"Back To The Primitive" by Soulfly, Album: Primitive (2000)

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your politics
We got our life to live
The way we want to be

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your politics
"Who feels it, knows it"
(Bob Marley)
And God will guide me

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your bullshit
We're back to set it free
Confronting the negative

Back to the primitive
Fuck all you wannabes
You don't mean shit to me
Let it bleed...

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your politics
We got our life to live
The way we want to be

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your politics
How it used to be
Check your reality

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your politics
Fuck all you wannabes
Aaaaaarggghhh!

Back to the primitive
Fuck all your politics
Forever we will be
What we want to be

Disgusting of hypocritical politicians that make wars, destruct environment, enslave people in a meaningless life in concrete walls fed with lies from manipulated Mass Media, the singer, full of anger, rejects civilized life and calls us for the wild. That song reminds us that of Kinks' "Apeman" which deals with the same issue but in a humoristic attitude. We understand Max Cavalera's furious attitude because he is in contact with tribes who suffer a lot from their contact with "civilization" but it's not only something personal:

There is also a controversial sociopolitical movement, the Anarcho-primitivism which calls seriously of the wild by strongly critisizing current politics, role of science and technology and generally the development and form of civilization under exploitative authorities and patriarchy. No matter the utopic and sometimes goofy proposals about the future form of a back-to-the-primitive social organization, anarcho-primitivists do have a point when they critisize the historical development of social structures.

you can hear this song in youtube

“Mother Gaia” by Stratovarius, album: Infinite (2000)

Time waits for no one
So they say
It goes on forever
The tears of pain
I see in your eyes
How can we change for the better?

Hate and greed`s getting stronger day by day
Injustice rules the world
Killing the lungs of the Earth
How far are we prepared to go?

I have seen the Light
It came into my life
There's no second chance
We should have learned by now
But it's not too late to change the course
There's so much more than this,
oh Mother Gaia

Can you see,
can you feel all the beauty
that we have in this world?
There's so much to see, forever
Ignorance, arrogance
Keep us from being ourselves
so we just follow our leaders – Why

A lament for the destruction of our planet and a call to take responsibility for reversing the tide. No matter the sad attitude of the song, the message is optimistic: It’s not too late to rise against our ignorance, inactiveness, and our submission to corrupted authorities.


You can hear this beautiful power ballad in youtube

Album: "Folkemon" by Skyclad (2000)

The Disenchanted Forest

My kin and I had laboured hard
to reap the yearly harvest.
Lain weary on our gathered sheaves we
cracked a vat of ale. Poured a toast;

Began to boast of who could sup the hardest.
Slumped in drunken slumber
at the height of wild wassail....
I woke to find my brothers gone
that Autumn eve so balmy.

Yet gazed in wide-eyed terror
to the barley fields nearby.
Struck dumb I swore;
Stood before a mighty woad-duabed army.

Believed my wits deceived me
'til I heard their battle-cry.

Smash the axe and sow the seed;
Don't cause the Oaken Heart to bleed!

When he that led this heathen horde
cast-off his ivy mantle;
Cohorts raised honed halberds
flying pennants of leaf-green.

From below approached the foe;
A fierce scythe-bearing hantle.
Captains sat triumphant
upon coughing, steel machines.

Break the bough and strip all of it.
Fell this forest, make a profit!

Opposing forces clashed
beneath a red sky cracked by thunder.
Entrenched beneath the hedge-row
I'd observed it quite unseen.

One side stood to save the wood:
T'other planned it's plunder,
I chose to fight for Nature's right;
Grabbed a fallen skean.

All who would one flower destroy,
must first cut down this Didycoy!

We fought until the last that day
to gain a hard-won victory,
Sucked in by the thirsty earth
I watched my life-blood ebb.

Though I died at least
I'd tried to play some part in history;
A momentary trembling
on the threads of Wyrd's web.

Are there more so brave and honest;
Who would die to save my forest?

Forests have lost their spell and magic, now they are only economical resources and oxygen productive machines. But no matter the fact that fairies, elves and ogres are not existed, forests are extremely complicated ecosystems to be managed in such a simple and disenchanting way. We think that the last verses of the song calls for activists with a strong positive morality towards nature who dare to risk their life in defense of a forest, of a natural ecosystem or landscape. Such activism is that of ELF, Earth First and all those whom the safety of earth has precedence over their life.



The Antibody Politics

'Free citizens of Planet Earth';
The leptons in some base equation.
Bound by swaddling-chains from birth,
unto travail and assentation.

Given what they're taught to crave;
Denied the truths they sorely need.
Shown a future new and brave;
Frog-marched towards it at fool-speed.

If there's anyone else out there,
disillusioned just like me;
It's time we tried to turn the tide,
with an overwhelming minority.

The masses are numb, their ethics awry.
Nothing's as dumb as the Vox Populi.
If there's anyone else out there,
aiming sawn-off philosophy;

Let's all unite and make things right,
with an overwhelming minority.
No seed of hope nor ray of light.
Scant succour from the blighted epoch.

