Bobs Songs

MISOGONY

Creep   (1.31)
Song about tackling the creepy sexualised false-entitlement of men in our culture

Staring at the pretty girls   (2.20)
Song about men who think it’s ok to stare lustfully at young girls: it’s not

Male fragility   (3.05)
Song about the sterio-typical over exagerated and over-sensitive masculitity of male fascists

 

ABUSE

Child abuse

Street child   (1.15)
A progressive chain of thoughts after seeing an impoverished young child outside alone

Shamima Begum   (7.40)
A long ballad that follows the sad events of British schoolgirl Shamima Begum’s teenage life and the dilemma of hopelessness facing her future.  It shows how she was groomed as a child by foreign paedophiles and then bullied by the right wing ‘British’ press opportunistically using her as a means of vilifying Muslims in the UK and the Islamic faith. And the callousness of a popularist and alarmist Conservative government who decided to score political points by vilifying her and stripping this poor and suppressed teenage victim of child grooming, a teenage girl who was a British Citizen and who had already lost 2 children to starvation and who was about to lose a third, of her only nationality; of all of her human rights and offering her none of the support she desperately needed and was pleading for.

Shocking revelations   (3.31)
Confrontational song highlighting that most women are sexually abused and how young that starts – this is a scourge in our society and this song demands that you do something about it

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Sexual abuse

Prostitute   (3.13)
Calling for prostitutes to be treated with respect, provided with safety and a call for a universal income that would mean that these women are not financially pressured into performing sexual acts

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Emotional abuse

Argument   (1.30)
A mock argument between two people in a relationship

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Physical abuse

Behind closed doors   (2.46)
Highlighting the problem of domestic abuse and demanding action

 

BULLYING

By children

Why aren’t you letting me play?   (2.23)
The perspective of a child not being allowed to join in with the play of the others

Stare   (0.57)
Song about when my son was chased by chav’s as an alternative teenager and taking refuge in a shop

Pacifist   (4.23)
Ballad about how I was bullied as a child and when that stopped

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By adults

Teenage   (5.02)
Song about how unfairly teenagers are treated in our society

Fuck off with your OTD (obsessive tidiness disorder)   (3.44)
Song about how annoying a tidiness obsession is, particularly to a dyslexic.  Society is way too accepting of this disorder.  This song isn’t

What do you see   (2.30)

An attack on people who judge others using superficial criteria

Outcast   (2.21)
The perspective of a bullying victim

Itchin’   (2.45)
A critical attack on ‘bitching’ (malicious gossiping) and the people who do it. (This was written about a man: some people wrongly attribute this behaviour to women)     

 

RACISM

George Floyd

Killing with impunity   (4.03)
Ballad about the murder of George Floyd by a named policeman

The George Floyd reactions   (0.59)
During the Black Lives Matter marches in America in 2020 immediately following George Floyds murder six black people were hung by the neck from trees across several states and all of the police forces concerned refused to investigate – putting them all down to suicide. Some of those trees were trees historically used for lynching black people from.  These stories had minimal news coverage. I am highlighting these crimes and that injustice in this song.

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Other

Racist   (4.17)
Articulately and passionately criticising fascists

Your Face   (2.15)
An angry attack on fascists

Reply to a white privilege denier   (3.54)
This song is about exactly what the title says

 

TRANSPHOBIA

Being trans   (6.25)
Song imagining what it must be like to be trans (While none of my trans friends have openly liked this song and indeed haven’t answered when I asked them – I still believe that it portrays trans people in an accurate and positive light. If you are trans: I would love to know what you think). I believe increasingly that pro-trans perspectives need to be expressed by non-trans people too: in part to strengthen the chorus of voices rubbishing and discrediting the nonsense spouted by fascists and other transphobes, but also to build a culture that is understanding, safe, inclusive and supportive and that allows trans people to be themselves openly, honestly and without shame or self-loathing. Questioning your gender is a hard enough life battle in itself without having to face all the prejudice.

