Songs
of Conscience
Downloads Songs
in memory of Rachel Corrie (March 16,
2005,
2nd
anniversary of her death), MP3s available
for download, with lyrics, etc.
"Rafah" and
"Price of an Orange" /
Lyrics: Starhawk, Music: Mark Simos
"Moriah" by Mark Simos
Songs
at SongsofConscience.com
One
goal of the Songs of Conscience site is
to
explore
the different
varieties
of social action songs, what works
best for what kinds of audiences and context,
and so forth. Toward this end, we periodically
release "Virtual Albums" which
are samplers or compilations of a few
songs addressing a common theme, usually
from different, complementary perspectives.
Most often the songs will reflect a
clearly progressive point of view but
using different
slants, songwriterly techniques and
tone of voice. They
will often be "short shelf life" songs,
to use a term from one of my songwriting
heroes, Tom
Paxton.
These
are for the most part unabashedly "partisan" songs. We
make no pretense of this being an objective,
impartial, or balanced website.
These days, I think the Patriotic Opposition
needs every minute and ounce of energy
we can spare. The Other Side has the White
House, Congress, and,
it would appear, the judiciary. So I'd
say we've already given them a sporting
chance...
Some
of the songs may be mine (Mark Simos,
Songs of Conscience site-steward); some
may be co-written songs, as are two of
the new songs above. And some
may be songs penned by my close friend,
the
reclusive
and mysterious songwriter Ishmael Moongoose.
Sorry:
for
the present, I just don't have the resources
to offer lots of other songs from other
writers here (even some of my heroes and
sheroes), but I will include pointers to
their sites when so moved on the Links page.
In the interests of getting
these songs out quickly, we release them
on this site not as physical
recordings on CD, but as free MP3 downloads
(via a conditional Creative Commons license);
we
encourage you to download
the songs. We
also post lyrics as downloadable PDF files,
and as more crudely formatted HTML pages;
and, when available, chord charts to encourage
musicians and singers to take up the songs
if they grab the ear and heart.
If
you enjoy the songs you find on this site,
please spread the word to others
you
think
will appreciate them. For
now, this means sending email to
your own selected list of recipients (I
suggest blind copying if the list is at
all large) and pointing them to this site,
so that anyone downloading these MP3s will
do so from this site. And encourage people
to join the Songs of Conscience mailing
list,
to be part of what we hope will be an ongoing
and evolving conversation about how to ally
the artistic path of the songwriter with the
goals of peace and social justice.
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