Songs for Mahmud
David Rovics
$25 from Hobart Activist Centre, phone (03) 6234 6397 or $US12 from <http://www.davidrovics.com>.
REVIEW BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
Like the other CDs David Rovics has released in the last few years, Songs for Mahmud is a passionate musical rejection of imperialist war. Coming from a US songwriter based in the belly of the beast, Rovics' radical stand for global justice is refreshing and inspiring.
"Face of Victory" and "War is Over" are responses to US president George Bush's overconfident claims of last May that the US had won the war on Iraq. Other songs, such as "Who Would Jesus Bomb?", "Operation Iraqi Liberation" and "Trafalgar Square", are musical weapons in the arsenal of the ongoing anti-war movement. (More recent anti-war songs can be found on his website.)
This album continues to profile Rovics' support for Palestinian liberation with songs such as "They're Building a Wall", "Song the Songbird Sings" and "I Wanna Go Home".
Rovics' songs are directly linked to the major progressive campaigns of our time. It is difficult to think of a single rally or demonstration that I've been to (or even heard of) for which there would not be at least one — and often many — David Rovics song worth singing.
"Song for the SOA #2" is not the first time he's supported the campaign against the School of the Americas (the polite-sounding name given to the US military's terrorist training camp for Latin American dictators and torturers).
Political music by itself can never change the world, but can be a very powerful motivator. Aside from the remark by Joe Hill that a pamphlet is read once but a song is learnt by heart and sung over and over again, it is possible in art, poetry and song to get across a message in different ways or to reach people who wouldn't normally listen to a speech or read a leaflet.
I find Rovics' music especially powerful and inspiring in this regard. One song on the album I'm almost surprised to find myself drawn to is "Used to be a City", about how layoffs and factory closures destroyed a community.
Rovics uses songs brilliantly to get across very radical messages in an accessible, interesting and moving way. I'm thinking especially of some of the clever juxtapositioning of ideas in "They're Building a Wall".
There is also the line in "Here at the End of the World" — a song about environmental devastation — that says a lot in a few words: "They'll call it progress/ And blame it on you/ To end life as we know it/ To enrich the few ..."
The album is not devoid of humour. Rovics lampoons George Bush — guess which US president the song "Moron" is about — without falling into the trap of supporting the equally imperialist Democrat John Kerry.
Finally, special mention must be made of the moving song "Korea" written last year — the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in which "one in five people [in Korea] were killed and every structure was destroyed by bombs dropped by the US" according to the CD's liner notes.
Rovics' music is absolutely fantastic and deserves a wide hearing. Testament to Rovics' commitment to the causes he promotes in his music, every single one of his songs from this and his other albums can be downloaded from his website.
Listen to them, learn them, sing them, and most importantly act on them.
From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
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