Part VIII Historical Songs Many of us in Peace Corps teach a wide variety of subjects. Whether it is something specifically related to English, such as grammar or literature, American country studies, environmental issues, or sexual education, you can probably find a song that can help you in some way teach your topic. The following is a list of songs related to different time periods in American history as well as the above mentioned topics. This list came from a variety of sources family, friends, the Internet (mainly the web sites History in Song, Musicians United for Songs in the Classroom, and Vietnam War Retrospective: Music), and myself. I know that a lot of these songs are kind of obscure but I don’t know what other people are into or what music they have with them. Anyway maybe this can help add that little something to your lessons. Colonial Times Boston Tea Party Sensational Alex Harvey Band Don’t Drink the Water Dave Matthews Band Sailing to America Saxon Slavery Can’t Truss it Public Enemy Lincoln Freed me Today Joan Baez No More Auction Block Bob Dylan On An Underground Railroad Kinny Landrum Slave Driver Bob Marley Southern Man Neil Young The Vision of Rassan A) Dedication B) Roll on Kirk War 1800s The Alamo Johnny Cash 1849 Lighthouse (westward expansion) Fire on the Mountain Marshall Tucker Band (westward expansion) Fool’s Gold Thin Lizzy (gold rush) 49er Riot (gold rush) The Civil War All Quiet Along the Potomac Lamar Fontaine and John Hill Hewitt Away Down South in the Land of Traitors Anonymous and Daniel Decature Emmett The Battle-Cry of Freedom George F. Root Battle Hymn of the Republic Julia Ward Howe and William Steffe Buffalo Soldier Bob Marley Dixie (I Wish I was in Dixie Land) Daniel Decature Emmett John Brown’s Body Anonymous and William Steffe Just Before the Battle, Mother George F. Root Lincoln and Liberty trad. And Jesse Hutchinson The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down The Band Off to War I’m Going trad. Carolina Twins The President’s Proclamation Edna Dean Proctor and William Steffe c. Rally for Old Abe Anonymous World War I The Band Played Waltzing Matilda Eric Bogle

Belleau Wood Garth Brooks Children’s Crusade Sting Christians at War John F. Kendrick No Man’s Land Eric Bogle Over There George M. Cohan The Soldier’s Sweetheart Jimmie Rodgers

1920s and 1930s: The Depression All in and Down and Out Blues Uncle Dave Macon Blowin’ Down This Old Dusty Road Woody Guthrie Brother, Can You Spare a Dime E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney (If You Ain’t Got the) Do Re Mi Woody Guthrie Down on the Picket Line Sarah Ogan Gunning Dust Bowl Blues Woody Guthrie Dust Bowl Days 10,000 Maniacs Dust Bowl Refugees Woody Guthrie Dust Can’t Kill Me Woody Guthrie Eleven Cent Cotton, Forty Cent Meat Bob Miller Green Hotel Frank Zappa How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? Blind Alfred Reed I Ain’t Got no Home Woody Guthrie I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister Jim Garland I Hate the Company Bosses (I Hate the Capitalist System) Sarah Ogan Gunning No Depression (In Heaven) A.P. Carter Ragged Hungary Blues, Parts 1 & 2 Aunt Molly Jackson The Rich Man and the Poor Man Bob Miller Sixteen Tons George Davis Tom Joad Woody Guthrie Vigilante Man Woody Guthrie Which Side Are You On? Florence Reece World War II Born to Win Woody Guthrie ‘C’ For Conscription Pete Seeger and Bess Lomax Hawes Dear Mr. President Pete Seeger Dear Mrs. Roosevelt Woody Guthrie Enola Gay Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark Flight of the Enola Gay Blue Cheer Grey Victim 10,000 Maniacs Hiroshima Gary Moore Hiroshima Todd Rundgren In Old Moscow Walter Cliff Life Belt Washed Up on the Shore Woody Guthrie Manhattan Project Rush Miss Pavilichenko Woody Guthrie 1945 Social Distortion On the Road to Tokyo trad. and the Almanac Singers Plow Under Lee Hays and Pete Seeger Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition Frank Loesser Remember Pearl Harbor Don Reid Reuben James Woody Guthrie with the Almanac Singers Round and Round Hitler’s Grave Woody Guthrie, Millard Lampell, and Pete Seeger There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere Bob Miller and Paul Roberts UAW-CIO Almanac Singers Washington Breakdown Pete Seeger and Lee Hays

