The Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting for the Man - [1972]

This version of 'I'm Waiting for the Man' [video | lyrics] off American Poet is much different than the Velevt Underground and Nico version, but I prefer it's gradual crescendo and the lyrics are easier to understand. 

His intro mentions the song is about "riding the subway to go get something" and that something is clearly heroin. As we all know Lou and heroin were quite fond of each other during certain periods and it was a common theme in his music. The second verse always makes me chuckle a bit even though its pretty dark:

"Hey white boy, what you doing uptown?
Hey white boy, you chasing our women around?
Oh pardon me sir, it's furthest from my mind
I'm just waiting for here for a dear, dear friend of mine
I'm waiting for my man"

I love the way he phrases this encounter and how polite he is to whomever is most likely threatening to beat his ass for being in the wrong neighbourhood, or worse, hitting on their local women as the lyrics say he assumes.  Lou sincerely replies "its furthest from [his] mind" because he already has a wife and wrote an eponymous song for her: heroin.  Another reason he truly does not give a shit about women right now as he is, as he mentions in the first verse he is:

 "Feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive"

Plus he is only there for an innocent visit with a dealer "dear, dear friend". So he can score and go home.  I guess I think its funny because Lou seems to be perceived as some sort of threat to this guy's chances of scoring, but he describes himself as looking so terrible and feeling dead, that this other dude must be hard-up.

He goes on to describe the encounter in a brownstone located right about here, and then drops bit of insight into his state of mind at the time in the last line of the song:

"I'm feeling good, I'm feeling so fine, Until tomorrow but that's just some other time"

I'm always amazed that these types of musicians can be in such terrible places in life, but still have the presence of mind and eloquence to explain what it is like to the rest of us.

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday - [1983]

As most of you know, since 1921 the six northern most counties of Ireland have been known as 'Northern Ireland', are governed by Britain and were initially heavily Protestant as a result. The rest of the country was mostly Catholic, and in their name, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) fought the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) (disbanded in 1922) and all forms of British rule in Northern Ireland endlessly in a seemingly futile attempt to reunify the country.

The song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" [video | lyrics] gets its name from the two separate Bloody Sunday's in Irish history. The first occurred on July 10, 1921 and involved the killing of 16 people, some from each side,  in the IRA vs RIC violence.  The second happened on January 30, 1972 when the British murdered 26 unarmed Catholic protesters during a march after a gate was broken down.

They don't really seem to reference any particular events from the Bloody Sunday's other than general violence, but the lyrics pretty clearly state that they aren't taking sides on the issue of the IRA vs Britain:

"But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall"

This battle has been going on for such a long time U2 effectively invokes these terrible events to show that they are only the worst tragedies of this long and ongoing battle that has killed thousands. He also quotes a couple Bible verses and mentions Jesus in an attempt to reach the audience on spiritual level as well as emotional. 

"And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart [Matthew 10:35
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die  [Corinthians 15:32]
To claim the victory Jesus won"

Spearhead - Dream Team - [1994]

In the days before they were called "Michael Franti and Spearhead" they were just plain Spearhead. The change was superficially insignificant, but it did seem to mark the start of a disturbing trend in the content of his music. Spearhead's songs, and The Beatnigs before them, were filled with angry, politically driven almost Public Enemy-ish anti-government lyrics stating African Americans were being intentionally marginalized by the government and demonized in the media. Oh yea and basketball, he loves playing basketball and weaves it in to his lyrics whenever he can.

Regarding the media, he makes a great observation in the first verse of  Dream Team [video | lyrics] off the Spearhead album Home:

"It seemed strange to me, was it strange to you? 
Brother's on the street and everyone is scared a ya
So how could ten Africans represent America?
Bullshit, it didn't mean a thing
'cause in the same year we saw Rodney King"

It all seems so long ago now, but it is pretty amazing that these two events occurred in the same year. Franti then proceeds to put together his "Dream Team" of black cultural heroes, many of whom are very controversial and interesting people that most people don't know much about. It is a pretty badass lineup:


"Well Chuck D's announcing Flava Flav is doing color
Halftime entertainment by Dre and Ed Lover
Malcolm X is the coach he's drawing up the strategy
We're chopping apart all America's anatomy
'cause they're the ones we're up against of course
Our general manager is Chief Crazy Horse
Huey Newton 'cause he was extra hard
He is the one who will be playing at the shooting guard
I dreamed Charles Barkley would be
Played by Marcus Garvey
He'd be throwing people off his back and making
Sure they never got a rebound rebound
He throws it to the outlet
Nat Turner 'cause he can turn the corner when
When he's out there
He be flying through the air and throwing passes like
He really doesn't care 
Behind the back and in
Between the legs
He's handling the rock as gently as an egg
He's throwing it into Angela Davis's neighborhood
She's posting up down in the extra hard wood
She grabs the pill and then she puts her shoulder down
Get out the way 'cause she's gonna throw down now
Boom oh my god! I just can't believe it
Get another backboard or better yet leave it"

If you don't recognize some of these name like Nat Turner or Angela Davis, follow the links above because he has included them with the likes of Malcom X an Garvey for a reason.