Rise like Socrates and fight;
Take hate's chalice laced with hemlock.
Mankind's retrograde ascent;
We've wagered all for unseen winnings.

Evolution's youth misspent,
it's time to forge bold new-beginnings.
If there's anyone else out there,
disillusioned just like me;

It's time we tried to turn the tide,
with an overwhelming minority.
Bolt from the herd bleating like sheep.
Hang for your words; Don't perish asleep!

If there's anyone else out there,
aiming sawn-off philosophy;
Let's all unite and make things right,
with an overwhelming minority.


When a minority realizes sociopolitical issues better than a cheated by politicians majority, it has to make great efforts in order to turn the tide with demonstrations, activism, etc. Such an overgrowing minority is the Ecological movement, who year by year becomes stronger and nowadays in some cases affects the policy of their country. In our country, Greece, only the last year the ecological movement has become visible in political life, no matter a history of 25 years of activism and interventions for the protection of greek environment.

You can hear "Anti-body politics" in my space
You can hear Disenchanted Forest in youtube

"Planet Home" by Jamiroquai, Album: Synkronized (1999)

You know there's no place like planet home
Nowhere else I would rather be
It's the only place I know
Where you can witness tragedy
There's no time to wonder now
About who is right or wrong
Were Gonna need some help to get things straight
So come on bring your advice along,
Because sure enough

There's no place like planet home
I wanna go now
This blue sphere of talented dreams
Is heading for destruction
Illusions drip from every seam
It's just death by corruption
I heard there was a promised land
On planet home
2000 years they've been and gone
But still we don't know

Can't you see, there's no place like planet home
I wanna go now
If only we can make it right
Planet home I've got to go now
I wanna go there baby
Find yourself some peace on planet home
I've got to go now
Anything's in reach on planet home
Planet home, planet home.

Planet home is blue and green
Beautiful for you to see [x3]

Planet is blue and green

I wanna go now [x2]

Planet home I wanna go there, planet home
There's no place like planet home,
I wanna go now
If only we can make it right, planet home
I wanna go now- hey I really wanna go now
Find yourself some peace on planet home
I wanna go now- I wanna go there baby
Anythings in reach on planet home.

A song that calls us to realize that planet is our home and that we lead it to destruction that will also sweep away us and our civilization.

You can hear this song in youtube

"The last resort" by Eagles, album: Hotel California (1976)

She came from Providence,
the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams
like a refugee

Just as her father came across the sea
She heard about a place people were smilin'
They spoke about the red man's way,
and how they loved the land
And they came from everywhere
to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand
or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars,
out for a good time,
Can't wait to tell you all,
what it's like up there
And they called it paradise
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
while the town got high

Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
through the canyons of the coast, to
the Malibu
Where the pretty people play,
hungry for power
to light their neon way
and give them things to do

Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,
people bought 'em
And they called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

You can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign: "Jesus is coming"
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign

Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs and
justify our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny and the name of God

And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
what it's like up there
They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye

The song refers to the colonization of once virgin natural environments of America and the transformation of them to heany urban and industrialized by eliminating natural landscapes and local cultures. It also depicts the way urbanization expands and destroys natural landscapes. People try to escape from existing urban polluted, crowdy and noisy environments in order to find peace of mind: They decide to go to country where things seems to be quite better. But that decision is made by many people, so rich people take the chance for more development in these places by transforming the previous natural landscape to heavy urban (hotels, bars, markets, new houses, etc). This vicious cycle goes on and on producing more polution, more noise, more stress.

You can hear this song in youtube

“I'd Love To Change The World” by Ten Years After, album: A space in Time (1971)

Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

Id love to change the world
But I dont know what to do
So Ill leave it up to you

Population keeps on breeding
Nation bleeding, still more feeding economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees make honey, who needs money, monopoly

Id love to change the world
But I dont know what to do
So Ill leave it up to you

World pollution, theres no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war

Id love to change the world
But I dont know what to do
So Ill leave it up to you

Someone who wonders about the unsolved and continouslly getting worse global problems (huge class differences between rich and poor, exploitation, war, environmental pollution, racial discriminations, war, etc. But he feels unable to do anything so he prefers to leave the burden of solution to next generations. But that's the main cause of their perpetuation: the irresponsibility of those who face these problems today to react effectively and the eternal postponement.

