Barking Dog: January 15, 2026
Uncle Sinner - Policeman
He’s from Winnipeg and this is off his new album Everybody Wants to Know How I Die, which came out on December 11th
This is a traditional American song
Uncle Sinner adapted it from Reed Martin’s version
Utah Phillips - Pig Hollow
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organiser from Ohio who also rode the rails throughout the United States and worked as an archivist, a dishwasher, and a warehouse-man at various points in his life
This is from his 1997 album The Telling Takes Me Home
It’s his own song
Roy Bailey - If They Come in the Morning
Bailey was an English sociologist and musician, known as a member of the group Three City Four
Jack Warshaw composed the song in 1974
He’s an American musician who moved to England in the 1960s to work as an architect, and stayed there because of the folk scene and his resistance to the Vietnam War
This version is from Bailey’s 1994 album Band of Hope
Sarah Ogan Gunning - Dreadful Memories
She was a folksinger from Kentucky, as were her half-sister Aunt Molly Jackson and brother Jim Garland
She was briefly involved in the New York folk scene in the 1930s and was later rediscovered in Detroit in the 1960s, and played at Newport Folk Festival in 1964
This is from her 1965 album Girl of Constant Sorrow
Both Gunning and Aunt Molly Jackson claimed ownership over this song
Gunning claimed to have written it in New York around 1938 and taught it to Molly later on
Pete Seeger - I Hate the Capitalist System
Seeger was a folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music for over 70 years
This is off his 1985 album Can’t You See This System’s Rotten Through and Through?
This song is by Sarah Ogan Gunning, who wrote it in the 1930s when she had just lost her mother and baby, and her husband was dying of tuberculosis
Karen James - The Pete Seeger Song
A folksinger and daughter of Spanish musician Isabelita Alonso, who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
From her 1961 self-titled album
Pete Seeger was one of many left-wing people in the folk scene who were persecuted and blacklisted in the United States during the 40s and 50s
Leon Rosselson - Child Killers
Rosselson is a musician and children’s book writer from England who first became widely known in the 1960s
This is from his 1999 album Harry’s Gone Fishing
Periwinkle - For the Children’s Sake
This is from a 1981 album called The Promised Land: American Indian Songs of Lament and Protest
There isn’t specific information about the song, but on the lyric page there are quotations from people like Malcolm X, who said, “If you are not careful, some newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing,” and Sitting Bull, who said, “Let us put our minds together and see what kind of life we are going to make for our children”
Anders Osborne, Monk Boudreaux - Ohio
Osborne is an American musician who’s been playing since the 1980s
Boudreaux is a musician from New Orleans who’s been performing since the 1960s and acts as Big Chief of the Golden Eagles, a Mardi Gras Indian tribe
This is from their 2002 album Bury the Hatchet
Neil Young wrote the song in 1970, following the Kent State Massacre, when the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed college students and wounded another nine during a rally opposing the United States’ increasing involvement in the Vietnam War
Victor Jara - “Movil” Oil Special
Jara was a Chilean musician, poet, teacher, theatre director, and activist who was tortured and killed in 1973 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet
His work is widely remembered and celebrated throughout the world for its focus on peace, love, and social justice
This is from his 1969 album Pongo en Tus Manos Abiertas, which translates to “I put in your open hands”
The song is in support of Chilean student protestors
Trasna - Torn Screen Door
They’re an Irish folk duo formed by Ger O’Donnell of County Clare and Trevor Sexton of County Limerick
This song is from their 2024 album Lullabies & Fairytales
It’s by Scottish-Canadian musician David Francey, who released it on his album of the same name in 1999
Bob Dylan - Masters of War
This is a live recording made in Hiroshima, Japan, in February of 1994
Dylan originally included the song on his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
April Verch, Cody Walters, Pharis & Jason Romero - Dear Brother
Verch and Walters are a married duo based in North Carolina who began playing together in 2007
Verch is a fiddle player and singer from Rankin, Ontario and Walters is a banjo player and guitarist from Kansas
Pharis & Jason Romero are a Juno-winning married duo from Horsefly, BC who have released five albums together
This is from Verch & Walters’ 2023 album Passages and Partings
Verch wrote it with Jon Weisberger
Tom Paxton - There Goes the Mountain
Paxton is a folksinger and music educator who was involved in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City and has remained a fixture on the international folk scene since
This is from his 2004 album Live in the UK, which he recorded with his friends Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
The song is originally off his 1978 album Heroes
Vivat Virtute - Royal Bank of Canada
Vivat Virtute is the name Winnipeg artists John K Samson and Christine Fellows use to release music and other projects
This is from their 2023 EP June First
The lyrics are by Samson, with music by 19th century English organist and hymn writer William Henry Monk
Chris Foster, Sianed Jones - All That is Different
This is from Leon Rosselson’s 1995 album Intruders
Rosselson wrote it with Foster
Alistair Hulett - Criminal Justice
He was a folksinger from Glasgow, Scotland, known as a member of the folk punk band Roaring Jack
This is from his 2005 album Riches & Rags
He originally wrote the song for Roaring Jack, and recorded it as a single in 1990
Angela Davis - Breaking the Silence
She’s a political activist, writer, philosopher, and academic known for her work on feminism and prison abolition
This is from a talk she gave at Colorado College in May of 1997
David Rovics - So This Is What It’s Like
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
This is from his 2020 album Strangers & Friends
Phil Ochs - I Kill Therefore I Am
He was an American protest singer who grew up all over the United States, but moved to New York City in 1962 to establish himself as a folksinger in the Greenwich Village folk scene
This is a live recording from a concert he gave at the Pacific National Exhibition Garden Auditorium in Vancouver in 1969, released in 1990
Bruce Cockburn - If I Had a Rocket Launcher
Singer-songwriter and guitarist from Ottawa who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
He originally included this song on his 1984 album Stealing Fire
It was inspired by a trip Cockburn took to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico after dictator Efraín Ríos Montt’s counterinsurgency campaign
This is a recording made in the Netherlands in 1991
Malvina Reynolds - Let Them Eat Cake
She was a folksinger from California known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This is a live recording from 1972
Kaia Kater - Poets Be Buried
Grenadian-Canadian folksinger based in Toronto
Off her album Grenades, from 2018
Otis Taylor - Nasty Letter
Taylor is a blues musician from Colorado who left the music industry in the late 70s to become an antique dealer
He started playing professionally again in the mid 90s and has now released 15 albums
This is from his 2003 album Truth is Not Fiction
The liner notes say: “Sometimes a letter isn’t signed, but you know where it came from”
Willie Dunn - I Pity the Country
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This one is off his 1972 self-titled album
Dorie Ellzey - The Ones Who’ve Gone Before Us
She’s a singer-songwriter and an HR professional based in Chicago
This song was recorded in 1977 for the What Now People series that advocated song as political movement
The liner notes for the song state, in part: “Just like a river, history never moves backward. But there are momentary setbacks, and periods when the odds are stacked against those who are trying to resolve the problems which hold back a new stage of history. This song expresses what it’s like to look those difficult times in the face and remind ourselves that many people have withstood and overcome similar situations.”
Jim Page - Pretty Simple
He’s a folksinger and activist based in Seattle, and this is off his 2020 album of the same name
Dave Gunning - Wish I Was Wrong
He’s a musician from Pictou County, Nova Scotia who began playing professionally in the 1990s
This is off his 2019 album Up Against the Sky
It’s about the pollution and health issues caused by a bleached kraft pulp mill in his region
He co-wrote it with Jamie Robinson, who joins him on guitar on this recording
Ruth Moody - Trouble and Woe
Howard Zinn - Undermining the Public Commons
