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EspañolPROTEST SONG
A 'protest song' is a song which protests problems in society such as injustice, racial discrimination, war, globalization, inflation, social inequalities, incarceration, and global warming. Protest songs are generally associated with folk music, but more recently they have been produced in all genres of music. Such songs become popular during times of social disruption among social groups.
The oldest protest song on record is "The Cutty Wren" from the English peasants' revolt of 1381 against feudal oppression. Many songs were written during the American Revolutionary War and the abolitionist movement of the 19th century. During the American Civil War, traditional songs and spirituals served as protest songs. "We Shall Overcome" was a song popular in the labor movement and later the Civil Rights movement. Songs of protest continue to be written well into the 21st century.
Prior to the civil war era, political songs appeared in the mid 1700's America in response to social injustices (such as the struggle between classes) and political issues (such as the opposing ideologies of theWhigs and Tories, and issues such as the stamp act). The earliest known American election campaign song was "God Save George Washington", issued in 1780 and sung to the tune of "God Save The King", a common practice as the majority of political songs at the time were based on already well known music and were often published with only the lyrics in newspapers and broadsides, and a "sung to the tune of" direction. [1]
The nineteenth century saw a number of protest songs being written, for the most part, on three key issues: War, and the American Civil War in particular ( such as "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" from Ireland, and its American variant, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again", among others); The abolition of slavery ("Song of the Abolitionist"[1] and "No More Auction Block for Me"[2], among others) and Women's suffrage, both for and against in both Britain and the U.S.
Perhaps the most famous voices of protest at the time - in America at least - were the Hutchinson Family Singers. From 1839, the Hutchinson Family Singers became well-known for their protest songs, especially songs supporting abolition. They sang at the White House for President John Tyler, and befriended Abraham Lincoln [2]. Their subject matter most often touched on relevant social issues such as abolition, temperance, politics, war and women's suffrage. Much of their their music focused on idealism, social reform, equal rights, moral improvement, community activism and patriotism.
The Hutchinsons' career spanned the major social and political events of the mid-19thcentury, including the Civil War. The Hutchinson Family Singers established an impressive musical legacy and are considered to be the forerunners of the great protest singers-songwriters and folk groups of the 1950s and 60's such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, and are often referred to as America's first protest band [3].
The 19th century also boasts one of the first environmental protest songs ever written in the shape of "Woodman Spare That Tree!" [4], which was extremely popular at the time. The words were taken from a poem by George Pope Morris which had been published in the New York Mirror, while the music was composed by Henry Russell. The conservation sentiments of the work can be seen in verses such as the 2nd, which reads:" That old familiar tree,/Whose glory and renown/Are spread o'er land and sea/And wouldst thou hack it down?/Woodman, forbear thy stroke!/Cut not its earth, bound ties;/Oh! spare that ag-ed oak/Now towering to the skies!"
In the 20th century, the union movement, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement, and the war in Vietnam (see Vietnam War protests) all spawned protest songs.
The 1920s produced songs such as the anti-lynching song, "Strange Fruit." It also saw the birth of the union and labor movements, which produced "The Cradle Will Rock", a pro-union musical so controversial that it was shut down for fear of social unrest.[3]
It was during the '20s and '30s that The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, used music to protest working conditions in the United States and to recruit new members to their cause. It was also during this period that many African American blues singers were beginning to have their voices heard on a larger scale across America through their music, most of which protested the discrimination which they faced on a daily basis. Perhaps the most famous example of these 1930's blues protest songs is Leadbelly's The Bourgeois Blues, in which he sings "The home of the Brave / The land of the Free / I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie".
The 1940s and 1950s saw the rise of music that continued to protest labor, race, and class issues, and produced artists who would have an enduring influence on the protest music genre, most notably Woody Guthrie ("This Land Is Your Land", "Deportee", "Dust Bowl Blues", "Tom Joad"), whose guitar had a sticker attached which read: "This Machine Kills Fascists". Guthrie had also been a member or the hugely influential labor-movement band The Almanac Singers, along with Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, and Pete Seeger. Politics and music were closely intertwined with the members' political beliefs, which were far-left and occasionally led to controversial associations with the Communist Party USA. Their first release, an album called "Songs For John Doe", urged non-intervention in World War II, while their second album "Talking Union", was a collection of labor songs, many of which were intensely anti-Roosevelt.