In recent years, "Michael Franti and Spearhead" are writing poppy songs with a notably more positive message. This seems to coincide with his trips to many war torn areas to spread his music and message of peace. On Home though, he's at his best going all out and its a classic as a result.

Full Franti Dream Team Lineup: (missing a forward though)

Announcers - Chuck D and Flava Flav
Entertainment - Dr. Dre (nope not the one with shitty headphones) and Ed Lover
General Manger - Chief Crazy Horse
Head Coach - Malcom X
Center- Angela Davis
Forward - Marcus Garvey
Point Guard - Nat Turner
Shooting Guard - Huey Newton
Bench Coaches - Dr. King, Rosa Parks

Everlast - Ends - [1998]

Everlast's Whitey Ford Sings the Blues seemed pretty revolutionary to me at the time and there still isn't really anything else I'm aware of that blends acoustic rock and urban themes as well as he does on this album.  I never heard much else of his I liked after this release, aside from the brief Eminem feud diss-tracks. Which IHMO  Eminem won by destroying him and Fred Durst (hah that name makes me laugh) in "Girls".

The line that I think is subtly disturbing from this album is from the end of the second verse of the singles "Ends" [video | lyrics]

"From The Wetlands all the way to The Apollo if you're broke she's spittin' if you're rich she might swallow for the ends"

The Wetlands is a bar that is now out of business, but The Apollo is still operating.   If you check out this map you can see what every New Yorker probably already understood, that this chick has been sucking dick up and down the entire west coast of Manhattan Island.

Yea, its kind of a gross lyric to choose, but I heard it recently and couldn't believe that there would be any natural wetlands anywhere any Apollo theaters anywhere so it got me wondering.

The Clash - Guns of Brixton - [1979]

This song [video | lyrics]makes me, a simple, puss-bag spineless hippie, ready to take on anything the world can throw at me. Before I get to the bit I want to talk about though, let me just draw your attention to these lines:

"When they kick out your front door, How you gonna come? 
With your hands on your head, Or on the trigger of your gun 
When the law break in, How you gonna go? 
Shot down on the pavement, Or waiting in death row?"

The Clash are just so fucking badass it boggles the mind. Just look at the album cover the album cover this song is from:

Anyway, the other bit of the song I wanted to mention is this verse:

"You see, he feels like Ivan
Born under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin'
At the end of 'The Harder They Come'"

For those of you who have not see the film The Harder They Come starring Jimmy Cliff as "Ivan", this verse doesn't quite have the same impact. It may seem a stretch to some for a white British man to compare their struggles with those of the black youth in Jamaica, but no matter where you live, the "game is called survivin'" and there is no doubt to me, granted a sheltered yuppie, that anyone who has struggled to do so shares a bond in some sense with each other that the rest of us do not.

Bob Marley - Night Shift - [1976]

Admittedly, this is not his best work, but the song Night Shift [video | lyrics] off the Rastaman Vibration  (1976) album give some interesting insight into a little known portion of his life. In the second verse he sings:

"Working on a forklift
In the night shift,
Working on a night shift,
With the forklift,
from A.M. (Did you say that? Why did you say that?)
to P.M. (Working all night!)"

In 1966 at 21 and having just married Rita Marley, Bob traveled to the United States for the first time. He moved  to Wilmington, Delaware and lived with his mother who had left Jamaica in 1962 to avoid the violence that surrounded that year's election.  It's unclear if he actually drove a forklift per his job description, but did work the night shift on an assembly line at the Chrysler factory, which as you can see, is still around, and as a DuPont Co. lab assistant to help support his mother. You know he was tooling around in one of those forklifts bored late night though and having a blast :)

  Sadly while working in the U.S., he was exposed to the tremendous racial inequality that existed in the states witnessing the exploits of the Ku Klux Klan on television and furthering his distrust for governments he was forced to support. After losing his job with Chrysler, and realizing his eligibility for the rapidly approaching Vietnam draft, Bob left the U.S., and returned to Hope Road.

Though brief and rather out of character for him, he even used an alias while at Chrysler, his jaunt into the U.S. certainly allowed him another perspective on the state of global race relations, and may have inspired him to focus on his message and ultimately deliver it to a wider audience.

Tom Petty - Don't Come Around Here No More - [1985]

I was always a big Tom Petty fan in high school, but never really got into the song "Don't Come Around Here No More" [video | lyrics] despite it doing so well on the charts.  It seemed odd to me that it was so electronic and different from the rest of his catalog and just wasn't my style at the time.

Incidentally, the pic below is from the scene my mom happen to see me watching one day and banned me from watching MTV for the rest of my childhood :)

I have recently started to love the song, so when I did a bit of digging about its history I found out why this song has such a different sound. It was co-written with the non-Annie Lennox half of the Eurythmics, and the lyrics are about his failed love affair with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. She got tired of him and actually said the words :

"Don't come around here no more"

...before kicking him out of her house.

