Wavelength Music Special: The Politico Pourri

Introduction

People of my generation are increasingly horrified at how quickly a stable, postwar, rules-based order has been changed into something that looks rather like anarchy.

Here in Australia, political choices are worryingly limited and uninspiring;  America at this time appears hardly to be working on any level at all, and certainly not politically;  Russia has become a dangerous dictatorship, where journalists are routinely done away with for questioning official policy.  Elsewhere, AI and social media permit politicians, if they wish, to essentially make up their own truth on the run.  Many do and objective, independent reporting of correctly sourced & verified facts is becoming a thing of the past. 

But hold on a minute.  Let's not forget that since the late 1950s, musicians and composers have been writing songs warning about this deteriorating situation.  Now, Wavelength's Politico Pourri brings them all together.    

Views expressed in this program, which includes adult content & language, are those of the producer and artists alone and reflect no formal Sapphire FM position.

Playlist

(00.00.10) Intro  (00.03.12) Buffy Sainte-Marie/The Big Ones Get Away  (00.06.50) Billy Bragg/Red To Blue  (00.10.05) Bobi Wine/Time Bomb Corruption  (00.14.27) Blaze Foley/Election Day  00.17.00) Fun Boy Three & The Specials/The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum  (00.19.45) Peter Gabriel/Biko  (00.26.04) Joni Mitchell/The Fiddle And The Drum  (00.30.21) Parody Project/Confounds The Science  (00.33.17) The 'SS-Musikzug' of the SS Standarte 42 & Choir/Die Fahne Hoch (Horst Wessel Drinking Song, with voice inserts from D Trump & A Hitler)   (00.36.41) Sacha Baron Cohen (as Ali G)/Donald Trump Interview  (00.38.21) Noam Chomsky/On Trump & Republican Party Directions(from Democracy Now)  (00.41.29) Fiona Apple/Tiny Hands  (00.45.33) Billy Bragg/Full English Brexit  (00.49.29) Randy Newman/Putin  (00.53.06) Noam Chomsky/On Russian Election Interference (from Democracy Now)  (00.55.04) David Johansen/Sinking Ship

(01.03.34) Boomtown Rats/Banana Republic  (01.06.54) Fascinating Aïda/So Sorry, Scotland  (01.10.52) Lindisfarne/Bring Down The Government  (01.12.17) Eddy Kenzo/Mbakooye (I'm Fed Up With Them - in support of Uganda's Bobi Wine)   (01.17.57) Charlie Chaplin & Hans Zimmer/The Barber's Speech from The Great  Dictator  (01.21.47) Billy Bragg/Scousers Never Buy The Sun  (01.25.21) Renft/Pronounce The Prohibition (Stasi Officer, Ruth Oelschlägel, informing the band that they "no longer existed")  (01.25.54) Buffy Sainte-Marie/Look At The Facts  (01.28.02) Tim Wilson/But I Could Be Wrong  (01.33.16) Pikkardiyska Tertsia/Lament (for those who died in the Maidan in Kiev, Feb 20, 2014)  (01.37.05) Okean Elzy/Hе Tвоя Bойна (Not Your War)  (01.41.25) Flanagan & Allen/Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler  (01.42.49) Dame Vera Lynn/We'll Meet Again  (01.45.45) Muse/Ruled By Secrecy  (01.50.25) Takun J/They Lie To Us  (01.54.52) Pussy Riot/Mother Of God, Get Rid Of Putin  (01.56.42) Neil Young/Flags Of Freedom 

(02.00.24) Roger Waters, on war (from his address to the UNSC, Feb 17, 2025)  (02.01.54) Pink Floyd/The Postwar Dream  (02.04.23) Jimmy Nail/Big River  (02.10.17) Chumbawamba/In Memoriam, Margaret Thatcher  (02.19.58) Tom Ballard & The Tonightly Crew/Do Your Fucking Job  (02.21.19) Scott Morrison/That's Not My Job

Incidental music:  Thunderclap Newman/Something In The Air;  Lee 'Scratch' Perry/I Am A Psychiatrist   

rob.paul@sapphirefm.au