The Columbia
Gypsy 
DAVID ROVICS
Living In These Times
Self-Released (2001)
http://davidrovics.com
If each barren pharmacy were a woman's shining eyes, I'd fall in love forever.
Living In these Times is David Rovics fifth album, this time live. Dave is a one-man unrelenting
herald of the apocalypse. On a hopeful note, "We'll Shut Them Down" is about shutting down
the megacorporate financial institutions of the world:
If they'd have one big multinational With their corporate flag unfurled
Searching everywhere for the Lowest wages in the world
Then we will have one union From Melbourne to Prague to Seattle Town.
Wherever they go We'll shut them down.
Its possible to stand back and say "This wont work," or "I don't agree." Your neighbor will tell
you "If the corporations went out of business, where would people work? People just want to live
their lives." I will tell you that I have little sympathy for the violent fight of the Irish who joined
the Mexicans in the last century ("St Patrick Battalion")..certainly water under the bridge. The
point, however, is that one needn't agree with anything but the necessity to be jolted from
complacency. In one of his introductions, Dave mentions that many of us were not so shocked at
the tower crash because we had been seeing the same thing going for years all over the
world...what was New York in comparison to African rivers flowing with bodies? "The
International Terrorists"
.... are many
Every color size and shape and height
Some are only small and local bullies
Content to bomb a building in the night
While some are in every pocket of the world
Looking for a country to attack
They're training in their bases somewhere near you
And they're flying in the skies above Iraq...
"Living In These Times" was recorded live at Café Lena on September 11th, featuring David, his
acoustic guitar and a little bit of audience and introductions. Included is "No One Is Illegal,"
written for illegal immigrants from Latin America, but now extended in context to Arabs, a
contradiction to globalization (this some of David's more impressive guitar work, usually kept to
the background). The album opens with a song of the tower crash, "The Dying Firefighter," and
its interesting to think of how the urgency of the tragedy has faded, at least out here in rural
Oregon. But the relationship of the incident to the "War On Terrorism" has not faded:
Some people may call me a brave man and this may be
But the fire fighters of Kabul are just as brave men as me.
There are 17 topical tracks here in David's simple, rich tenor, some to a political point, some more human, though certainly the primacy of humanity stands out in each song. David sings about "the cruise missiles of justice," takes us to visit our enemies in Cuba, lists the things that are currently awry. In a moment of jest, he sings of liking a number of things, on a quieter note he sings of a girl growing up in Iraq. There is a heroic song about resistance fighters in World War II Poland, backed with one about Palestinian children killed by Israel in Jerusalem, then about children dying from war-related chemicals and radiation. "I am the ghost of the apocalypse."
The Columbia
Gypsy