser Man," a
song that, basically, threatens the oppressors with a violent and
well-deserved revenge from the long-suffering masses ("you can run to
the sea/the sea will be boiling/you can run to the hills/the hills
will be melting"). Linton Kwesi Johnson, "dub poet" from Jamaica and
England who has been recording for over 20 years, has many great
lyrics; his music is very close to reggae, with a harder beat. Check
out "Five Nights of Bleeding," from his first album:

http://hjem.get2net.dk/sbn/lkj/5_nights.txt

Gil-Scott Heron recorded a version of Marvin Gaye's "Inner-City
Blues," from the classic "What's Going On" album, on his 1981 album
"Reflections." Heron included an exceptionally angry and hard-hitting
three-minute rap in the middle of the song, powerfully chronicling the
daily reality of racism in a typical "inner city."

Sabri Oncu forwarded a poem from the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet,
whose work a friend of mine recently introduced me to. "Sad State of
Freedom" and other poems by Hikmet are wonderful -- they can be
accessed easily on the internet, although I'm afraid I don't have a
URL handy.


John Cox

Berlin


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