political and protest songs today?

Subject: RE: political and protest songs today?
From: Acorn4
Date: 17 Oct 18 - 04:25 AM

A group of Leicester songwriters have produced a compilation CD "The Peasants are Revolting" contributions from Pete Morton, Grace Petrie, Steve Cartwright, Phil Riley, Tim Garland, Sheila Mosley, Acorn4.

All proceeds to the Leicestershire branch of Momentum.

£5.00 plus £1 p and p in UK.

Also a "Peasants are Revolting Book of Revolting Verse" - an anthology with contributions from five Leicestershire poets.

£4.00 plus £1 p and p in UK.

So some of us are still at it!

Msg if interested.

Subject: RE: political and protest songs today?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 29 Oct 18 - 04:38 PM

Jack Campin just posted this on Facebook.

I wondered if anyone had put it, or the Kahlil Gibran poem, to music?
"PITY THE NATION" Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
   And whose shepherds mislead them
 Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
            Whose sages are silenced
  And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
 Pity the nation that raises not its voice
          Except  to praise conquerers
       And acclaim the bully as hero
          And aims to rule the world
              By force and by torture
          Pity the nation that knows
        No other language but its own
      And no other culture but its own
 Pity the nation whose breath is money
 And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
      Pity the nation oh pity the people
        who allow their rights to  erode
   and their freedoms to be washed away
               My country, tears of thee
                   Sweet land of liberty!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation

- Kahlil Gibran