General Protest Songs - Racism

[oman]

Anyone know of any powerful songs in protest of racism? Creating a video for someone for a presentation they are making.

If you have any ideas/thoughts, let me know. Can't be too rude though, as it is meant to be quite formal.

Cheers,

 

[SomehowStillKeepingFaith]

Anyone know of any powerful songs in protest of racism? Creating a video for someone for a presentation they are making.

If you have any ideas/thoughts, let me know. Can't be too rude though, as it is meant to be quite formal.

Cheers,

BB King "Why I sing the blues"

 

[wallacenz]

hurricane - bob dylan

 

[2Big2Strong]

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

Change is gonna come - Sam Cook

Two of my all time favourite songs.

 

[2Big2Strong]

Strange fruit is probably too full on tho. Especially for what you're needing it for.

 

[tajhay]

Black or white - MJ
Mr Nigger - Mos Def
Bed are burning - midnight oil - about aboriginal land rights
War - Bob Marley "Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war."
'Accidental Racist' - LL Cool J "weird..."
Strange Fruit - Billy Holliday

 

[oman]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the suggestions.

 

[wallacenz]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the suggestions.

no problem,

looks like all the original versions of hurricane have been take off youtube unfortunately, i was gonna post a link

 

[Gizzyfan]

"Rednecks', Randy Newman, apparently when recorded half the musicians walked out because they didn't get the point, the chorus repeats 'we're keeping the niggers down'
Randy Newman is from the South and sings from that perspective. He sings as a Southern man sick of Northern hypocrisy and sings how they are being kept down in all the ghettos, Harlem etc. All the ghettos are in the North, a clever confronting song. He does the same thing to religion with 'Gods song'

 

[Lord Gnome of Howick MBE]

Black or white - MJ
Mr Nigger - Mos Def
Bed are burning - midnight oil - about aboriginal land rights
War - Bob Marley "Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war."
'Accidental Racist' - LL Cool J "weird..."
Strange Fruit - Billy Holliday

The Bob Marley song is the reworking of a speech to the UN by Haillee Selasee I think?

 

[surfin]

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

Change is gonna come - Sam Cook

Two of my all time favourite songs.

Change is gonna come was the first thing that came to mind for me, brilliant song. Comedian Wayne Brady does a great version.

 

[Hitman82]

Changes by Tupac . I karaoked that the other day and ripped shit up. I'm white, but I still feel the black panther rage. Hahah

 

[Sup42]

There is so much Music out there that it will depend on A) what you guys think sounds powerful ( Musically and Lyrically )

B) \Whether you want an early Historical context or Contempory stuff.

Off the top of my head starting from the earlier songs that I know up until recent times.


" When Israel was in Egypts land let my people go " ( that's the oldest I know of , the song is called let My people go ).

Get up stand up by Bob Marley ( Used By a Jamaican fighter as his ring walk song when he faced Mike Tyson ) the song is a black Anthem.

Chase those crazy baldheads again Bob Marley

Finally from Bob Marley Buffalo Solidier " stolen from Africa , in the fight for America

Jimmy Cliff :

The song is called Journey. It's chronicles the passage of slaves to America

" I was captured on on the banks of the River Nile, carried far across the seven seas ....Journey.....journeying on "



Kevin Bloody WIlson the Australian Comedian did a song about a Aborigine family moving in next door to a Wealthy white Tycoon...the song is called Living nest door to Alan ( Bond )

Niggers with an Attitude ( NWA ) broke Hip hop boundaries with their anthem " There goes the neighborhood " in the 90's

 

[Sebastian]

Hope this one helps..

 

[Raurimu Massive]

War - Bob Marley "Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war."

I was at a reggae gig up here in Whangarei years ago, was getting a bit of grief for being a honky in a reggae crowd - just two or three young fools trying to be hard men.... so I quoted this line and the one about the colour of a man's skin being of no more significance than the colour of his eyes.

None of them even understood it. No coincidence that racism and stupidity are so often seen in the same mind.

 

[Lord Gnome of Howick MBE]

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war.”
Popularized by Bob Marley in the song "War”

Haile Selassie, 1892-1975[DOUBLEPOST=1367785991][/DOUBLEPOST]

I was at a reggae gig up here in Whangarei years ago, was getting a bit of grief for being a honky in a reggae crowd - just two or three young fools trying to be hard men.... so I quoted this line and the one about the colour of a man's skin being of no more significance than the colour of his eyes.

None of them even understood it. No coincidence that racism and stupidity are so often seen in the same mind.

