Hammer
Songs that say something meaningful or stirring about socio-political issues have always appealed to me. They are not too plentiful but they are certainly out there. I think of "Imagine" and "Working Class Hero" by John Lennon , "We Shall Overcome" that evolved from a church hymn, "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds, "No More Auction Block" and other American slave songs, "The Red Flag" by Jim Connell, "Hurricane" and "With God On Our Side" by Bob Dylan, "Born In the USA" by Bruce Springsteen and "The Internationale" by Eugène Pottier and Pierre De Geyter. Often such songs are driven by strong senses of injustice or exasperation. They can pierce your heart more than a dump truck load of soppy love songs. Four years before I was born, American folk figures Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote a powerful yet simple socialist anthem that most readers of this blog will be very familiar with. It...