STFU – Top Ten Politically Influenced Songs…
Number 10 – Martial Law
As we work on the songs for the upcoming Album 7 I’m going to take a little look back through the ‘politically influenced’ songs that I’ve been involved with writing for Southern Tenant Folk Union. It’s a wide catch-all term really as the ten songs picked (and I’ll post a little on each & an audio link over the next few weeks, time permitting) have fairly diverse sounds, influences and lyrical subjects…or do they?
First up then, at number ten, is Martial Law – the Chuck Norris connection is very very tenuous here – the title is from the Sammo Hung TV show in the late 90s in which Mr Norris made a guest appearance (as his ‘Cordell Walker – Texas Ranger’ character) & I can’t remember ever seeing the episode he’s in though it was a decent action series (and Sammo Hung, the director, producer & actor – is a legend – would be nice to see some of those episodes again)…
Anyway, the STFU song lyrics deal mostly with right wing talk radio in USA & the way it cynically exploits people’s base fears with outright lies or half-truths…from here in Europe the right in the USA and their obsession with firearms is frankly scary & at the same time logic-defying (I understand it’s fun to shoot live ammunition – I’ve done it myself)…the main point though isn’t really about left/right issues (which are conveniently used by some to divide us where there is no real fundamental differences in the kind of world we’d like to see) but about the underlying thought that there are still many people living amongst us in our countries and communities that would, if they could, take us back to facism, militias, civil conflict and don’t like and will never like democracy…
Incidentally for fans of the band Rush there’s a reference to them and their song of Moog Taurus-esque magic ‘Tom Sawyer’ in a passing reference to Rush Limbaugh (in Verse 1)…
Next up at Number 9 will be a track from our second album ‘Revivals, Rituals & Union Songs’
https://amazingtunes.com/southern-tenant-folk-union/…/312057
