Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Announcing new CD: FALASTEEN HABIBTI ("Palestine, My Love")


I am releasing a new 21-song album, both digitally and in CD form, a compilation recording of just about all the songs I've written about the Palestinian struggle from 2000-2014, representing songs from 13 different CDs I've put out over the years.

I feel like I should explain why I'm doing this in some depth. (But if you don't want to hear about it, scroll down to the bottom for how you can concretely support this project, buy the CD, etc.)

Every effective social movement in history that I am aware of has had music at its core, from the Civil Rights movements in the US, Ireland, or South Africa to the Palestinian struggle from 1948 to the present. At every level of successful social movements, there has been an awareness of the centrality of music – both as a means of communicating important messages in the most impactful way possible and as a means of fostering and maintaining a sense of community and a sense of the vitality of the movement among its participants.

A little more on that. Communicating messages. What is the way forward for Palestine? Israel is able to function as the Apartheid state that it is because of massive support from countries like the US and the UK. In order for that support to be seriously challenged, in order for the governments of these sponsor nations to change their egregious policies, first the people of those countries need to truly, viscerally understand what is wrong with them.

Hearts and minds in the English-speaking world must be won. And in order to win one, you have to win the other. At the risk of sounding superior, this is my area of expertise. Words, when sung, go directly to the emotional centers of the brain. Short of being there yourself, there is nothing that can transport someone's heart and mind better than a song. Songs can get under the rhetorical radar better than any newscast, I'll wager.

And, contrary to popular mythology, the choir needs preaching to. Cheerleaders are important. When you're surrounded by pro-Israel TV anchors and their many rabid followers among the US population, your culture is your primary antidote, your primary way to keep going, along with taking action itself.

In order to win new hearts and minds or to embolden others, what musicians like me need is access. Unfortunately, there are no pro-Palestinian record labels that have come forward to get this CD played on your local Clearchannel station or sold at your local Wal-Mart. And even more unfortunately, perhaps, you're very unlikely to hear any of these songs in the music breaks on your favorite leftwing radio show from New York City, because they don't understand how to effectively use culture to make their show even better than it is... And no, they're not going to have me on the Daily Show either, it doesn't work that way in America, even on Comedy Central.

There are no shortcuts. It's up to you. I can write the songs (as can many others). But there's only so much (little) I can do to get them out there into the world, to do the educating and inspiring that people keep telling me they do well.

There are things you can do with no money, such as download the album for free on Bandcamp and share the songs with people. You can organize a show on my upcoming tour, where I'll sing songs such as these live, which is always the best way to hear them, they say. 50% of any donations made on the Falasteen Habibti Bandcamp page will go to the IMEMC. (The other half will go toward printing and distributing the CD.)

If you can contribute money, you may click on one of the “buy now” buttons below. For $25 you can order a physical copy of this fundraising CD. Postage is included in the cost, for anywhere in the world. $10 from each of these purchases will go to the IMEMC.

Or you can become a distributor of the CD yourself. Buy 10 or more of the CDs at a time and I'll send them to you for $5 each or less (postage included worldwide for those orders, too). Then you can do whatever you want with them. One suggestion would be for you to sell them for $20 each and use the money to raise funds for IMEMC or some other Palestine-related cause.

Subscribers will get a copy of the new CD in their mailboxes, as with all my new CDs. Please click the link to read more about that if you're not already a subscriber!

Buy one CD for $25


Buy 10 or more CDs wholesale...

How Many?


You are also very welcome to send an old-fashioned check in the mail.  My address:

David Rovics
P.O. Box 86805
Portland, OR  97286
USA

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