Favourite protest songs:
Bitter Fruit - Little Steven (album Freedom No Compromise)
I love the energy and passion of Bitter Fruit and fell in love with it when I was about 15/16 and well into my ‘we have save and change the world and stop all this injustice phase’. I first heard it during the televised concert against Sun City (or performers boycotting playing there). I had a bit of a thing about rock guitar, I remember being very judgemental about Whitney Houston having nothing political to say about the situation at the concert.....
My father he was a union man
Very proud and outspoken
They came and took him when I was young
I will fight 'till his work is done
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjQhu6gfL7M
Something inside so strong – Labi Siffre (1987)
The higher you build your barriers, the taller I become
The farther you take my rights away, the faster I will run
You can deny me, you can decide to turn your face away
No matter 'cause there's
Something inside so strong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-4Lsrx8IA
Protest song by April Maze?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISvGP859Qs
Why - Tracey Chapman (1988)
This song summed up my feelings a few years further along my road, when I still felt it was everyone's duty to do something to create change in the world, not just accept the status quo.
Why do the babies starve
When there's enough food to feed the world
Why when there are so many of us
Are there people still alone
Why are the missiles called peace keepers
When they're aimed to kill
Why is a woman still not safe
When she's in her home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-WpxSrmV4Y
Favourite quotes:
"All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tired by a single garment. What ever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be till I am what I ought to be".
Originally used by Ghandi in India's fight for home rule and then used by Dr Martin Luther King Junior during America's civil rights campaign of 50's/60's.
I've loved this quote since I was 12/13 years old and we did a short piece for Martin Luther King Day at the old Roots building in town. (Via a Pegasus outreach project). I had my first Chinese meal cos we went out to dinner after the show. I felt very grown up!). This quote and the South African one below were painted on my Bedroom wall of my parents’ home a year or so later..... I loved them and practically lived with them as mantra's/ affirmations for a good few years.
" Now you have touched the women you have struck a rock, you have dislodged a boulder you shall be crushed." Used by South African women in the fight against pass books laws during 50's. It inspired the formation of the group Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Bitter Fruit - Little Steven (album Freedom No Compromise)
I love the energy and passion of Bitter Fruit and fell in love with it when I was about 15/16 and well into my ‘we have save and change the world and stop all this injustice phase’. I first heard it during the televised concert against Sun City (or performers boycotting playing there). I had a bit of a thing about rock guitar, I remember being very judgemental about Whitney Houston having nothing political to say about the situation at the concert.....
My father he was a union man
Very proud and outspoken
They came and took him when I was young
I will fight 'till his work is done
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjQhu6gfL7M
Something inside so strong – Labi Siffre (1987)
The higher you build your barriers, the taller I become
The farther you take my rights away, the faster I will run
You can deny me, you can decide to turn your face away
No matter 'cause there's
Something inside so strong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-4Lsrx8IA
Protest song by April Maze?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISvGP859Qs
Why - Tracey Chapman (1988)
This song summed up my feelings a few years further along my road, when I still felt it was everyone's duty to do something to create change in the world, not just accept the status quo.
Why do the babies starve
When there's enough food to feed the world
Why when there are so many of us
Are there people still alone
Why are the missiles called peace keepers
When they're aimed to kill
Why is a woman still not safe
When she's in her home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-WpxSrmV4Y
Favourite quotes:
"All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tired by a single garment. What ever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be till I am what I ought to be".
Originally used by Ghandi in India's fight for home rule and then used by Dr Martin Luther King Junior during America's civil rights campaign of 50's/60's.
I've loved this quote since I was 12/13 years old and we did a short piece for Martin Luther King Day at the old Roots building in town. (Via a Pegasus outreach project). I had my first Chinese meal cos we went out to dinner after the show. I felt very grown up!). This quote and the South African one below were painted on my Bedroom wall of my parents’ home a year or so later..... I loved them and practically lived with them as mantra's/ affirmations for a good few years.
" Now you have touched the women you have struck a rock, you have dislodged a boulder you shall be crushed." Used by South African women in the fight against pass books laws during 50's. It inspired the formation of the group Sweet Honey in the Rock.
