. It seems appropriate to see off 2020, and welcome in 2021, with songs of despair and hope. There are, of course, a hundred songs I could have included in either list. To choose just five in each category was an almost impossible task, and the selections are rather arbitrary. To pare it down a bit, I excluded songs primarily of heartbreak and love ache and straightforward protest songs too, though some here (Lauryn Hill’s “Black Rage”, for instance) may […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: bob dylan, bob marley, bruce springsteen, despair, gill scott-heron, hope, jeff buckley, lauryn hill, music, nina simone, rl burnside, sam cooke, tracy chapman