We’re short of saints these days, but when refugee caravans go marchin’ in, they need our back.
when caravans approach our lands
Well I want to be in that number
When we all can lend a hand
When families are forced to flee
To the land of the Not Quite Free
Well I want to be in that number
When we welcome the refugee
Economies are broke and bent
By the 1/10th of 1%
Dictatorships deployed
Local industry destroyed
We say enough, let the people be free
And when our friends must emigrate
Escaping terror from the state
Just like ref-u-gees
Throughout history
They will make our country great
Boss Tweet harangues
He talks of gangs
They’re coming here to kill, he barks
But we know it’s just a distraction
From the rule of oligarchs
The USA has had its way
The IMF and CIA
Honduras and El Salvador
We’ve got to open up the door
Welcome in strangers and kin
Welcome in
So welcome in
Strangers and kin
Let’s live together
We all win
You’ve got the freedom to be moving
Your life to be improving
Welcome in welcome in welcome in
The Internet Corral
Facebook is a new International, but maybe until we get a world (non)government the best we can do is nationalize it…..?
Arise web crawlers of the earth
For Facebook swipes your information
For covert ops it has great worth
No more Mark Zuckerberg shall bind us
Arise ye posters from your thrall
Our metadata’s their foundation
They have been caught,
let’s seize their wall
By these spies we have been tricked
They purvey fake news and coups
From Trump to Bolsanaro
Democracy is screwed
‘Tis the time to expropriate
Yes it’s eminent domain
Community of posts and pix
We joyfully reclaim
Original Lyrics
Eugène Pottier, 1871
Music
Pierre De Geyter, 1888
When We Stand Up To Donald Trump
The encore at the Café Paloma (Seattle) gig, May 2019. Jumping into the audience to enforce the singalong.
To Donald Trump
When we stand up to Donald Trump
Well I want to be in that number
When we stand up to Donald Trump
No one is shriller than Stephen Miller
No one is shriller than Stephen Miller
Worked for Bachman, worked for Sessions
Immigrants are his obsession
No one is shriller than Stephen Miller
Betsy DeVos
A total loss
Wants to kill the public schools
Her policies are very scary
And her bro’s a mercenary
You albatross DeVos we won’t obey your rules
Give Jared Kush
ner one big push
On his Baltimore slumlord tush
He’s 45’s first fixer
But for tenants rights a nixer
And by the way his address on 5th is 666
So we’ll stand up
To Donald Trump
Yes we’ll stand up to Donald Trump
Well I want to be in that number
When we stand up to Donald Trump
All We Are Saying
Every religion (and non-religion) seems to get around to fascism at some point. But if we think while we sing, maybe, just maybe….
Café Paloma, Seattle, May 2019
Everybody’s talking about Islamo-fascism
No one wants to talk about the Hindu brand
Pogrommin’ on the Muslims who can’t be protected
Then they lie about it and even get elected
There’s Buddhist fascism over in Burma
Rohingya ethnic cleansed from their terra firma
There’s Christian fascism in the USA
And now it’s in the white house, we’re in deep…decay
All we are saying is not in my name
All we are saying is we’re all the same
Nobody wants to talk about Israel twisting us
Jews who were beleaguered with nobody assisting us
Destroy Palestine and then blame them for resisting? Just
Jackin the locals, tearin’ down their homes and jobs
They’re all refugees, attacked by settler mobs
You know Everybody wants to talk about human rights
Thinkin bout the children keeps us up at night
Anybody bullies poor people yeah we’re agin’ it
Unless they got oil and we got big bucks in it
Violation anywhere is violation everywhere
All people have rights, you know it’s only fair
You can’t have it both ways, c’mon people get aware
All we are saying is not in my name
All we are saying is we’re all the same
I am he as you are me and I am she
And we must come together
I Hate Amazon
This song, a blatant ripoff of “I Hate Wal-Mart” from the earlier days of corporate fascism, doesn’t so much cover the crimes of Bezos – warehouses that run hot and cold, with ambulances waiting outside instead of Him investing one day of his winnings ($350 million) into workers’ rights to survive – and to go to the bathroom! – and his tech work for ICE, plunging us further into the police state – well, it’s just a warm-up pep talk for the proper solution to pirate enterprise gone hog-wild.
Starbucks, almost as much
If I’m not boycotting at least 3 oil companies
I start to feel out of touch
I wouldn’t be seen in an Apple watch or any such
And I hate Amazon
2
I don’t like whips, I don’t like chains
I don’t go choppin up my neighbors’ brains
You can tell we’re in the last days of Babylon
When you can get anything you want at Amazon
3
Hello Long Island City
Bezos got a deal oh so pretty
Done behind closed doors, that’s shitty
DeBlasio, what the fuck!
4
If you didn’t hear the story, here’s how it is
Big company sells below cost
Drive mom and pop out of biz
Now people sit and home and buy
Everything they need from just one guy
And that’s why I hate Amazon
5
I like to roam, I like to greet
Individuals on the street
You always know the one you meet is one of a kind
But more and more it seems to me
A reflection of something on TV
When we’re all alike nobody’s free
I hate Amazon
6
Turn on my radio dial
Like to hear something new once in a while
But it’s the same old crap in a brand new style
So narrow, why do they even call it broadcast?