My friends got   (2.38)  
Song attacking some of the key lies transphobe’s speel

Trans friend   (3.30)
Song defending a trans friend from transphobe’s

 

HOMELESSNESS

Just another hero   (3.37)
Song about a homeless soldier

Big issue   (3.32)
Song asking you to empathise with homeless people, you are closer to joining them than you think and it encourages you to buy and read the Big Issue as an accurate source of information

Street life   (2.30)
Song asking you to talk to homeless people – there is so much more to them than you imagine

Bitter cold   (4.02)
Ballad about what it’s like to live and die on the street

 

ADDICTION

Another wee tipple   (3.25)
Ballad about alcohol addiction

Gambling   (3.47)
Song about gambling addiction and how it creeps up on you

 

WORKING

Working

Exploited   (2.39)
Song about working long hours in a factory for little pay, struggling to live and wanting to break that cycle

Working   (3.13)
Song about living a stressful work life where you have an exploitative, manipulative employer

Legacy   (2.31)
What is my legacy?  What have I achieved?  What fun have I had?  Or is the impact I have had on peoples lives more important?  This song asks those questions

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Not working

Disease   (2.21)
Song about not feeling well and calling in sick to your employer (every single line in this song follows a single rhyme)

Applying for a job   (2.10)
Song about applying for a job, going to interview, the long wait, rejection and carrying on

The Wait   (3.05)
Song about that excruciating wait after an interview before you hear their decision

A new beginning   (2.16)
An upbeat song encouraging you to be positive when you reach a junction in your life

Universal credit   (3.02)
Song about how this Tory benefits system makes life impossible for the unemploye

 

DOUBTS and FEARS

Psychology

Anxiety   (2.56)  
Song about the feelings and symptoms you can get with anxiety

Phobias   (2.25)
A list of things you can have irrational fears of and asking you not to pass those fears to my son

Narcissist   (1.39)
A tongue in cheek song narrated by someone who really thinks they’re it

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Homesick

Longing to return   (2.35)
A nationalistic song about missing Scotland and longing to live there again

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Life struggles

Get up   (5.10)
Song about getting up when life knocks you down

Chains of silver   (3.40)
Song highlighting that having lots of money isn’t all that it’s cut out to be

Fate   (2.29)
My Mother and Father always told me to trust in fate. Only I was turned down in more interviews than you might consider possible:  I was unsuccessful in over 250 interviews over 25 years: That prevented promotion throughout my career, whether I was the best candidate or not and then it made re-employment impossible when I was made redundant. If there is such a thing as fate: it’s having a laugh at me.

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Apathy

I can’t   (3.11)
A song about those people whose answer to everything is “I can’t do it”

I don’t wanna   (1.34)
This song is a dig at how useless men are and what appauling attitudes they have

Bored  (3.38)
Song about moaning on about being bored

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Support

Let the tear’s fall   (3.06)
Song about supporting a friend through a difficult time by being there for them

 

HUNTING

Foxes   (4.04)
Informative and emotional anti fox hunting song

Killing for kicks   (2.04)
Informative and emotional anti fox-hunting song

 

GUNS

Guns   (4.28)
Anti-gun song: criticising the people who carry them

Would you give a gun (to a stupid person?)   (2.56)
Anti-gun song: undermining the reasons to have one and the mindset of ammosexuals

Right to carry   (3.40)
Anti-gun song: showing that having a gun is no defence from criminals with guns and indeed laws that allow you to carry one undermine the police’s ability to remove the threat that you might be killed by one

 

WAR

Army recruitment

Army recruiting   (2.18)
This song is inspired by the army recruitment ad. slogan ‘I was born in Ashington but the Army made me a man’ used from (2019 – 2021) and outlines the dreadful lie behind that premise

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Regretting or refusing to Fight

Tommy gun   (2.19)
Song about the maturity and courage of the deserter when standing up to his senior officer and refusing to partake in the carnage of war

We can’t   (2.18)
Song about a soldier’s regrets about ever being a soldier

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Politics and war

How can I ever say   (3.38)
It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, the wars around the World ARE being fought in your name: This song is about the blood we have on our hands

Fighting in foreign affrays   (2.43)
This song is about war and the corruption of the rich and their exploitation and manipulation of the poor (This song uses alliteration)

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Remembrance day

Poppies   (6.17)
This anti-war song challenges Remembrance Sunday: arguing that we need to do a lot more for our nations heroes than that and that this is just a cheap diversion from the young men we are STILL sending to die in pointless wars to line the pockets of the rich. Ironically supporting Poppy Day is portrayed as patriotic. Any challenge of that or focus on the real issues meets immediate condemnation and is swept under the carpet. This song bravely does that: It demands that we refocus our attention on stopping young people from being exploited in this way.

