A troubadour for this generation
(Wednesday 10 August 2005)
INTERVIEW: David Rovics
by MIKE CHIVERS
INTERVIEW: DAVID ROVICS talks about the inspirations and ideas behind his progressive folk music.
At a time when grand humanitarian gestures have become indistinguishable from the latest corporate publicity drive, US singer-songwriter David Rovics is a rare and precious find.
Here we have a committed artist who encourages his audience not only to care deeply about the world but to go out and change it themselves - a true anti-capitalist and travelling troubadour for the G8 generation.
I meet Rovics at the Brighton [England] pub the Evening Star.
He enthuses about the performers that he appeared alongside at the previous day’s Glastonwick Beer Festival, including Carter USM’s JimBob, ex-Adverts front man TV Smith and “keep it spiky” trainspotters Eastfield.
Rovics’s own music falls into the acoustic tradition of Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger. …
“My most recent song was directly inspired by the Bush administration.
They appointed Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.
That was so poetic, because, at least in the US, there’s a real division between the global justice movement, around WTO, G8 and that kind of thing, and the anti-war movement.
“It seems outrageous because it is so obvious that these things are connected. How can you separate US economic policy from US military policy?
They’re all part of the same thing.
“Appointing the guy who was in charge of bombing Iraq to the financial institution that’s supposed to help develop the Third World?
If that doesn’t make the connections between capitalism and imperialism obvious, then what will?”
Read more here.
Background of Rovics’ song Saint Patrick’s Battalion: here. The Mexican-US war of 1848: here.
See also http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=7776
Comment by Administrator — November 19, 2005 @ 9:43 pm