Songwriting Contestants

Song #1, Imagine if This was You

This is a protest song for animals. Inspired by the horrors of factory farm animal Ag.

Song #2, Diablo Down

Written during the 1984 Anti-Diablo actions & performed at the front gates as well as many environmental events. (Recorded live at Castero Cellars July 2011)

Song #3, Corporation Rules

Written soon after the Wall St. meltdown and inspired by the Occupy movement. (Recorded 2013)

Song #4, Big Storm

With climate change upon us the weather has become more and more erratic and the storms and hurricanes have gotten larger and more frequent.

Song #5, Another, Another Way

This song can help remind people they are not alone in wanting positive change- There’s Another, Another Way! 🙂 (All instruments and vocals Travis Braden.)

Song #6, Mi Tierra Chant

I have been feeling a very strong connection to mother nature, on our land off grid in Big Sur, and I feel her calling for our help. Thank you for bringing awareness to this issue.

Song #7, Telephone Line

While on tour through Oregon and Washington, Amaris Taylor and Billy Clayton were driving through a part of Oregon where all the trees had been clearcut and the little towns in valleys were thick with the smoke from their mills. We began trading lines and writing poems. This is one of those poems about how we as a species are destroying the very things that give us life. (Also performing: Amaris Taylor. Robyn Saxer. Billy Clayton).

Song #8, You’re Bleeding Me

One night while thinking about our planet and how we are using up our resources faster than the earth can replenish them, I remembered hearing and the planet and her beings talking to me. This is what they said. (Performed by: Billy Clayton Robyn Saxer, Amaris Taylor.)

Song #9, Grandparents

, I was thinking about how it wasn’t that long ago that the everyday lives of people were simpler and that it’s really in the last 100 years that things have gotten completely out of control. This song is meant to express the deep sorrow of living in this time of ecocide, the attempts to figure out what is true and how we should live, and how our Grandparents’ dreams for us (the lie of the American Dream) have led to horrible destruction, and to TELL THE TRUTH TO CHILDREN and each other so we can try to solve these problems.

Song #10, I Am a Pond

Bringing home the ecological connections of the outside habitat and the inner habitat of the human body as an ecosystem. (Performed by: Steve Eulberg, Mike Moxcey on banjo).

Song #11, Pebble Mine

As part of Musicians United to Protect Bristol Bay (Worlds largest Salmon Fishing Grounds) from the Pebble Mine, I wrote this song about how this impacts all of us. (Performed by: Steve Eulberg and Kerry Patrick Clark).

Song #12 Snows of Kilimanjaro

Snows of Kilimanjaro is an apology to my unborn grand-daughter. It is from a possible version of me in potential future— one wherein we have not fought hard enough in the present and the current plunder of the planet continues unchecked.

Song #13 Take Me Back to the Mischief

I wrote this song to inspire others to think about the way in which we resolve our disagreements usually by war and how it devastatingly affects our world, environment and quality of life. If we had a chance to go back in time and change things, our environment would be better off for it.

Song #14 It’s So Easy Being Green (You-Tube Link)

, Our trio was set to perform at a Santa Monica Earth Day event a few years back. In considering writing an original song to perform, the word “green” came up, which led to the question, “what was the name of that song by Kermit the Frog?” I flipped Kermit’s claim that ” It’s Not Easy Being Green” on its head and quickly wrote ” It’s So Easy Being Green.” The song is featured on our trio’s new CD. “Honey With My Tea.” (Performed by: Linda Geleris, Joan Enquita Willingham, Trish Lester).

Song #15, I Promise You a Better World (Google Drive Video MP4)

I believe that by uniting in spirit and working together, we can heal the world, and achieve a healthy planet, with a mutually supportive and ethical social structure.

Song #16, Tyranny

The inspiration for this song came to me from my Grandfather, who was a Senator in Wisconsin from 1938-40. He passed legislation in Congress to clean up the rivers that had been polluted by industry. When I was 15 years old he wrote the word “Tyranny” on a piece of paper and left it on my desk. A week later when he died in the hospital holding my hand, I had not spoke about tyranny with my Grandfather. I created this song in 2014 with him in mind after I had a lifetime to think about what tyranny is, witness it, and develop strategies for dealing with it. The message of this song is that this rising tide of tyrannical plunder of the Earth and the People is a dangerous loss of quality of existence. This encroachment on privacy, lives and perceptions is a loss of freedom and human dignity. Nothing short of a revolution will bury this tyranny and this song is a call to action.

Protest Song Songwriting Contest: Runner-Up

Song #17, Earth Child

This is a song about rising up to protect and heal the earth. It’s an empowering song that addresses the importance to joining each other as an earth tribe to take collective action and make our voices heard. The message is that we are the one’s we’ve been waiting for, and the time is now to rise up! (Performed by: Robin (Bloom) Liepman on guitar, bass and vocals, Anna (Anahata) Combi on supporting vocals, Bob Liepman on Cello, Tyson Montgomery Leonard & Dan Francesco Cimo on Violin, Robert Ervin on Cajon).

