I’m betting you mean “Chicago (We Can Change The World)”, by Graham Nash.
And the whole Jefferson Airplane *Volunteers *album is full of fine political songs.
“We Can Be Together” has lines as self-aware as “For What it’s Worth”, although you have to listen to Grace Slick’s tone of voice when she sings “proud of ourselves”:
And soundcheck her voice even more when she turns “up against the wall motherfucker” into a wistful lament of impossibility rather than a war cry. (Little known fact: The lyrics sheet for that line read “up against the wall, Fred.”)
“Eskimo Blue Day” is an early environmentalist lament.
“Wooden Ships” may be their signature song, even more so than, say, “White Rabbit.” It beats the CSN version for musicality, with insanely fine lyrical guitar work by Jorma. And the theme of the young being the last survivors of a nuclear war started by the powers for no known reason still resonates down through Iraq.
One of my favorite nitpicks is that there’s no song called Volunteers of America. It’s just “Volunteers”. Apparently the real group Volunteers of America made RCA back off on all the titles, although the phrase is still in the lyrics.
I’m amazed that it took someone 2 pages to bring up “Fortunate Son.” Anytime anyone brings up political songs, that’s the first one that pops into my head.
Neil Young is getting some mention in here, but I haven’t seen anyone bring up “Rockin’ in the Free World” yet. I swear someone used that as a campaign song without realizing just how scathing the lyrics actually are, but I can’t remember who it was.
Well, I didn’t say he couldn’t sing or play, but the song’s lyrics are a bit on the college-student-who’s-just-discovered-the-world side. I still like it though.
I think it was more true of the prominent politicians of the era, though, than now. How many politicians under 50 can you think of who are “senator’s sons”? (Of course, His Excellency GWB himself fits the bill…)
I did – post #20.
“We’ve got a thousand points of light for the homeless man; we’ve got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.”
To me though, the political song that hits me the hardest is CSNY’s Ohio. It’s one thing to get angry about what our government is doing abroad, or not doing at home. You can certainly argue whether or not it should be the government’s role to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, educate the destitute, or save Joe Average from drinking, smoking, eating or crashing himself to death.
But the US National Guard shooting live ammunition at unarmed students at a university campus on American soil? Killing four people, aged 19 and 20 years old?
Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming, we’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and – found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?
Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin is kinda sorta political.
Okie From Muskogee by Merle Haggard is a good one too. Not something everyone can relate too though (but I guess anything political is like that).
One lyrical mis-step makes the whole song clang off my eardrums.
Verse 1: religion as a source of conflict. I don’t necessarily agree, but ok, we’ll go with that.
Verse 3: materialism, ditto.
Verse 2: national boundaries, ditto…but let’s throw in another shot at religion (“and no religion, too”). What the heck, why not…it just ruins the whole structure of the lyric, that’s all.
On a more socio-political note, there’s John “Cougar” Mellencamp’s songs Rain On The Scarecrow and less well known songs, Hot Dogs and Hamburgers and Empty Hands.
U2’s song Peace On Earth should qualify also.
Jesus, sing a song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
“Peace on Earth”
You hear it every Christmastime
But hope and history won’t rhyme
So what’s it worth
This Peace on Earth
I came in here with the express purpose of mentioning Help Save the Youth of America and posting a few choice lyrics.
*They’re already shipping the body bags
Down below the Rio Grande
But you can fight for democracy at home
And not in some foreign land
And the cities of Europe have burned before
And they may yet burn again
And if they do I hope you understand
That Washington will burn with them
Omaha will burn with them
Los Alamos will burn with them*
It’s pretty much dated now, but “back in the day” Neil Young’s “Ohio” (about the shooting of anti-Viet-Nam-war student protesters by National Guardsmen on the Ohio State campus) was inflamatory. This is a video of Neil Young’s performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv6kwG4BhC8
(just a quick aside) Neil Young joined Crosby, Stills, & Nash for the legendary “Deja Vu” album. Has Neil Young done anything noteworthy since?
