Music with a leftist message
- Neil Young - Rockin' In The Free World
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My favourite example of a song that people think is patriotic but isn't even close.
- Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.
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Too often this song is seen as an unwavering patriotic song, which to me indicates that people aren't paying attention to all the lyrics. This song is about the country forcing the poor and downtrodden to go to war on behalf of people they will never meet and then expected to, somehow, return to normal. When understood in it's appropriate context, this song is better than anything uncritical listeners hear.
- Gil Scott-Heron - Revolution Will Not Be Televised
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This is another legendary classic. Seeing the protest crackdowns on college students had me thinking about this song for the last few days.
- [Underworld - Soniamode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_c0cnV5hGk)
I humbly submit some dance by elder statesmen of the genre.
Aside from a cracking beat, it's a complete piss-take of modern, forward-thinking, community-first terminology.
Take your anger out on the dancefloor, and solidarity.
(And, in case I failed to embed the link in the title, here it is .)
- System Of A Down - Boom!
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Watching this video (probably 15 years ago) was the moment I realised I was left wing.
- SMZB - 'Ten Thousand Ways To Rebel' - Chinese Punk
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Another Chinese punk band that's explicitly leftist (and black flag).
- Dummy Toys - War Is Nightmare (FULL ALBUM 2023 CHINA PUNX)
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Pretty much anything by the Dummy Toys qualifies as left-messaging.
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance OST - Red Sun Extended
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- Wingnut Dishwashers Union - Urine Speaks Louder Than Words.
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Edit: didn't put the URL in the URL spot. Wasn't thinking, sorry.
I'm pretty sure every song on this album would fit here. Also probably like 85 % of the folk-punk genre.
Hope you enjoy.
- Slugdge - Crop Killer
Is this how you want to live your lives?
inside the vultures circle
can you feel the talons in your neck?
Only the strong survive you say?
Just pray that prey you don't become
You've got no time for safety nets
There are no alpha wolves
Only those struggling to survive the state of nature
Domestic animals lost without the trappings of their civilization
You like to play armchair eugenicist, militant pessimist
An ivory tower that's built upon
the product of a million labors
Regression to the mean, repression of the weak
fraudulent pyramid scheme of human hierarchy
Do you ever wonder why you've been deprived
the wealth of nations?
do you feel the trickle down your leg?
Preoccupied with war against your own and your own home
How is it you're not already dead?
Another failed experiment
Evidence suggests you will not pass the last great filter
The soldiers won't defend the hive
when the Queen neglects to satisfy the builders
You like to play the devil's advocate, passive and impotent
brood over fallen empires
That were built upon the bones of millions
Narrow minded sanctimonious
self-serving sophistry
Greed governing holiness?
Not in the version I have seen.
You will not see the stars
doomed to the tides
access denied, fated to die
- Magpies - Workers of the World, Awaken!
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This one is a cover of a song written by Joe Hill. The IWW still publishes the little red songbook, which has this song in it!
- “We Don’t Mind” by Michael Franti & Spearhead
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We don't mind\ See we've been doin' it all the time\ But if you want us to you sacrifice\ You will not get it without a price\ We don't mind\ See we've been doin' it all the time\ But if you want us to you sacrifice\ You gotta give something back to life
You think I'm vulnerable to your pressure tactics\ Because I shed a tear, 'cause I shed a tear\ You think I'm vulnerable to your violence\ Just 'cause I'm sittin' here\ But my babies came into this world\ Without a single fear, say they has no fear\ 'cause the seven generations before me\ They all fought to get us here
You can't just come in here like that no more\ And snatch up our childhood\ You just can't walk on up\ And replace it yo, with your Hollywood\ But I see now\ How all of the words I say you'll take and misconstrue\ And I'm prepared now\ To suffer the penalties for speakin' the truth\ And I speak the truth when I say
People if you hear me now I wantcha to say\ Naa, na-naa, na-naa, nah\ People if you hear me now I wantcha to say\ Naa, na-naa, na-naa, nah
- Rage Against The Machine - Guerrilla Radio
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Haven't seen any RATM in this community yet. But i feel like basicly all their songs would fit here.
- Pete Seeger -Which Side are You On?
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This is a legendary classic, covered by dozens of leftist artists. While I prefer studio recordings generally, hearing an entire crowd singing this song gives so much more weight to it. I also really like this (admittedly it's mostly a meme) edit with rifle fire to really drive home that we would not have our labor rights today without these brave workers literally fighting with guns for better working conditions.
- The Chemical Worker's Song - (Cover) Seth Stanton Watkins
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- The Death of Harry Simms - Pete Seeger
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Harry Simms was an organizer for the NMU, a communist union that had been organizing in Harlan county, Kentucky during the events of Bloody Harlan. In fact his death, as described in this song, reignited militant labor into more violent action against the capitalists. Eventually the UMW won the hearts and minds of the workers while beating back the capitalist union busters, but the NMU was a crucial part of the story in supporting workers and their families after getting kicked out of company towns.
- Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine
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I suppose I'm cheating a bit by posting Pink, but their leftist messages are popular for a reason!