REVIEW BY SHUA GARFIELD
Living in these Times
David Rovics
Available at <http://www.davidrovics.com>
It is certainly unorthodox to begin a cd with a song about a firefighter being crushed and burned to death by the collapsing World Trade Center. But even more daring are the last thoughts David Rovics imagines "The Dying Firefighter" having: "Some people may call me a brave man and this may very well be, but the firefighters of Kabul are just as brave as me."
As if this isn't outrageous enough (to US ruling class opinion, that is), Rovics goes on to tell the live audience in the up-state New York caf where much of this cd was recorded, "Those who ask how such a horrible thing could happen haven't been to Iraq".
This sets the tone for the rest of the cd. It is of uncompromising passion for truth and a desire to cut through the hypocrisy of the US ruling establishment.
Rovics dedicates the cd to "the good people of Afghanistan who ... are being indiscriminately slaughtered by the world's biggest terrorist organisation, known as the United States Air Force".
In "From Kabul to Khartoum" that the government that would "bomb our way to freedom with the cruise missiles of justice and the spent shells of democracy" has been an unwelcome visitor everywhere.
"From Guatemala to Korea; to the tunnels beneath Hanoi; Tulsa to El Cherino; Fat Man to Little Boy; we fought them in Nicaragua and on the Cuban shore; killed Qadafi's daughter; see what the Fatwa's got in store."
war is not the only injustice that Rovics confronts in such unambiguous terms. In "Shut Them Down", Rovics contrasts the "world full of strip malls, plants grown by biotech" envisioned by the international financial institutions with "a world we can live in", envisioned by people "from Melbourne to Prague to Seattle".
While fiercely condemning the ecocide practised by the world's major corporations and governments in many of his songs, Rovics hints at solutions. Before launching into "Trading with the Enemy", a song which cleverly lampoons the US economic blockade of Cuba, he asks the audience, "Who can tell me which country on Earth has the most bicycle riders per capita and the most organic farms per capita?".
In "No-one is Illegal", he passionately sings, "Hear the stockholders cheering the world is getting smaller; hear the drowning child crying 'Why are the fences growing taller?'."
Whether Rovics mourns the violence dealt to the Palestinian people by the Israeli army in "Children of Jerusalem", or humorously celebrates the creativity of the global justice movement in "The Rinky-Dink Song", he does so with an honesty which is as tender as it is intense.
It is so rare in today's world of throw-away pop music to find a recording that not only fans the flames of discontent, but inspires hope that a better world can be made through our struggles.
Don't just get one copy. Get several! This is the ideal May Day present.
From Green Left Weekly, January 16, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.