The Korean War Brother in Korea Lou Osborne Talking Un-American Blues Irwin Silber and Betty Sanders Where Have All The Flowers Gone Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson The Civil Rights Movement Birmingham Sunday Richard Farina Blowing in the Wind Bob Dylan The Death of Emmett Till Bob Dylan Jim Crow Almanac Singers Medgar Evers Lullaby Richard Weissman Only a Pawn in Their Game Bob Dylan Here’s to the State of Mississippi Phil Ochs Pride (In the Name of Love) U2 Sister Rosa Neville Brothers Strange Fruit Josh White Talking Birmingham Jam Phil Ochs Talking Devil Bob Dylan They Go Wild Over Me Candie Anderson-Carawan Too Many Martyrs (aka Ballade of Medgar Evers) Phil Ochs Vietnam War/Anti War Songs/ Protesting Agent Orange Song Country Joe and the Fish Alice’s Restaurant Arlo Guthrie Ball of Confusion The Temptations The Ballad of the Green Berets Staff Sargent Barry Sadler Ballad of the Fort Hood Three Pete Seeger The Big Parade 10,000 Maniacs Born in the USA Bruce Springsteen Bring ‘Em Home Pete Seeger Bring the Boys Back Home Freda Payne Chicago Gram Nash Dear Uncle Sam Loretta Lynn Draft Dodger Rag Phil Orchs Eve of Destruction Barry McGuire The Fiddle and the Drum Joni Mitchell For What it’s Worth Buffalo Springfield Fortunate Son Creedence Clearwater Revival Give Peace a Chance John Lennon Goodnight Saigon Billy Joel I Don’t Wanna Get Drafted Frank Zappa I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag Country Joe McDonald I Ain’t Marching Anymore Phil Ochs I Don’t Stand Alone Perry Friedman I Don’t Wanna go to Vietnam John Lee Hooker I Told Them What You’re Fighting For Maybelle Carter Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation Tom Paxton Love Me, I’m a Liberal Phil Ochs Masters of War Bob Dylan MLF Lullaby Tom Lehrer Ohio Neil Young Okie From Muskogee Merle Haggard Orange Crush R.E.M. Prayer For Peace Ian Boyden and Ralph Dale Rooster Alice In Chains

Run Through the Jungle Creedence Clearwater Revival 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night Simon & Garfunkel Shadow of a Man Oysterhead Sky Pilot Eric Burdon and the Animals Still in Saigon The Charlie Daniels Band The Story of Isacc Lenard Cohen Stop the War Now Edwin Starr Street Fighting Man The Rolling Stones Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues Bob Dylan Talking Vietnam Pot Luck Blues Tom Paxton There but for Fortune Phil Ochs There’s a Wall in Washington Iris DeMent The Unknown Soldier The Doors Viet Nam Blues Dave Dudley Volunteers The Jefferson Airplane Waist Deep in the Big Muddy Pete Seeger War Edwin Star War is Over Phil Ochs What’s Goin’ On Marvin Gaye The 8th of November Big and Rich

The 1960s/1970s/1980s/1990s April 29, 1992 Sublime (Rodney King riots in LA) Bound and Gaged Ted Nugent (Nov. 4th, 1979 American Embassy take over in Tehran, Iran) The Eagle Has Landed Saxon Leningrad Billy Joel (cold war) Russians Sting (the cold war) Russians and Americans Al Stewart (nuclear arms race) Tehran Offspring (about tension between America and Iran during the 1980s) The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Gordon Lightfoot (about the ship that sunk in Lake Superior) Persian Gulf War Desert Angel Stevie Nicks Sanctions Ray Korona Storm the Desert Sam Fasano III Voices that Care collaboration Songs about Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995 The Change Garth Brooks Half Your Angels Graham Nash Oklahoma Dan Bern Songs about September 11, 2001 American Heroes Adam Wyle America Will Survive Hank Williams Jr. The Day America Died Jim Peterik The Dying Firefighter David Rovics Let’s Roll Neil Young September Skies Topp Hennessee Twin Towers (Song For America) Holt Vaughn Where were you when the World Stopped Turning? Alan Jackson