I find it perculair that Polynesian's associate themselves with black American culture, which is certainly not reciprocated in my experience (American Samoans, for instances, are hated by the blacks.)[DOUBLEPOST=1368481111,1367785896][/DOUBLEPOST]



Midnight to six man
For the first time from Jamaica
Dillinger and Leroy Smart
Delroy Wilson, your cool operator

Ken Boothe for UK pop reggae
With backing bands, sound systems
And if they've got anything to say
There's many black ears here to listen

But it was Four Tops all night with encores from stage right
Charging from the bass knives to the treble
But onstage they ain't got no roots, rock rebel
Onstage they ain't got no roots, rock rebel

Dress back, jump back, this is a bluebeat attack
Because it won't get you anywhere
Fooling with your guns
The British Army is waiting out there
And it weighs fifteen hundred tons

White youth, black youth
Better find another solution
Why not phone up Robin Hood
And ask him for some wealth distribution

Punk rockers in the UK
They won't notice anyway
They're all too busy fighting
For a good place under the lighting

The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, ha, you think it's funny
Turning rebellion into money

All over people changing their votes
Along with their overcoats
If Adolf Hitler flew in today
They'd send a limousine anyway

I'm the all night drug-prowling wolf
Who looks so sick in the sun
I'm the white man in the Palais
Just looking for fun

I'm only
Looking for fun

 

[Gizzyfan]

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war.”
Popularized by Bob Marley in the song "War”

Haile Selassie, 1892-1975[DOUBLEPOST=1367785991][/DOUBLEPOST]

I find it perculair that Polynesian's associate themselves with black American culture, which is certainly not reciprocated in my experience (American Samoans, for instances, are hated by the blacks.)[DOUBLEPOST=1368481111,1367785896][/DOUBLEPOST]



Midnight to six man
For the first time from Jamaica
Dillinger and Leroy Smart
Delroy Wilson, your cool operator

Ken Boothe for UK pop reggae
With backing bands, sound systems
And if they've got anything to say
There's many black ears here to listen

But it was Four Tops all night with encores from stage right
Charging from the bass knives to the treble
But onstage they ain't got no roots, rock rebel
Onstage they ain't got no roots, rock rebel

Dress back, jump back, this is a bluebeat attack
Because it won't get you anywhere
Fooling with your guns
The British Army is waiting out there
And it weighs fifteen hundred tons

White youth, black youth
Better find another solution
Why not phone up Robin Hood
And ask him for some wealth distribution

Punk rockers in the UK
They won't notice anyway
They're all too busy fighting
For a good place under the lighting

The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, ha, you think it's funny
Turning rebellion into money

All over people changing their votes
Along with their overcoats
If Adolf Hitler flew in today
They'd send a limousine anyway

I'm the all night drug-prowling wolf
Who looks so sick in the sun
I'm the white man in the Palais
Just looking for fun

I'm only
Looking for fun

Damn I love the Clash, White man in Hammersmith Palais.

 

[Lord Gnome of Howick MBE]

Songwriters: STRUMMER, JOE / JONES, MICK
They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps of respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses if England were for Englishmen again

I saw a dirty overcoat at the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man whom time could not erode
The night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled past
The dancehall called for an ambulance
The bars all closed up fast
My silence gazing at the ceiling while roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me if he could explain the gloom
You really think it's all new?
You really think about it too?
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me, “I'll tell you a thing or two
I missed the fourteen-eighteen war but not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead, my mother ran off, my brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned, the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths
The next war began and my ship sailed with battle orders writ in red
In five long years of bullets and shells, we left ten million dead
The few returned to old Piccadily
We limped around Leicester Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care
But how could we know, when I was young, all the changes that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield and now the terror of the scientific Sun
There was masters and servants and servants and dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
Through strikes and famine and war and peace, England never closed this gap
So leave me now the Moon is up but remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up are on letters forwarded from hell”
It’s a long wat to Tipperary
It’s a long wat to go

Goodbye, Piccadilly
Farewell, Leicester Square

The streets were now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked out in the bedsits and old England was all alone

 

[Gizzyfan]

Songwriters: STRUMMER, JOE / JONES, MICK
They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps of respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses if England were for Englishmen again

I saw a dirty overcoat at the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man whom time could not erode
The night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled past
The dancehall called for an ambulance
The bars all closed up fast
My silence gazing at the ceiling while roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me if he could explain the gloom
You really think it's all new?
You really think about it too?
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me, “I'll tell you a thing or two
I missed the fourteen-eighteen war but not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead, my mother ran off, my brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned, the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths
The next war began and my ship sailed with battle orders writ in red
In five long years of bullets and shells, we left ten million dead
The few returned to old Piccadily
We limped around Leicester Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care
But how could we know, when I was young, all the changes that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield and now the terror of the scientific Sun
There was masters and servants and servants and dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
Through strikes and famine and war and peace, England never closed this gap
So leave me now the Moon is up but remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up are on letters forwarded from hell”
It’s a long wat to Tipperary
It’s a long wat to go

Goodbye, Piccadilly
Farewell, Leicester Square

The streets were now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked out in the bedsits and old England was all alone

What song is that and what album, got to be the Clash with Jones and Strummer.

 

[Raurimu Massive]

Something About England off Sandinista - fucken great album.