I have an extensive background in writing and performing political music, as a mode of expression complementary to public sociology. Since 2004, I have occasionally created music videos, sometimes in collaboration with my son Wes Carroll (www.wescarrollmusic.com). These are available at my youtube channel and through some related websites. These projects are entirely noncommercial and may be used and downloaded by anyone. I hope they may have some educational value in our struggle for social justice and ecological sanity.

MUSIC VIDEO: After the Storm (2023)
This music-video offers an optimistic take on the civilizational crisis we are experiencing. At this point, the cascading ecological, economic and geopolitical crises give good reason to adopt a pessimism of the intellect — without foreclosing on an optimism of hope. Yet the storm that is blowing from paradise, as Walter Benjamin put things in 1940, may eventuate in a post-capitalist world founded on care for ourselves and for non-human nature. The outcome depends on both the storm and our collective response. In memory of the great thinker and artist William Morris, author of News from Nowhere, this song invokes the possibility of restoring community, ecological health and solidarity – after the storm. This music-video is available here and, through Leftstreamed, here.

MUSIC VIDEO: Keep it in the Ground (2019)
I’ve put this short music-video together, based on the simple saying, ‘If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.’ It features footage from various places, worldwide – showing the extraction of carbon from the earth and the popular resistance to that, including student strikes, extinction rebellion, Ende Gelände, COP protests, Indigenous protectors and divestment. Musically, it’s sped-up hip-hop with marimba/vibes accompaniment. I hope it may be of value as a mobilizing tool for climate action. Please feel free to share it widely. It was produced in September-October 2019 and uploaded to youtube on October 25, 2019. It is available here, here, and also here and here.

MUSIC VIDEO: Shearwater Easy Street (2018)
Shearwater Easy Street is a mashup of two songs. The first one addresses the shearwater – a bird that amazingly can soar just over the surface of the ocean, as it makes its epic migration from northern to southern hemispheres and back. The second is about all of us getting to Easy Street, which is also the name of an early Chaplin film. Thus, ‘Shearwater Easy Street’! This one is dedicated to Budd Hall, educator, poet and pioneer in participatory action research. Fittingly, this is the most hopeful music-video I have made. It was produced in September 2018 and uploaded to youtube on November 3, 2018. It is available here.

MUSIC VIDEO: 400 parts per million (2015)
An eco-political music-video which encapsulates climate crisis and climate justice in three minutes flat. It is an intervention in popular political ecology/economy, aimed at those who are uneasy with the increasingly obvious deterioration of the living systems of which we are an inextricable part.  The music video was produced between Earth Day and May Day 2015 (April 22-May 1) and uploaded to youtube on May 3, 2015.  It is available here; through International Sociological Association’s The Futures We Want, here; through Leftstreamed, here; through MRzine, here; through Capitalism and Climate, here; through Class, Race and Corporate Power, here.

MUSIC VIDEO: Blind Eye Forward (2013)
Minor jazz-blues music-video on our troubled world, its crises and prospects for transformation. This project was begun in July, 2004, in the form of a song I wrote to mark my son Myles’s 15th birthday. The music video was produced in August-December, 2012 and uploaded to youtube on May 1, 2013.  It is available here; also (through The Sociological Cinema), here.

MUSIC VIDEO: Jazz Lives (2011)

A musical tribute to jazz — its vibrancy, hybridity, open aesthetic, political progressiveness, and communal spirit. With photos and footage of some of the greats, spanning a century. This project was begun in March, 2011, in the form of a song I wrote to mark my son Wes’s 19th birthday.  The music video (featuring Wes on guitar) was produced in August-December, 2011 and uploaded to youtube on December 17, 2011.  It is available here, and, through All About Jazz, here.

MUSIC VIDEO: So Said Tony Hayward (2010)
This project was begun in July, 2010, in the form of a song I wrote to mark my son Myles’s 21th birthday.  The music video was produced in July-August, 2010 and uploaded to youtube on September 2, 2010.  It is available here. The same version, with lyrics and commentary, is available through The Socialist Project, here.

MUSIC VIDEO: Do we pull the monster down? (2004)
This project was begun in March, 2004, in the form of a song I wrote to mark my son Wes’s 12th birthday.  The music-video, which is effectively a slide show, was produced in May, 2004 and uploaded to youtube in June, 2004.  It is available here. The same version, with lyrics and commentary, is available through The Socialist Project, here.