Songs about American Presidents Bad Boy Bill Loudon Wainwright III (Bill Clinton) Harry Truman Chicago He Was a Friend of Mine Roger McGuinn (John F. Kennedy) James K. Polk They Might Be Giants The Sprit of JFK Devo Tricky Dicky Country Joe and the Fish Warren Harding Al Stewart Biographical Songs Abraham, Martin, and John Dion (Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy) Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight The Greenbriar Boys Angel Of Harlem U2 (about Billie Holiday) The Ballad of Billy the Kid Billy Joel (even though this song isn’t historical accurate it’s a great way to introduce the wild west) Edison The Bee Gees Happy Birthday Stevie Wonder (about making MLK’s birthday a national holiday) Happy Blues for John Glenn Lighnin’ Hopkins Hurricane Bob Dylan (Rubin Carter) I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night Billy Bragg Joe Hill Phil Orchs (IWW protest leader) Long Time Gone David Crosby (John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King) Native Americans After the Reign Blackfoot America, America L.D. Steelman America’s Unsung Heroes L.D. Steelman Big Foot Johnny Cash Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Buffy Sainte-Marie Cherokee Europe Cheyenne Kansas Custer Peter LaFarge Freedom Rage Against the Machine Indian Reservation Paul Revere and the Raiders Indian World Blackfoot Innocent Man Keith Secola and Wild Band of Indiams Little Big Horn Running Wild Loneliest Rider Grand Funk Railroad Pocahontas Neil Young Sacrifice Robbie Robertson The Song of Crazy Horse J.D. Blackfoot Spirit Horse of the Cherokee Manowar Songs about the environment After the Goldrush Neil Young All I Can Do Is Write About It Lynyrd Skynyrd Blue Sky Mine Midnight Oil Big Yellow Taxi Joni Mitchell Blood on the Land Kingdom Come A Cry in the Forest Dan Fogelberg Cuyahoga R.E.M. A Day in the Life of a Tree The Beach Boys Defend Our Earth Alice DiMicele Don’t Drop That Bomb on Me Bryan Adams Do the Evolution Pearl Jam

Earth Chant Chris Rawlings Earth Day Everyday (Celebrate) John Denver Earth Song Michael Jackson Earth and Sun and Moon Midnight Oil Fall on Me REM Greenhouse Effect Testament Happy Old World Barclay James Harvest Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology) Marvin Gaye Mother Earth Neil Young Polluting is Fun Ray Korona Pollution Tom Lehrer The Rape of the World Tracy Chapman Red Tide Rush Slash and Burn Lynda Williams Stone River J.J. Cale Songs about sexual health AIDS Ani DiFranco Ain’t No Safe Way Michael Sweet (song promotes abstinence) Hello Birmingham Ani DiFranco (abortion rights) Invisible Everclear (AIDS) Nobody’s Hero Rush (AIDS) No Sex Limp Bizkit Positive Spearhead Sex in the 90s Gloria Estefan She Thinks His Name is John Reba McEntire Why Does it Hurt When I Pee? Frank Zappa Songs and Literature The Ballad of Lenny and George The Incredible Simon Stokes and the Black Whip Thrill Band. (song is about the characters of John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men”) The Battle of Evermore Led Zeppelin (makes references to JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) The Belles Phil Ochs (musical adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Bells”) The Devil Went Down to Georgia Charlie Daniels Band (song was inspired by a Stephen Vincent Benet poem about a fiddle contest called “The Mountain Whippoorwill”) Dixieland Steve Earle (inspired by Michael Sharra’s Civil War novel “The Killer Angles”) Don Quixote Gordon Lightfoot (inspired by Cervante’s novel “Don Quixote”) Don’t Stand So Close To Me The Police (inspired by the novel “Lolita”) The Ghost of Tom Joad Bruce Springsteen (inspired by John Stienbeck’s novel “The Grapes Of Wrath) Hey Jack Kerouac 10,000 Maniacs Lord of the Flies Iron Maiden (inspired by William Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies”) Misty Mountain Hop Led Zeppelin (makes references to JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) One Metallica (song about Dalton Trumbo’s novel “Johnny Got His Gun”) Ramble On Led Zeppelin (makes references to JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) Romeo & Juliet Dire Straits R.P. McMurphy Manic Street Preachers (inspired by Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) Sympathy for the Devil Rolling Stones (song was inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”) The Thin Red Line Saxon (based on James Jones’s novel “The Thin Red Line”) War and Peace Running Wild (based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel) Wuthering Heights Kate Bush (based on Emily Bronte’s novel) Xanadu Rush (inspired by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem “Kubla Khan”)

Songs that mention Ukraine Back in the U.S.S.R. The Beatles Roads to Moscow Al Stewart You Can’t Run Paul Simon