You can hear this song in youtube

"Ecology song" by Stephen Stills, album: Stephen Stills 2, 1970

Fortunes of time making up a rhyme
How do we save tomorrow
Given a voice can you make a choice
Is it black, is it grey, is it yellow
Mother nature made it green
Prettiest place you've ever seen
People don't know what they need

Open your window
What do you see
Do you remember
how it used to be

All of this crying, while the earth is dying
It's a shock they won't stop because of the money
America is lost, figurin' the cost
You can hang your head in shame
It's disgusting
Mother nature made it green
Prettiest place you've seen
People don't know what they need

Open your window
What do you see
Do you remember
how it used to be

One of the first songs using the term “ecology”, another worrying about how people use nature putting money above all.

you can hear some songs in youtube:
Treetop flyer
Crossroads/You Can't Catch Me

"Earth Anthem" by The Turtles, album: The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands (1968)

And we are but an island in an ocean
This is our home, third from the sun
Let it be evergreen, let it be evergreen

And we are but an island in an ocean
This is our home, third from the sun
God, Keep it evergreen
To keep it evergreen I would lay my life down

And we are but an island in an ocean
This is our home, third from the sun
Let it be evergreen, let it be evergreen

A request for keeping our planet evergreen.

you can hear Turtles' classic "Happy together" in youtube

Black Moon by Emerson Lake Palmer, album: “Black Moon” (1992)

Everyday I see a new cloud coming
There's one more hole in space
Everytime I walk across the street
I feel the gas blowing in my face
We never learn even deserts burn
And all politicians lie
They won't do nothin'
'Till we reach high noon
Black Moon

Ain't nobody gonna walk on water
When it falls like acid rain
Nobody gonna fake you out
Every poison stains
We're all stuck here
Right in the middle
We never call the tune
They won't do nothin'
'Till we reach high noon
Black Moon

In the night see the red sky burning
There's fire on the mountain
Oil slicks on the sea
Black Moon is rising
How long will it be

Just take a look around the world
The future never waits
We're skating on the thin ice
And we're in the hands of fate
What we need's a little re-direction
To find our blue lagoon
You know it wouldn't come
A moment to soon
Black Moon's
Ghostly images die


The Emerson Lake Palmer’s 1992 comeback includes also a beautiful environmental song about air and water pollution, acid rain etc.

You can hear this song in youtube

"Song For A Dying Planet" by Joe Walsh, album: Songs For A Dying Planet (1992)

Is anyone out there?
Does anybody listen or care anymore?
We are living on a dying planet,
We're killing everything that's alive,
And anyone who tries to deny it
Wears a tie
And gets paid to lie

So I wrote these songs for a dying planet,
I'm sorry but I'm telling the truth,
And for everybody trying to save it
These songs are for you, too.
Is anyone out there?


simple lyrics that tell us a great and unconvenient truth. If you deny the environmental destruction you are the main part of the problem, a liar, an enterpreneur that has purposes to destroy and pollute.

You can hear this song in youtube

Malvina Reynolds in 60's: protest songs about saving forests and trees

Run, Run, the Tree Is Falling by Malvina Reynolds 1965

Run, run, the tree is falling,
Run, run, the chain saw's at his throat!
Once the redwood's gone
It will not come again,
It will not be a giant
In the history of time.

Once the grove is gone,
The living fern and bush,
It will not house the yellow deer,
It will not bear the thrush.

Once the trees are gone
That drank the heavy rain,
The water-maddened rivers
Will tear the land again.

Once the forest's gone
That was the creature's friend,
We'll never have the wilderness
To reach a healing hand.

Stop the iron teeth
That only know to kill,
That turn the mighty forest
Into corpses at the mill.



The Falling of the Tree by Malvina Reynolds, 1965

He thought he owned the tree because he bought it.
But what does money have to do with trees?
She said the tree was hers because she loved it.
She didn't want to own it only let it be.

He thought he owned the land because he bought it.
But what does money have to do with land?
Older than he by many million years,
And here after the generations die.

He cut the tree down and the lady cried.
She called him pig, and wished she had a gun.
In court, her lawyer softly asked for pardon,
That she had been, he said emotional.

She cried and cursed for murder of a tree.
He thought he owned the tree because he bought it,
And like a feudal lord who had the right
To kill his wife if she got in his road,

Since it was his, he had the right to kill it.
The lovely tree, older and wiser,
Living in beauty, dying in awful silence,
Cut into nothing, while a woman cried.



Give a Man a Bulldozer Malvina Reynolds 1967

Give a man a bulldozer,
He'll fill the lake with muck,
A thousand years it was running clear,
But now it's running out of luck.
Give a man a bulldozer,
He'll shove the soil away,
A thousand years of careful loam
He pushes it down into the bay.
Give a man a bulldozer,
He sees a little glen,
It's nice with falls and fern and buds
And bugs and gentle violets, and then--
Give a man a bulldozer,
Made of fire and steel,
He'll make the whole world reel and rock,
He'll end up buried in the muck,
With the bulldozer on top.



Green Shadows by Malvina Reynolds 1969

You walk into this room,
The trees are all around you.
Green shadows kiss your head,
The gentle sounds surround you,
Your soul lies down on the piney bed.
The walls are random walls,
You do not feel them press you,
Green shadows touch your eyes,
Their silent welcomes bless you,
Your dreams come singing from the skies.
You are no longer one
But all that breathes beside you,
You are the craggy bark,
The leaves that move and hide you,
Green shadows and the rising dark.
You walk into this room,
The trees are all around you,
This is a living day,
No hostile sounds will wound you,
The chain saw's cry is far away.


