David Rovics

Rovics worked across musician, singer, singer-songwriter, trade unionist and peace activist. The registers place that work in independent music. This article rests on 100 catalogued compositions, 2 published texts, 62 issued recordings and 2 digitised documents drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

• Name — David Rovics • Education — Earlham College (no degree) • Origin — New York City, U.S. • Genre — * Indie • folk • folk punk • protest music • Years Active — 1992–present • Website — http: www.davidrovics.com • Born — 10 April 1967

David Rovics was born in New York City. His family moved to Wilton, Connecticut when he was young. Rovics was politically inspired during his adolescence by his experiences with the conservative-oriented, Christian milieu of his home town. His parents, both classical musicians and educators, were liberal in their outlook. Perhaps for this reason, while in his teens Rovics acquired interests in nuclear disarmament, vegetarianism and other counterculture issues. He has described himself as an "anti-Zionist Jew from New York". In 1985, Rovics enrolled at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, but dropped out and moved to Berkeley, California. He worked in occupations such as a cook, barista, secretary and typist, while pursuing his musical interests as a street and subway performer and in small clubs and bars. He immersed himself in leftist counterculture and made contact with other songwriters and performers on the underground circuit. By the early 1990s he was a full-time busker in the Boston subways. From the mid-1990s, Rovics has spent most of his time on concert tours around the world. Rovics tours regularly on four continents, playing for audiences large and small at cafes, pubs, universities, churches, union halls and protest rallies. He has had his music featured on Democracy Now!, the BBC, Al-Jazeera, Acik Radyo and other networks. His essays are published regularly on CounterPunch and Truthout and the 200+ songs he makes available on the web have been downloaded more than a million times. Although Rovics' work has not gained major commercial success, it has been acclaimed in sections of the press.

He currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his family and has a daughter, Leila, who was born in 2006.

• Illustration — Interview with David Rovics on Talk Nation Radio dealing with the politics of music. Rovics has also written a song on Francis Hughes, a Provisional IRA combatant who died in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, in his song "Up The Provos". In 2021, Rovics interviewed white nationalist activist Matthew Heimbach and posted it on his YouTube account, and hosted a conversation with Israeli musician Gilad Atzmon on the same account, as well as appearing on the podcast of conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett. As a result, Rovics has been accused by anti-fascist activists It's Going Down and Shane Burley of promoting individuals associated with white nationalism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Rovics temporarily removed the interview with Heimbach from his site, but responded that Atzmon is not an antisemite and Heimbach not a fascist, and that it is important to understand why people are drawn to the far-right.

• Har Har Har! Pirate Songs for Kids (CD Baby.Com/Indys, 2008) • Ballad of a Dung Beetle (2011)

David Rovics was born on 10 April 1967 in New York City. Rovics held the nationality of United States. Rovics was educated at Earlham College. Rovics worked as musician, singer, singer-songwriter and trade unionist, and the authority record catalogues a further 1 occupations under the same name, among them peace activist. Rovics was active from 1992. The fields Rovics worked in include independent music. Rovics played the voice.

• Make It So (Self-release, 1996) • Pay Day at Coal Creek (Self-release, 1998) • We Just Want the World (Liberation Records, 1999) • Live at Club Passim (Liberation Records, 2000) • Living In These Times (Liberation Records, 2001) • Hang a Flag In the Window (Liberation Records, 2002) • Who Would Jesus Bomb? (Self-release, 2003) • Behind the Barricades, the Best of David Rovics (AK Press/Daemon Records 2003) • The Return (Ever Reviled Records, 2003) • Songs for Mahmud (Ever Reviled Records, 2004) • Beyond the Mall (Self-release, 2004) • For the Moment (Yoyo Records, 2005) • Halliburton Boardroom Massacre (MI5 Records/Caroline Distribution, 2006) • The Commons (Irregular Records, 2007) Recorded live at Club Passim • Ten Thousand Miles Away (Liberation Records, 2009) • Waiting for the Fall - A Retrospective (Liberation Records, 2009) • Troubador: People's History in Song (Liberation Records, 2010) • Big Red Sessions (Liberation Records, 2011) • Ten New Songs (2011) (Liberation Records, 2011) • Meanwhile In Afghanistan (Liberation Records, 2012) • 99% (Liberation Records, 2012) • Spies Are Reading My Blog (Liberation Records, 2013) • A Coup That Wasn't A Coup (Aug 17, 2013) • Everything Can Change (Liberation Records, 2013) • Into A Prism (Liberation Records, 2013) • Falasteen Habibti (Self-release, 2014) • All the News That's Fit to Sing (Self-release, 2014) • When I'm Elected President / Wayfaring Stranger (Self-release, 2014) • The Other Side (Self-release, 2015) • 1936 (Self-Release, 2016) • Letter to My Landlord (Self-Release, 2016) • Spies are Reading My Blog (Self-Release, 2017) • Punk Baroque (Self-Release, 2017) • Ballad of a Wobbly (Self-Release, 2018) • Historic Times (Self-Release, 2019) • Meanwhile in Afghanistan (Self-Release, 2019) • Songs for Today (Self-Release, 2019) • Strangers and Friends (Self-Release, 2019) • Notes From a Failed State (Self-Release, 2020) • Say Their Names (Self-Release, 2020) • Rebel Songs (Free The Imagination) (Self-Release, 2020) • It's Been a Year (Self-Release, 2021) • May Day (Self-Release, 2021) • Killing the Messenger (Self-Release, 2023) • Notes From A Holocaust (Self-Release, 2023) • Bearing Witness (Self-Release, 2024) • I Heard A Rumor (Self-Release, 2024) • Jabaliya (Self-Release, 2024) • From the Ashes (Self-Release, 2025) • Make the Planet Earth Great Again (Self-Release, 2025) • Deport the Billionaires (Self-Release, 2025) • In Our Dreams (Self-Release, 2025)