Tag: Homeless

Songs About Homelessness

Homeless Songs

Music can address societal issues in different ways. Sometimes a song will tackle a big issue head on.  But more often than not, issues are addressed through personal stories or observations. One important societal issue that occasionally appears in popular song is the problem that so many of our fellow humans live without a home. Below are some examples of some songs that address homelessness to varying degrees.

In 2011, singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran released ‘The A Team’ as the lead single of his first album +. Sheeran wrote the song about a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine after he visited a homeless shelter.

“Ain’t Got No Home” is a folk song that was made popular by Woody Guthrie: “Just a wandrin’ worker, I go from town to town. / And the police make it hard wherever I may go / And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.”

In this video, Rosanne Cash performs “I Ain’t Got No Home”.

Greg Trooper’s “They Call Me Hank” is about a homeless man named Bill. The song appeared on Trooper’s album Upside-Down Town.

Here Trooper performs the song at Music City Roots live from the Loveless Cafe in June 2014.

One of the more famous songs about homelessness is “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins. The song appeared on his 1989 hit album But Seriously, where the singer sees a man avoiding a homeless person.

Collins asks us to think twice about living another day in paradise, but a lot of critics thought that the song seemed disingenuous coming from someone as rich as Collins.

The great songwriter Guy Clark recorded a song called “Homeless.” The song appears on Clark’s 2006 album The Dark.

Like several other songs by Clark, he talks us through much of the story with a memorable chorus.

Finally, another famous song that is about a homeless person is the Christmas song “Pretty Paper,” which was a hit in an excellent recording by Roy Orbison. The song about a person who in the midst of holiday shopping sees a homeless person was written by a young songwriter who would later go on to have a pretty successful career himself.

So here is that songwriter, Willie Nelson, singing his version of the song he wrote.

Other songs with homelessness themes include Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung,” Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London,” and “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” by Crystal Waters.

Music, of course, cannot solve problems but it can help educate us. More than 60,000 people sleep in homeless shelters each night in New York City alone. Homelessness continues to be a problem across the U.S., and in particular, the number of homeless LGBT youth on the streets continues to rise due to a lack of support for them.

A number of organizations around the country work to help the homeless, and this website lists a number of ways that you can help the homeless (besides writing a song).

What other songs are there about homelessness? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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  • Tribute to Guy Clark CD is “Stuff That Works”
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    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Homeless Man from Viral Video May Land Job

    The last few days a video has been going around the Internet of a homeless man named Ted Williams who has a great announcer’s voice. USA Today is now reporting that the man has been offered a job by the Cleveland Cavaliers and NFL Films. Meanwhile, the talk show hosts are trying to get him on their shows. Hopefully things will work out for Williams, who has training in announcing but got sidetracked by alcoholism and drugs.

    More than six million people have viewed the video of Mr. Williams after it was posted on YouTube Monday. In case you have not seen it yet, here is the Internet video that may change a man’s life for the better. And you thought YouTube was just for funny kittens. [October 2013 Update: The original video appears to be no longer available.]

    Update for Thursday, Jan. 6: Today, CNN has an interesting story about the man who made the video of Ted Williams, Doral Chenoweth III, and what made him stop to make the video. According to the story, Chenoweth is an interesting person, who actually had the video for five weeks before posting it. Also, as noted in a comment, Ted Williams has now appeared on the Today Show.