Top 10 Credit Crunch Songs!
We are living in straitened times. The global economy is in freefall, banks are toppling, unemployment totals escalating. It's getting messy out there. Where to look for succor? To music, that's where--but not just any music. With the fiscal outlook so inexorably grave, commercial pop is, by definition, out of kilter. Whether it's fluffy girl group escapism, euphoric rock or ostentatiously acquisitive hip hop, all kinds of music suddenly feels a bit "wrong." Surely there's no better time, then, to engage with a long tradition of music which actually addresses economic travails head on and waves a defiant finger in the face of recession (indeed, there's an entire genre devoted to doing pretty much that; it's called the blues). Granted, listening to songs won't stop your house being re-possessed, or get discredited downtown fat cats to return their plump, ill-gotten bonuses, but the right music can at least focus the ire of the dispossessed and help transcend incipient privation. To that end, here follows a list of songs to steer us through troubled waters; ten examples of what we might call aural "quantitative easing"--music to feel better about feeling bad. As Miguel de Cervantes once put it, "he who sings scares away his woes." So let's all sing along to:
"No Depression In Heaven" - The Carter Family
A.P. Carter's 1936 ballad, part raised fist, but redemptive acquiescence to the Great Depression. "I'll leave this world of toil and trouble / My home's in Heaven, I'm going there," it states. Well, that's one way out.
"Hard Times Come Again No More" - Bob Dylan
Covered by everyone from Johnny Cash to Renée Fleming, Dylan wrings every ounce of poignant, proletarian dignity from Stephen Foster's American Civil War-era secular hymn.
"Mr President (Have Pity On The Working Man)" - Randy Newman
Newman's typically mordant plea to Richard Nixon from his Good Old Boys album, released in the depths of the mid-‘70s recession. "I know it may sound funny / But people ev'ry where are runnin' out of money," Newman wryly intones. Sound familiar?
"Fork In The Road" - Neil Young
The title track from Young's recent album is one long howl of protest at Wall Street avarice and deceit. "There's a bailout coming, but it's not for you," he bewails, "it's for all those creeps hiding what they do."
"NatWest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds" - Manic Street Preachers
This seething metallic lament from 1992 is a howling diatribe about the role of Britain's banks in the global arms trade. Its "Death sanitized through credit" mantra has latterly taken on a more universal pertinence.
This self-explanatory 1978 LA punk gem from left-leaning brothers Tony and Chip Kinman does exactly what it says on the tin, with ace guitars and lashings of righteous, class warrior invective.
"Eisenhower Blues" - JB Lenoir
"My money's gone, my fun is gone / The way things look, how can I be here long?" So bemoans the Mississippi-born electric bluesman in this 1950s dig at President Ike's Republican administration. It proved so controversial that record company Parrot forced Lenoir to re-record it as "Tax Paying Blues."
Natalie's Merchant and co's stark eulogy to a poverty-stricken family, praying to come good on the lottery while failing to make ends meet. "Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away / I've tried and tried but I can't save / The hole in my pocketbook is growing." Grimly beautiful it is.
"Every day's just the same / Not a nickel to my name." Guthrie always found dignity in poverty and this is the poet laureate of dust bowl sufferance at his most unambiguous and empathetic.
"How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Troubled Times And Live?" - Ry Cooder
Blind Alfred Reed's blues standard (also covered by Bruce Springsteen in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster) is the standout track on Cooder's 1970 debut album. It's as wry and mellifluous at is sobering. "Well, when we get our grocery bill / We feel like making our will." Know the feeling?
Take your mind off the economic downturn at MOJO4music.com
