Dave Rogers has spent his life attempting to make the world a better, fairer place for the majority. His songs, mainly written for Banner Theatre productions and their audiences of sweatshop workers, firefighters, health workers, trade unionists, asylum seekers and others, are about burning issues that affect that majority.
Dave works at a grassroots level. He’s not preaching from a pulpit; he’s out there with the congregation, combining their hopes and dreams and aspirations with his own, and making songs about it all: singable songs, powerful songs, true songs – all written by a man who is a political activist of the highest order.
His songs can be angry – like Devastation of Iraq about the Gulf War of 1991; they can be poignant – like Monday Morning Rain, his song about unemployment in an ex-mining community; they can be rooted in struggle – like The Dockside Gates Are Burning, his anthem for the Liverpool dockers’ strike of the late 1990s. He is not subtle in his approach – witness Dedicated Follower of Thatcher about Tony Blair and his government. Some of his pieces are joyously celebratory, like his song marking the triumph of the mass picket at Saltley Gate in 1972.
Above all, and unlike much commercially created music, they are alive with social purpose. Dave makes us think politically and constructively about the world in which we live and urges us to do something to make it a better place through a shared vision and concerted, collective action.
This kind of music, rooted in the lives and struggles of those commonly described as ‘the salt of the earth’, is part of a tradition of political songwriting that has become largely invisible – but it is a tradition that needs to be sustained and nurtured, as well as passed on to younger people if it is to remain alive as it needs to be. Dave’s songs do just that. He grounds his songs by using traditional forms, attitudes and social content but also employs contemporary idioms and language which reflect the times through which he has lived. This enables his songs to be relevant and appealing to new, younger audiences.
These songs are more than just songs. They are social documents. Sing them for yourself – and pass them on.
When asked about unity in the struggle against racism, Dave says:
“The ruling elite are very good at dividing us up according to what particular category we are in. Do not try and divide us on the basis of our appearance or where we come from.”