Four songs by Malvina Reynolds where she strongly criticizes how human is ill disposed towards trees, forests and green, not hesitating to eliminate green landscapes immediately using destructive machines like chain saws, bulldozers, etc and replaces them with concrete buildings. We read about the song “The falling of a tree”

In the Notes and Comments to her songbook The Muse of Parker Street Malvina writes of this song: "A subdivider on Harbor Point, at the north end of the Bay, cut down some great old trees near the home of Lois Knill, and she didn't like it."

You can hear a song in myspace

"What Have They Done to the Rain" by Malvina Reynolds 1962

Just a little rain falling all around,
The grass lifts its head to the heavenly sound,
Just a little rain, just a little rain,
What have they done to the rain?

Just a little boy standing in the rain,
The gentle rain that falls for years.
And the grass is gone,
The boy disappears,
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears,
And what have they done to the rain?

Just a little breeze out of the sky,
The leaves pat their hands as the breeze blows by,
Just a little breeze with some smoke in its eye,
What have they done to the rain?

Just a little boy standing in the rain,
The gentle rain that falls for years.
And the grass is gone,
The boy disappears,
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears,
And what have they done to the rain?


We read in the site dedicated to Malvina’s Reynolds work

People now think of this as a song about acid rain, but it was originally written as part of a campaign to stop aboveground nuclear testing, which was putting strontium-90 in the air, where it was washed down by the rain, got into the soil and thence to the grass, which was eaten by cows. When children drank the cows’ milk the strontium-90, chemically similar to calcium but radioactive, was deposited in their bones. Mothers saved their children’s baby teeth and sent them in to be tested by scientists who indeed found elevated levels of strontium-90 in their teeth. A year after this song was written, President Kennedy signed the treaty against aboveground testing.

You can hear this song in youtube performed by
Joan Baez
The Searchers
The Seekers
Heather Lev

"Slower than guns" by Iron Butterfly, Album: Metamorphosis, 1970

Can you feel the manmade mist
As it starts to twist your lungs?
Slower than guns

Breathe deep
As you enter sleep
Fell secure it’s all around you

Can you see the golden brown
As it circles round your town
Town coming down

Smokin’ stacks on industry’s backs
In this land of a cigarette pack
Feel secure there all around you

Miles and miles of gasoline fumes
In the air like transparent tombs
Feel secure there all around you

DDT making bugs relax
There in your food like poison tacks
How about that

Eat well there all within you
Town coming down


Environmental pollution sap gradually our health either mental or body, a slow death that could't be realized easily, so people don't feel so uneasy about the future consequences of the release of new substances in the environment. Pesticides, heavy metals, CFC, fumes, smog, drugs, radiation, GMO etc will reveal their impacts decades after their disposal, so there is some kind of irresponsibility by people towards such issues. A gun is a dangerous machine because its deadly effect is immediate, what about a mobile phone/aerial, GMO or a nuclear plant?


You can hear this song in youtube

Αlbum: "God Bless The Grass" by Pete Seeger (1966)

Cement Octopus

There's a cement octopus sits in Sacramento, I think,
Gets red tape to eat, gasoline taxes to drin,
And it grows by day and it grows by night
And it rolls over everything in sight.
Oh, stand by me and protect that tree
From the freeway misery.

Who knows how the monster started to grow that way;
Its parents are frightened and wish it would go away.
But the taxes keep coming, they have to be spent
On big bull dozers and tanks of cement,
Oh, stand by me and protect that tree
From the freeway misery.

That octopus grows like a science-fiction blight,
The Bay and the Ferry building are out of sight,
The trees that stood for a thousand years,
We watch them falling through our tears
Oh, stand by me and protect that tree
From the freeway misery.

Dear old MacLaren won't take this lying down,
We can hear his spirit move in the sandy ground,
We built this Eden on the duney plain,
Now they're making it a concrete desert again,
Oh, stand by me and protect that tree
From the freeway misery.

The men on the highways need those jobs, we know
Lets put them to work planting new trees to grow.
Building new parks where kids can play,
Pushing that cement monster away,
Oh, stand by me and protect that tree
From the freeway misery

A great poetic song, about the unstoppable expansion of cemented cities, real monster which expands its tentacles and eliminating forests, trees, etc and creates a hostile and stressing environment where kids have no place to have fun. It is also refers to economical purposes that leads to such condition. The taxes from traffic must be used not for support of traffic but for more green and recreation areas in the grey cities. The original song was wriiten and sung in 1964 by another old singer-political activist Malvina Reynolds at a rally in Golden Gate Park to save the area from a proposed freeway (which was not built). http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/MALVINA/mr024.htm


God bless the grass

God bless the grass that grows through the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that breaks through cement,
It's green and its tender and it's easily bent,
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead.
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that's gentle and low
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man's door,
And God bless the grass


A song that refers to the strength of the simple and small grass that in the end winns the cement. It can be a metaphor for any kind of silent and non violent revolution that slowly but steadily replaces old repressing institutions and outdated attitudes that seems to be powerful and steady as cement. This song has also been written and sung by Malvina Reynolds


My Dirty Stream (The Hudson River Song)

Sailing down my dirty stream
Still I love it and I'll keep the dream
That some day though maybe not this year
My Hudson River will once again run clear.

