Songs about historical events
Post your favorite songs about historical events that here
Roads To Moscow-Al Stewart
(About the Siege of Stalingrad)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAqP35A9Oi8
Link to the lyrics:
If you like that, you should also listen to the song Rosselson wrote about Gerard Winstanley's(the leader of the Diggers) archrival,Abliezer Coppe, who led a more urban, free-love based 17th century radical group, The Ranters(and whose personal manifesto was called "A Flying Fiery Rolle")
1)Abiezer Coppe, did away with sin
"my body is my church" he said, "God's dwelling is within."
"All I do is holy" Abiezer cried,
Gave his loving freely, a Ranter 'til he died
Chorus:
So drink a loving cup, to Abiezer, Abiezer,
He's a drinking dancing roaring Ranter,
Abiezer Coppe, Abiezer Coppe.
2)"A pox upon the pious, and on what the Scriptures teach,
I'd rather hear a Tinker curse than hear a vicar preach
Shameless in his pleasures, drank and smoke and swore,
Embracing as his fellow creatures beggar, thief and whore
CHORUS
3)The righteous said "The Devil will take Coppe and his kind".
"The Devil is God's backside", said Coppe "and Hell is a state of mind"
"Women are the only heaven, marriage is the only Hell"
Abiezer Coppe knew it very well.
CHORUS
4)Through the streets of London, Abiezer came,
heard the hungry cries for bread, he was a soul in pain.
When the nobles in their coaches passed, he charged with wild eyes
And gnashed his teeth in anger and then roared up to the skies
5"hark, ye rich, ye nobles, ye shall reap soon what ye sow
For the day of doom is coming that will lay the mighty low.
And your property will canker, and your houses will decay
And the rust upon your silver will burn your flesh away
CHORUS
6)"Community in all things, Abiezer said,
The naked shall have clothing, the hungry must have bread
The great man jails the cutpurse, the rich man starves the poor"
"Without property", said Abiezer "theft would be no more"
7)Condemned by Church and Parliament, attacked on every side
They banned his books and burned them, and he was seized and tried
The magistrates condemned him, for vile Blasphemy
He pelted them with nutshells, cried "will you my judges be?"
8)To Newgate jail they took him, the Ranters' dream was dead.
He had no taste for martyrdom "I will recant", he said
"I banished sin, but I have erred, it cannot be denied
that THESE are sins...greed, tyranny, hypocrisy and PRIDE!"
CHORUS
*
9)Abiezer Coppe did away with sin
"My body is my church," he said, "God's dwelling is within"
History disowned him, but his ghost it cannot kill
Haunts the rich and the righteous, drunk and dancing still.
CHORUS.
Roads To Moscow-Al Stewart
(About the Siege of Stalingrad)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAqP35A9Oi8
Link to the lyrics:
Here's another one about Stalingrad:
Stalin Wasn't Stallin'Stalin wasn't stallin'
When he to1d the beast of Berlin
That they'd never rest contented
Til they had driven him from the land
So he called the Yanks and English
And proceeded to extinguish
The Fuhrer and his vermin
This is how it all beganNow the Devil he was reading
In the good book one day
How the lord created Adam
To walk the righteous way
And it made the Devil jealous
He turned green up to his horns
And he swore by things unholy
That he'd make one of his ownSo he packed two suitcases
Full of grief and misery
And he caught the midnight special
Going down to Germany
Then he mixed his lies and hatred
With fire and brimstone
Then the devil sat upon it
That's how Adolf was bornNow Adolf got the notion
That he was the master race
And he swore he'd bring new order
And put mankind in it,s place!
So he set his scheme in motion
And he was winning everywhere
Until he up and got the notion
For to kick that Russian bearYes he kicked that noble Russian
But it wasn't very long
Before Adolf got suspicious
The he had done something wrong
Cause that bear grabbed the Fuhrer
And gave him an awful fright
Seventeen months he scrapped the Fuhrer
Tooth and claw, day and nightThen that bear smacked the Fuhrer
With a mighty armored paw
And Adolf broke all records
Running backward towards Krakaw
The Goebbels sent a message
To the people everywhere
That if they couldn't hit the Fuhrer
Go down hit that Russian bear
"The Writing of 'Tipperary'" by Bill Caddick
(sung here by June Tabor):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZHLv0ffeRA
Link to the lyrics here:
http://www.tomlewis.net/lyrics/tipperary.htm
About the writing of "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", the Great War love song, and more importantly, about
the events of the last years before that insane mass sacrifice of human life.
Joshua Gone Barbados, by Eric Von Schmidt, about the brutal suppression of a cane cutters strike on St. Vincent and(surprise, surprise) the duplicity of politicians
(Sung by Johnny Cash)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjabXlFDTi4
Link to lyrics here:
Alan Price-"Jarrow Song", about the Jarrow March of 1936
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlMjSESoz9A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKMdtFj3ozg&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarrow_March
http://www.codehot.co.uk/lyrics/abcd/alanprice/thejarrowsong.htm