 

REFUGEE

Refugee   (2.14)
This song is from the perspective of the refugee moving from town to town as everyone says ‘not in my back yard’

Clinging to a dinghy   (1.59)
Beautifully worded, emotional and rational plea from a refugee to a hostile World that he is of no threat to

 

PALESTINE

Girl of courage (Ahed Tamimi)   (1.21)
Ballad about some key points in the life of one of Palestinian’s great child heroes of our time: Ahed Tamimi

Shame   (2.51)
Song about the shame of living in a country that has supported the state of Israel and turned a blind eye to it’s atrocities

Picture of a Palestinian boy   (2.35)
This song is inspired by a picture of a small Palestinian boy standing alone in the bombed out civilian streets of Gaza and letting my mind wander to fill in what I don’t know about him

The Gazan Father   (3.58)
In 2014 the Israeli government were relentlessly bombing the unarmed and walled in native and civilian peoples in Gaza, Palestine. Hundreds of videos of those attacks circulated on Facebook evidencing these crimes. One photograph summed up the horror and despair to me: it showed a father in a hospital holding the dead body of his child: his babies head is hollow: His grief is heart-breaking  – that disturbing photo (attached) is carved into my memory forever. This song is about that photograph.
Two miles away Israeli settlers in expensive houses built with American tax payers money on illegally occupied Palestinian lands,were having BBQ’s and treating that shelling as a firework display as residential tower blocks, schools, hospitals and sanitation plants blew up before their eyes. And they triumphantly sang songs: one then popular chant was “There will be no school in Gaza tomorrow because all the children there are dead”. Some even posed for photo’s wearing t shirts printed with that phrase. I was crying when I wrote this song and I wrote it ‘lest we forget’. Israel's war crimes in Gaza continue today.

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OTHER POLITICS

Dishonesty

Scapegoat   (1.52)
This is a tongue in cheek song about politicians finding a scapegoat for everything

Tory corruption   (2.05)
A well articulated, accurate and poetic description of Tory corruption

Oh my God your lies   (5.47)
A song about the constant tirade of Tory lies

The death of Labour   (8.34) 

.A ballad cataloguing the treacherous steps taken by the right wing hatchet men/ ‘Tory inful-traitors’ who openly attacked socialism and expelled and side-lined socialists in the Labour Party when it was popular, who then side-lined the members and the Unions, removed all democracy from the party and who went on to turn it into an unpopular second Conservative Party that no-one has any need of. It ends positively by highlighting the way forward for socialists: the need to start a new party and to rise from the ashes of Labour like a phoenix.

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Capitalism

Shame and pity   (3.35)
Song about colonialism, white privilege and the debts we need to repay

Robbin’ Hood   (2.40)
Song about needing a Robbing Hood to rob the rich and to distribute their wealth to the poor – more than we ever did

Bitch men   (1.43)
Song about the evils of capitalism

Charity   (2.12)
Song about how inadequate and unnecessary charities are:  We NEED governments to tax the rich properly and to deliver those services effectively and efficiently and with the resources needed to keep up with demand instead

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Multiple issues

2020   (1.10)
Short song about covid, Black Lives Matter and our pending environmental catastrophe

You don’t have to be one of them   (2.22)
It’s OK to be a lot of things, but then there are some things that it is not ok to be:  A socialist/ moral perspective

Shout shout   (2.18)
You can shout and show the World your anger but it won’t change anything: The rich have the whole system stitched up tight.  A song of despair that doesn’t see a way forward.  The rich won’t let you vote away their money and will go to any lengths to stop that and everything is weighted to ensure that they succeed in that and there is nothing you can do about it

I don’t ask much   (3.14)
This song asks you to care about the things that matter: there are a lot of them

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Animal welfare

Fireworks   (2.28)
An anti-fireworks song

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