It starts high in the mountains of the North
Crystal clear and icy trickles forth
With just a few floating wrappers of chewing gum
Dropped by some hikers to warn of things to come.

At Glens Falls, five thousand honest hands
Work at the Consolidated Paper Plant
Five million gallons of waste a day
Why should we do it any other way?

Down the valley one million toilet chains
Find my Hudson so convenient place to drain
And each little city says, "Who, me?
Do you think that sewage plants come free?"

In the great ocean they say the water's clear
But I live at Beacon pier here
Half way between the mountains and sea
Tacking back and forth, this thought returns to me

Sailing up my dirty stream
Still I love it and I'll dream
That some day though maybe not this year
Yes, my Hudson and my country will run clear.


A wish for a polluted river (Hudson in New York) to become again clean. We read in wikipedia about this political and environmental activist-singer:

Seeger is involved in the environmental organization Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, which he co-founded in 1966. This organization has worked since then to highlight pollution in the Hudson River and worked to clean it. As part of that effort, the sloop Clearwater was launched in 1969 with its inaugural sail down from Maine to South Street Seaport Museum in New York City, and thence to the Hudson River.[26] The sloop regularly sails the river with volunteer and professional crew members, primarily conducting environmental education programs for school groups. The Great Hudson River Revival (aka Clearwater Festival) is an annual two-day music festival held on the banks of the Hudson at Croton Point Park. This festival grew out of early fundraising concerts arranged by Seeger and friends to raise money to pay for Clearwater's construction.
Seeger wrote and performed "That Lonesome Valley" about the then-polluted Hudson River in 1969, and his band members also wrote and performed songs commemorating the Clearwater

You can hear these songs in youtube:

Cement Octopus
God bless the grass
My Dirty Stream (The Hudson River Song)

Album: “Against” by Sepultura (1998)

Old Earth

We gamble with life fighting tribes after tribes
Colors and races misplaced in the spaces
We're falling, we're crawling, we're crying, denying

Heavy rain shaking ground, no roots will be found
Hate from my mother, the limits of mankind
We're lying, we're dying, destroying

The earth is rotting, the earth is rotting
Rot old old earth
The earth is growing, it keeps on growing
Rot old old earth

Believing in gods and spirits that can save us
Shout to the skies and disturbing the peace
We're rioting, we're shouting, we're killing, denying

Involved in our minds but not by our own actions
Consume all the wealth, there's no hope for redemption
We're burning, we're cutting, destroying

Can you feel? Can you feel it leave!
The earth is rotting, the earth is rotting
Rot old old earth
The earth is growing, it keeps on growing
Rot old old earth


Boycott

Urban war, cracked-up child
Painted in blood on concrete walls
Carbonic gas, cancer land
What do I care? What do I care?
Is he prepared? Can he face that?
He must handle the truth of real demands

Strike Boycott

Armed and ill, psycho kill
There's no ground holding my feet up
Trained to serve but I steal
What do I care? What do I care?
Protect society who pays me shit
It's south of the world, no justice sire

Strike Boycott

Stressful mind, fucked up life
I know the end can be suicide
Suicide, suicide
What do I care? What do I care?
Boycott the trigger and you'll have no feedback
Boycott the force that kept the sick in their beds

I'll boycott the trigger and you'll have no feedback
With hands tied, I can't receive what I need

Reserve no honor
Reserve no pride

Strike Boycott


Two songs about the destruction of tribal cultures in Latin America and the throwing of indigenous people in downgrading suburbs in big cities where they suffer from unemployment, diseases, alcoholism, increase of criminality, mental disorders, suicide. The only solution is the fight for their rights and reclaiming their lands.

You can hear some songs from this album in youtube:

Rumors
Choke
Against

”Out in the Country” by Three Dog Night, album: It ain’t easy (1970)

Whenever I need to leave it all behind
Or feel the need to get away
I find a quiet place, far from the human race
Out in the country

Before the breathin' air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone and take back somethin' worth rememberin'

Whenever I feel them closing in on me
Or need a bit of room to move
When life becomes too fast, I find relief at last
Out in the country

Before the breathin' air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone and take back somethin' worth rememberin' (x4)

I stand alone...

A typical 60-70s song about someone getting frustrated from noisy and polluted urban life and seeks peace of mind in nature’s calmness.