Song #18, The Choice is Up to Us

After seeing the struggle in North Dakota to stop the keystone pipeline, in conjunction with so many oil spills in Canada, the USA, Peru, etc. all this month, I was moved to write a song pointing out the preposterous notion of building more pipelines when they are clearly unsafe and rupturing often. I’ve been involved in the permaculture movement and earth activist efforts for years, and have met so many people who have solutions to our current crises, it’s just a matter of implementing them and directing the energy towards building a healthy resilient and regenerative system, rather than a profit‐driven industrial growth complex. This song was written over the course of the last several days and has finally arrived, just in time to submit for the Deep Ecology Collaboratory!

Song #19, Vengeance (Link to Sound Cloud)

This song highlights the seclusion that the white picket fence mentality breeds. It’s a direct open claim to warfare with capital and the 70-80 hour work week, It’s a call for peace before we die because we all end up in the same place.

Song #20, The Gray Whale Song

The song was inspired by the New York Times Magazine article “Watching Whales Watch Us,” 7/8/09. This song is an homage to interspecies connection and humanity’s sense of belonging to Earth.

Song #21, Protect the Waters

It’s inspired by everyone who is protecting the waters in North Dakota. It is about the debt we owe our native elders.

Song #22 Village Building

The song was inspired by the Village Building Convergence. It’s meant to bo a positive way to protest by recreating villages in our neighborhoods. (Performed by: Roberto Monge and Robin Liepman)

Song #23, Won’t Take Long

This song is geared towards the mass injustices committed on so many levels by people who control and run either the population at large or the systems that we call “the american.” (Performed by: Matt Nice: guitar/lyrics/flute/keyboards, Adam Vanweerdenpoelman: drums and bass).

Song #24, Urban

Inspiration: Sadness and depression at what us humans are doing to our Mother Earth. Also inspired/written for “SOAR” Movement a few years back. Message: WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Song #25, Sinking Ships

Forests are wiped out, oceans are dying, species are driven to extinction, and yet our destructive way of life continues. We need “Resistance Warriors” (Performed by: Nikos Pelasgos and Kevin Avocadoseed).

Song #26, Take a Look

Inspiration for the song came while traveling in New Zealand with only a backpack. Living simply, connected to the earth and our soul/spirit is the message I hope it conveys. 🙂

Song #27, Epitaph of the Amazon

The song was written in the Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador. After travelling there, I became aware of the Texaco/Cheveron oil contamination that happened a few decades ago. The song stresses the last rainforest. (Performed by: Adam McAlexander, Noach Tangeras, Jeremy Lemen, Rachel Santa Cruz).

Song #28, Bridge Under Water

The song references the urgency of climate change and “Bridge Under Water” represents the short window of time we have to take action on the issue before it’s too late. The title refers to sea level rise. (Performed by: Adam McAlexander, Noach Tangeras, Jeremy Lemen, Rachel Santa Cruz).

Protest Song Songwriting Contest: Runner-Up

Song #29, Buffalo Don’t Roam

Song talks about the disappearance of wild land and the ever encroaching human population into wild habitats. It was inspired by a book called “The Whale” by Philip Hoare. It is a comprehensive book all about whales and a large part about the commercial whaling era. The Buffalo references the same type of extreme hunting that wiped out buffalo populations across the country. (Performed by: Adam McAlexander, Noach Tangeras, Jeremy Lemen, Rachel Santa Cruz).

Song #30, Lonely Planet Earth

The song is about how greed is destroying the earth and how if we don’t make drastic changes in politics, environmental policies and issues, and eliminate the corruption we will destroy the planet. The bridge states that we may be able to change if we come together and take action. (Performed by: Adam McAlexander, Noach Tangeras, Jeremy Lemen, Rachel Santa Cruz).

Song #31, La La La La La La Out of Time (You-Tube Video)

Confronting climate deniers who would just rather not hear about it.

Song #32, Gaia’s Table

The Earth is an organism, and she will heal: if we work with her, we will heal with her- if we work against her, she will move on without us!

Song #33, Lambie Bammy

A “lighthearted” look at overpopulation.

Song #34, The Human Race

We need to address personal, local and national events effecting ecological descisions and attitudes-with some humor and challenges (Performed by: Greg Stel, Guitar, Barb Stel, vocals, Frank Walker, vocals).

Song # 35, Do Right By Your Momma

A few years ago I was thinking about all of the wildfires and their connection to global warming and our ongoing destruction of “our mother”. The title says it all… Change or die!

Song #36, Mother Earth

Seeing the ad in the New times that my girlfriend’s dad brought over to write a protest song inspired me to do just that, after having just traveled by car to the other side of the country and back over the summer, and returning to our beautiful place in Big Sur, I had a lot on my mind that wanted to be expressed in this way, and have someone to hear it. thank you for this inspiration.

Protest Song Songwriting Contest: Grand Prize

Song #37, Daffodils

I wrote this after studying Romantic literature that focused on pastoral imagery. I was fascinated by Dorothy and William Wadsworth and inspired by Tintern Abbey, “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, and Dorothy’s poem “Thoughts on my Sick-Bed”, as well as her journal entries about valuing and respecting nature while wanting to escape industrialization.

(Click here for lyrics)