Even the Alice in Wonderland theme for the video was inspired by Stevie's infatuation with Victorian attire at the time. This wikipedia page has some more details if you want some more background.

Culture - Two Sevens Clash - [1977]

This is the title track [video | lyrics] off one of the most famous albums to come out of Jamaica. The 
tree was a spiritual symbol to the locals of Jamaica, so when it final fell down, they believed it was divine punishment for Babylon's ills.

"Look at the cotton tree out by Ferry police station 

See how beautiful it used to be

And it has been destroyed by lightening

earthquake and thunder I say

What! A liv an bamba yay 

when the two sevens clash"

Dropkick Murphy's - Skinhead on the MBTA - [1998]

Skinhead on the MBTA [video | lyrics] has always been one of my favorite Dropkick Murphy's tunes, though I have to admit I pretty much lost interest, with all due respect to him, once Al Barr took over. I just loved Mike McColgan's vocals and his onstage antics too much to be able to make the transition.

Anyway, this song is cool because they take such a wimpy old Kingston trio song, a band synonymous with worst of cheese-ball folk music, and turn it into a dark story about a what really goes on on the Boston subways.

Ironically, the Dropkick's more sinister version is probably a much more apt description of what occurs on the subways, even back in those days, as the original song was written at the request of a politician trying to raise awareness about his public transportation program. One of the last lines is pretty damn obvious "Fight the fare increase! Vote for George O'Brien!"



Lyrics and Links to both versions are below


====================================================================

Dropkick Murphy's Version - "Skinhead on the M.B.T.A."

Now let me tell you a story of a big ole' skinhead 
On a tragic and fateful day
He put 10 cents in his pocket kicked his wife and family
Went to ride on the M.B.T.A
Chorus: 
Now, did he ever return, no he never returned 
and his fate is still unknown He may ride forever neath the Streets of Boston 
he's a skinhead who never returned
Skinhead goes down to the Kendall Sq. Station 
and he changes For Jamaica Plain,
the conductor says skinhead I need a nickel, 
skinhead punches him in the brain
(Chorus)
Now all night long skinhead drives through the station 
Wondering "Who can I go and see?"
Can't afford to buy crack in Chelsea or a bundle in Roxbury
(Chorus)
Skinhead's wife goes to the Sully Square Station 
Everyday at quarter past two,
And through the open window she hands skinhead a grenade 
As the train comes a rumbling through
(Chorus)
Now you citizens of Boston don't you think its a scandal 
how the skinhead stole the train? 
(So drive on the fucking streets you fucking bums
Let him drive fucking that train!)
(Chorus)
He's the skinhead who never returns 

==========================================

Kingston Trio Version - Charlie on the MTA: 

Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Charley 
on a tragic and fateful day.
He put ten cents in his pocket, kissed his wife and family, 
went to ride on the M. T. A. Chorus:
Well, did he ever return? No, he never returned and his fate is still unlearned. He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston. He's the man who never returned. Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square Station 
and he changed for Jamaica Plain.
When he got there the conductor told him, "One more nickel." 
Charlie couldn't get off of that train.
Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station, 
crying, "What will become of me?!!
How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea
or my cousin in Roxbury?
(Chorus)
Charlie's wife goes down to the Sculley Square Station 
every day at quarter past two,
And through the open window she hands 
Charlie a sandwich as the train comes rumblin' through.
(Chorus)
Now, you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's a 
scandal how the people have to pay and pay?
Fight the fare increase! Vote for George O'Brien! 
Get poor Charlie off the M. T. A.
(Chorus)
He's the man who never returned. He's the man who never returned. Ain't you Charlie?

Matisyahu - Chop 'Em Down - [2005]

This may be very obvious to most, but in the second verse of Chop 'Em Down [video | lyrics] off his Live at Stubb's album, Matisyahu eloquently and succinctly tells the story of Joseph in Genesis Chapter 30-something:

 Joseph descended sold as a slave
 thrown into a dungeon cause he wouldn't be swayed
 Interpreted pharaoh's dreams and Egypt was saved
 Stock piled food for seven years of rain
 sold to all the nations when the drought came
 Joseph rose to power and the Yiddin stayed
 They started to build and success was made
 Pharaohs getting worried let's make 'em pay bound in chains
 First born were sent down to their graves
 Moshe (Moses) was saved and a prince he was raised
 Hashem (God) spoke to him here's a message to relay
 Take my Nation from Mitzrayim (Egypt) I see they're suffering
 Hard hearts ego breaks take sparks and make ways
 Trail blaze through the wasteland breaking the chains

Its also the same story they made a Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway show called "Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" out of starring Donny Osman as Joseph, which is just fucking terrible.  Nevertheless, the way Matisyahu tells the story here, regardless of your faith, is effective. I've both read the story in Genesis and seen the Broadway show, but I had never really grasped what actually happened in the story until I heard this song. Maybe its just me, but I doubt I'm alone.