Still I try to pick and choose
I turn the dial but I always lose
They only play the worst possible rock and roll
Which let’s face it it’s just lite white rhythm and blues
And that’s why
God made podcasts
7
I never read the ads, CEOs ain’t my comrades
They’re a bunch of capitalist cads
They’re full of shite
Everyone I meet is a high-tech dealer
Wants to sell me a digital potato peeler
Kinda makes you pine for Garrison Keeler
But he’s so….
white
8
Bezos makes 350 mill
That’s dollars a day it makes me ill
Too much power, this battle’s uphill
No shit Sherlock
Hope you like this song, thanks a bunch
Sorry some of the rhymes kinda crunch
If you didn’t like it I got a hunch
You own their stock
8.5
They’re bankin’ billions
We make minimum wage
Whole towns closed up, where’s the rage?
Not that I believe in nations per se
But it just might be time
To nationalize Amazon
Teenage Mexican Middle East Mothers on Drugs
Lee Goland, r.i.p., wrote the original, Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Drugs, in the 1980s. I sang it all these years and finally sprang for an update. Live at Café Paloma, Seattle, May 2019.
All of my neighbors had my kind of hair and eyelids
(in the 50s. 1850s.)
Back then José picked the fruit and the bankers were all yids
How did the greatest country in history end up on the skids?
Chorus:
Teenage Mexican Middle East Mothers on Drugs
It’s all their fault,
they’ve got some balls,
They’re big and strong
Let’s build that wall
Windmills are ugly, clean coal is the name of the game
We don’t win wars anymore it’s a crime and a shame
Robots took my job and there’s no retraining – the Chinese are to blame
Lots of new jobs but they’re all at McDonalds, how lame
Chorus
I’m so sick of these East coast elite Soros snobs
And those teens against guns in their damn crisis actor mobs
Where’s all the Chevies, I’m sick of these Volvos and Saabs
And Self-driving cars come over here and take our Pakistani cabbie jobs
Chorus
Who’s to blame for fake news making fun of everything the Donald says
Who’s to blame for Spanish on ballots, black people voting and we had a black Muslim Prez
Who’s to blame for America not being great and not invading Iran
Who’s to blame for gay people on TV and my daughter being trans
Chorus
Roy Jordan and Ed Morgan
The classic urban-coastal-leftie-meets-salt-of-earth tale, this one from the 90s, revisited with award-winning Turkish spoon maestro Sedat Uysal joining in at his Café Paloma, Seattle, May 2019.
They were good boys, not so old boys
You really couldn’t say they’d been around
When it came to race, creed, color, gender orientation and endangered species
I guess you really couldn’t say they’d made the scene
In fact they were liable to escort you to the edge of town
For wearin the wrong color jeans
One night down at the bar they chanced to meet
A representative from some subcommittee of the U.N.
Who introduced them to a couple of her friends,
took em on a trip around the world, and later on brought em back again.
Roy Jordan and Ed Morgan moved into two houses down the road
Just to the left and right of mine but I don’t mind
Long as they keep it up to code
Roy Jordan and Ed Morgan had no sooner gotten out of bed
Than there were three blonde Moslems, two Peruvian PhD’s
And funny ideas gettin into their heads
Roy Jordan and Ed Morgan went down to the corner store
Roy Jordan and Ed Morgan really couldn’t know what was in store
Cause there there was a Micronesian workin on a macroprogram
For a list of all the famous gays in history when suddenly a space ship came on by
And took em to another planet where there was no corner store
And they really had to wonder why
Well there was no corners cause there was no straight streets
and no straight people, well maybe just a few
And I guess you’d have to say they were treated rather well
And there was Ilhan Omar & AOC & Colin Kaepernick & and Chelsea Manning
and Black Jews and even Arab comedians too
And then Jesus came along and he was a Rubenesque black lesbian
And they really didn’t know what to do
Roy Jordan and Ed Morgan were two good old boys from my home town
They were good boys, gettin to be old boys
I guess you could say they were gettin around
One night down at the bar they chanced to meet
A man who was just this far short of bein’ a mensch
Who thought he knew whereof he spew
So Roy said boy, get a dimension!
So one night down at the bar if you chance to meet a man
Who’s fit to be fenced
Tell him you’re married to a gay Black Jewish Puerto Rican
And see if he can figure out which part he’s against
Air bnb – Don’t Go There
Air bnb listed illegal settlement rentals in occupied territories as being in Israel. They wisely acceded to public pressure to remove them, then unwisely rescinded the removal and put them up again. They are disguised as legal – don’t be fooled and do cancel your membership, as have 20,000 others, and counting. #boycottairbnb
Woman, finds herself outward bound
Buyer beware ‘cause you’re in a new town
That was built on stolen hillsides
Travelers, there’s a place you can go
If you don’t mind dispossessing some folks
You can pretend that you don’t even know
You are part of ethnic cleansing
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
You can help to displace
And erase every trace
Of indigenous families
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
Israel’s listings you see
Include the territories
So just don’t go there, traveler please
Traveler, are you listening to me
I said tourist who do you want to be
Sightseer don’t fall for their schemes
Yes you got to know this one thing
Israel can’t do it all by itself
They need suckers, so put your mind on the shelf
And just go there to the Air BnB
And demolish human rights there
Cho
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
You can hang out with all of the IDF troops
And be one of apartheid’s dupes
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
It’s fun to stay at the Air BnB
It’s the wild wild west
You’ll be an illegal guest
So just don’t go there, traveler please