You can hear this song in youtube

Calypso by John Denver, Album: Windsong (1975)

To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean
To ride on the crest of the wild raging storm
To work in the service of life and the living
In search of the answers to questions unkown
To be part of the movement and part of the growing
Part of beginning to understand

Aye, Calypso, the places you've been to
The things that you've shown us
The stories you tell
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit
The men who have served you
So long and so well

Like the dolphin who guides you
You bring us beside you
To light up the darkness and show us the way
For though we are strangers in your silent world
To live on the land we must learn from the sea
To be true as the tide
And free as a wind-swell
Joyful and loving in letting it be

Aye, Calypso, the places you've been to
The things that you've shown us
The stories you tell
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit
The men who have served you
So long and so well

A song about the famous Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s research ship “Calypso” and it’s contribution to public knowledge and awareness of the importance of undersea life.
We read in wikipedia:

John Denver was a close friend of Jacques Yves Cousteau, and wrote another song about him but died shortly before the song was planned to be recorded. Calypso is the name of Jacques Cousteau's famous research boat that sailed around the world for oceanic conservation, but sunken shortly before Cousteau died.

Also in wikipedia, we can track the adventures of the vessel after the accident:

A barge accidentally rammed Calypso and sank her in the port of Singapore in 1996. She was raised, and towed to France. After a time in the port of Marseilles, she was towed to the basin of the Maritime Museum of La Rochelle in 1998, where she was intended to be an exhibit. A long series of legal and other delays kept any restoration work from beginning. At one time it was rumoured that Calypso had been sold to Carnival Cruise Lines for the symbolic sum of one Euro. Carnival stated that they intend to give the vessel a 1.3 million dollar restoration, and then likely moor her in the Bahamas as a museum ship. See this cyber diver news page for details of this plan and developments. At the end of 2006, most of the equipment had been removed from her upper decks, and she was unprotected from the elements. It was unclear what would become of this historic vessel.
Francine Cousteau has managed to organise the ship's restoration.[1] On October 11, 2007, the transfer of the ship to Concarneau started, where she will be restored at the Piriou Shipyard and transformed into a permanent exhibit

You can hear this song in youtube

Natural Beauty by Neil Young, Album: Harvest Moon (1992)

On the roller coaster ride
That my emotions have to take me on
I heard a newborn baby cry
Through the night.

I heard a perfect echo die
Into an anonymous wall of digital sound
Somewhere deep inside
Of my soul.

A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature
Don't judge yourself too harsh, my love
Or someday you might find your soul endangered
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.

Amazon
You had so much and now so much is gone
What are you gonna do
With your life?

What a lucky man.
To see the earth before it touched his hand
What an angry fool
To condemn.

One more night to go
One more sleep upon your burning banks
A greedy man never knows
What he's done.

A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature
Don't start yourself too short, my love
Or someday you might find your soul endangered
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.

Went to the rodeo today
I saw the cowgirls lined up on the fence
A brand new Chevrolet
A brand new pair of seamless pants.

We watched the moment of defeat
Played back over on the video screen
Somewhere deep inside
Of my soul.

A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.


Natural beauty must be preserved like monument and not only for aesthetic purposes. Our existence is depends on Natural ecosystems that we keep on destroying for profitable purposes. Those simple thoughts go through Neil’s mind when he hears a baby cry in the night. Probably that cry made him aware of our responsibility of what future generations will inherit from nature, or they’ll become endangered species too.

You can hear this song in youtube

Men In Helicopters by Adrian Belew, Album: Young Lions, 1990

wouldn't it be great...
to see the african plains
before they lay them to waste...
and only the bones remain

wouldn't it be poetry...
to shoot holes in the poachers we see
with an elephant gun...
men in helicopters fly
shooting rhinos from out of the sky
why do we always assume the planet is ours to ruin
what a legacy...
we're leaving behind...
what a legacy

wouldn't it be something...
for the men killing dolphins
to be caught up by their necks...
in their greedy fishing nets

wouldn't it be irony...
if the tuna fish canneries were to fall into the sea...
dolphins and the whales still left alive
cry to the stars in the deep blue night
'there's nowhere to hide,
the people on earth will not be denied'
what a legacy...
we're leaving behind...
what a legacy

wouldn't it be odd...
if there really was a God
and He looked down on earth
and saw what we've done to Her

wouldn't it be just...
if He pulled the plug on us and took away the sun
men in helicopters fly
shooting rhinos from out of the sky
why do we always assume the planet is ours to ruin
oh, and all the dolphins alive are cryin' to the deep blue night
'there's nowhere to hide,
the people on earth will not be denied'
what a legacy...
we're leaving behind

Great lyrics about aerial hunting of endangered species with high tech means and weapons that leave victims with no chance to escape. A devastating method, either a pervasive hobby and bloody desire for trophy or for greed. We’ve dealt again with the hunting of endangered species in Megadeth’s “Countdown to extinction”. The song refers to the nowadays illegal aerial hunting in many countries in Africa, but is a practice that keeps on existing because many body parts of the victims (horn of rhinos, tusk of elephants, etc) are believed to have therapeutic properties or are luxurious items for ornaments. But aerial hunting keeps on being a sport for some game animals like deers in USA, New Zealand, etc, and for some kinds of wolves, like those in Alaska.

You can hear this song among others in myspace
Myspace 1
Myspace 2

Persephone's nightmare, by N.Gatsos-M.Hadjidakis, Album: Ta Paraloga, 1976

It’s our blog’s Birthday today (first post 5/7/2007) and we’d like to “celebrate” performing something different: the most famous greek song about environmental destruction. It’s not a rock song, but it has the protesting and accusation attitude like many rock songs we use to present. It’s about the “Persephone’s Nightmare”, a poem-song included in Manos Hadjidakis’ album “Ta Paraloga” (“The irrationals”) (1976) (Lyrics: Nikos Gatsos, Composer: Manos Hadjidakis, Performer: Maria Farandouri)

It’s a lament about how Eleusina was ended up. A sacred place in ancient Greece, and famous all over the ancient world for the Eleusinian mysteries and the cult of Demeter and Persephone, a beautiful natural landscape was lost forever in order to become the most polluted and industrialized place in Greece. The poem focuses mainly on the aesthetic pollution and abuse of the once sacred, respectful and untouchable place. It makes many hints too, either direct or indirect, about the downgrading of life quality and public health.

In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld and the parthenogenic daughter of Demeter (goddess of fertility and agriculture). She becomes the consort of her abductor Hades in the Underworld, after making a deal with Demeter to let her go up to the living world and her mother for six months a year.
The figure of Persephone is well-known today. Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden who was abducted, a mother's grief at the abduction (by bringing on autumn and winter time), and joy at the return of her daughter (by bringing on spring and summer time). Thus, it is cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.

Eleusina is the town where the majority of crude oil in Greece is imported and refined. There are numerous heavy industry plants all around and some of the biggest in Greece: 2 refineries, 2 steel industries with melting furnaces, 2 cement industries, 2 shipyards and 1 ammunition industry. Companies of storing and transportation are gathered more and more in the area thus increasing traffic and air pollution every day by tracks and any kind of fuel consuming vehicles. To make matter worse more than the half of all these industrial plants have been installed out of the defined by laws industrial area and too close to residential areas and archeological sites.

References
Wikipedia-Persephone
Greek Newspaper “TO BHMA”

The song in Greek:

Ο Eφιάλτης της Περσεφόνης

Εκεί που φύτρωνε φλισκούνι κι άγρια μέντα
κι έβγαζε η γη το πρώτο της κυκλάμινο
τώρα χωριάτες παζαρεύουν τα τσιμέντα
και τα πουλιά πέφτουν νεκρά στην υψικάμινο.

Κοιμήσου Περσεφόνη
στην αγκαλιά της γης
στου κόσμου το μπαλκόνι
ποτέ μην ξαναβγείς.

Εκεί που σμίγανε τα χέρια τους οι μύστες
ευλαβικά πριν μπουν στο θυσιαστήριο
τώρα πετάνε αποτσίγαρα οι τουρίστες
και το καινούργιο πάν’ να δουν διυλιστήριο.

Κοιμήσου Περσεφόνη
στην αγκαλιά της γης
στου κόσμου το μπαλκόνι
ποτέ μην ξαναβγείς.

Εκεί που η θάλασσα γινόταν ευλογία
κι ήταν ευχή του κάμπου τα βελάσματα
τώρα καμιόνια κουβαλάν στα ναυπηγεία
άδεια κορμιά σιδερικά παιδιά κι ελάσματα.

Κοιμήσου Περσεφόνη
στην αγκαλιά της γης
στου κόσμου το μπαλκόνι
ποτέ μην ξαναβγείς.


Below, you can find our (clumsy) effort for a free translation of this amazing poem:

Persephone's nightmare

Where once herbs were grown in the fields
with leaves and flowers full of fragrance
Now there’re plants making concrete and steel
and birds fall dead in melting furnace

Sleep away Persephone
inside earth’s embrace
never, never come up to our world again

The place where priests stood in devotion
before the ritual of mysteries begins
now, passing tourists throw their litters
and they rush to see the new refinery

Sleep away Persephone
inside earth’s embrace
never, never come up to our world again

Once the sea was blue and crystal clear
and flocks and herds carefree grazed in the fields
now dusty tracks carry workers to the shipyards
spreading noise and pollution all around

Sleep away Persephone
Inside earth’s embrace
Never, never come up to our world again


Another attempt to translate the lyrics word by word, exactly from the prototype you can find here: www.dalaras.com . In this site they also give a wider interpretation of the lyrics by including some other heavy industrialized places in Greece, once beautiful natural landscapes:

Geography: 1st verse: the Pelion mountains (Volos has one of the world's biggest cement factories). 2nd verse: Elefsina (once a place of mystic cults, now refineries). 3rd verse: my best guess is Megara.

You can hear this song in you tube in three different performances:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ7sTXzIW4g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7w0nDNP3MA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMh_ri36k1E

The Lone Rhinoceros by Adrian Belew, Album: Lone rhino, 1982

I'm a lone rhinoceros
there ain't one hell of a lots of us
left in this world

I stand alone in my concrete cell
where people stare and toss me Coke cans
I guess it's better than being poached
but I'd give my horn just to see my homeland

I'm a lone rhinoceros
there ain't one hell of a lots of us
left in this world

They say I am ugly,
call me a beast
I hear them snicker
when I'm half asleep
Is beauty such a big commodity
I always heard it was only so deep

I'm a lone rhinoceros
there ain't one hell of a lots of us
left in this world

I know the zoos protect my species
they give me food, collect my feces
but I can't help it, I miss the past
I'll never again see my good old mudbath

A song about wild life in cage. A rhino is sad because he’s closed in a zoo, away from his homeland and habitat. Keeping wild life in cage doesn’t serve knowledge and educational purposes. It’s a remnant of colonization era, when many rich collectors invade exotic places and steal cultural and archaeological items from exotic tribes and nations, capture strange and rare animals and kept them in cage in the zoos. Sometimes they also captured humans of exotic tribes and kept them in cages beside the cages of lions and rhinos. No respect of the way of a different life, no matter how good the living conditions in cage are. It’s like prisoners in a luxurious prison, do any of us prefer such a thing from freedom? The only educational message of keeping life in cage is the perpetuation of human superiority attitude towards other forms of life.

you can find this song to hear it in mp3 in the link below:
ADRIAN BELEW Free MP3 Download (stream)

You can hear some songs in myspace

Album: "OK Computer" by Radiohead (1997)

Subterranean Homesick Alien

The breath of the morning
I keep forgetting
The smell of the warm summer air

I live in a town
Where you can't smell a thing
You watch your feet
For cracks in the pavement

Up above
Aliens hover
Making home movies
For the folks back home

Of all these weird creatures
Who lock up their spirits
Drill holes in themselves
And live for their secrets

They're all uptight
Uptight.. [x7]

I wish that they'd swoop down in a country lane
Late at night when I'm driving
Take me on board their beautiful ship
Show me the world as I'd love to see it

I'd tell all my friends
But they'd never believe
They'd think that I'd finally lost it completely

I'd show them the stars
And the meaning of life
They'd shut me away
But I'd be all right
All right..

I'm just uptight
Uptight.. [x7]


An obscured song, probably about boredom and pollution in an urban environment, about those people that think different and feel opressed and isolated in such a city where no one cares about collectivity, solidarity, cooperation and live an android-like life.
Unfortunatelly such a city is ours, Thessaloniki, a very conservative theocratic city, which was recently classified by EU as that with the greatest degradation of quality of life in EU, the less green, the heaviest traffic the heaviest atmospheric pollution in suspended particles and the biggest authority and public indifference for any improvement measure



Fitter Happier

more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics

A narrative song that deals with comformity, lifestyle and other "must" isolated persons in a modern productive/consuming society follow in search of a "meaning" and "indentity". We must take care of ourselves in order to be accepted (food and ecological diets, gyms, fake smily apearrance, public relations, smart dressing, successfull carrier, etc.

you can hear some songs from this album in youtube:

Subterranean Homesick Allien
Paranoid Android
Karma Police

THE GRASS IS NO GREEN by Aphrodite’s Child, Album: End of the world (1968)

The land is starving
it needs watering
The birds on the trees
won't open the spring
for the rain won't fall here
and the grass is no green

The birds stop singing
they need some raining

the birds on the trees
will not live till spring
for the rain won't falling
and the grass is no green
the grass is no green

Deep in a clearing
lovers are sleeping
under an oak tree
wind blows lightly
while they are lying
where the grass is no green

The land is starving
it needs watering
The birds on the trees
won't open the spring
for the rain won't falling
and the grass is no green

The birds stop singing
they need some raining
The birds on the trees
will not live till spring
and the grass is no green
the grass is no green

Deep in a clearing
lovers are sleeping
under an oak tree
wind blows lightly
while they are lying
where the grass is no green

The birds stop singing
they need some raining
the birds on the trees
will not live till spring
for the rain wouldn't falling
And the grass is no green
the grass is no green

Far back to sixties for one of the most world famous greek rock bands with lyrics in English, the "Aphrodite’s Child". Their peak of their carrier was “666” in 1971, but in late sixties they have released interesting works, like “End of the world” where the presented song is included. It’s about an extensive dry season where rain stops falling, soil and grass run dry and life cycle is in great danger. So to speak, it fortells the climatic change and global warming, especially in their (and our)country Greece that today is suffering from extensive dry seasons and public policy of prevention is completely non-existent.

You can hear this song in youtube

The Grass is not Green

and some other classics

Rain and tears
End of the world
The four horsemen
Aegean sea