A similarly influential folk music band who sang protest songs were The Weavers, of which future protest music leader Pete Seeger was a member. The Weavers were the first American band to court mainstream success while singing protest songs, and they were eventually to pay the price for it. While they specifically avoided recording the more controversial songs in their repertoire, and refrained from performing at controversial venues and events (for which the leftwing press derided them as having sold out their beliefs in exchange for popular success), they nevertheless came under political pressure as a result of their history of singing protest songs and folk songs favoring labor unions, as well as for the leftist political beliefs of the individuals in the group. Despite their caution they were placed under FBI surveillance and blacklisted by parts of the entertainment industry during the McCarthy era, from 1950. Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested at their performances and harassed promoters. As a result of the blacklisting, the Weavers lost radio airplay and the group's popularity diminished rapidly. Decca Records eventually terminated their recording contract.
The 1960s was a fertile era for the genre, especially with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the ascendency of counterculture groups such as Hippies and the New Left, and the escalation of the War in Vietnam. The protest songs of the period differed from those of earlier leftist movements that had been more oriented towards labour activism, adopting instead a broader definition of political activism commonly called social activism, which incorporated notions of equal rights and of promoting the concept of 'peace'. The music often included fairly simple instrumental accompaniment including acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Bob Dylan produced a number of landmark songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1962), "Masters of War" (1963), "Talking World War III Blues" (1963), and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1964). Pete Seeger produced "Where Have All the Flowers Gone", "If I Had a Hammer" (which was written in 1949, but rose to Top Ten popularity in 1962), and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (also written earlier but released in the early 1960s), among others. "We Shall Overcome", his adaptation of an American gospel song, continues to be used to support issues from labor rights to peace movements. Other notable voices of the period included Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sainte-Marie (whose anti-war song "Universal Soldier" was later made famous by Donovan) and Tom Paxton ("Jimmy Newman" - about the story of a dying soldier, and "My Son John" - about a soldier who returns from war unable to describe what he's been through), among others. The first ever protest song to reach number one in the States was Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire in 1965. [5]. Woody Guthrie's son Arlo Guthrie also wrote one of the decade's most famous protest songs in the form of the 18 minute long talking blues song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a bitingly satirical protest against the Vietnam War draft.
The American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s often used Negro spirituals as a source of protest, changing the religious lyrics to suit the political mood of the time. The use of religious music helped to emphasize the peaceful nature of the protest; it also proved easy to adapt, with many improvised call-and-response songs being created during marches and sit-ins. Some imprisoned protesters used their incarceration as an opportunity to write protest songs. These songs were carried across the country by Freedom Riders,[4] and many of these became Civil Rights anthems. Many soul singers of the period, such as Sam Cooke ("A Change Is Gonna Come"), Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin ("Respect") wrote and performed many protest songs which addressed the ever-increasing demand for equal rights for African Americans during the American civil rights movement.
In the 1960s and early 1970s many protest songs were written and recorded condemning the War in Vietnam, most notably "Masters Of War" (1963) by Bob Dylan, "The War Drags On" by Donovan (1965),"I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" by Phil Ochs (1965), "Requiem for the Masses" by The Association (1967), "Saigon Bride" by Joan Baez (1967), "The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" (1968) by Country Joe and the Fish, "One Tin Soldier" (1969) by Original Caste, "Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane (1969), "Fortunate Son," (1969) by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and "Give Peace a Chance" by John Lennon (1969).
The 1960s also saw a number of successful protest songs from the opposite end of the spectrum; the political right which supported the war. Perhaps the most successful and famous of these was Ballad of the Green Berets by Barry Sadler, which was one of the very few songs of the era to cast the military in a positive light and yet become a major hit.
Protest songs about The Vietnam War continued in the 1970s, such as "War" (1970) by Edwin Starr, "Ohio" (1970) by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, "Imagine" (1971) by John Lennon. "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens (1971), "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath (1971), and Stevie Wonder's frank condemnation of Richard Nixon 's Vietnam policies in his 1974 song "You Haven't Done Nothin'." Protest singer and activist Joan Baez dedicated the entire B side of her album Where Are You Now, My Son? (1973) to recordings she had made of bombings while in Hanoi.
While war continued to dominate the protest songs of the early 70s, there were other issues addressed by bands of the time, such as The Rolling Stones' protest against police brutality with their single "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" in 1973.
Soul music carried over into the early part of the 70's, in many ways taking over from folk music as one of the strongest voices of protest in American music, the most important of which being Marvin Gaye's seminal 1971 protest album " What's Going On", which included "Inner City Blues", " Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", and the title track.
As the 1970s progressed, the louder, more aggressive Punk movement became the strongest voice of protest, particularly in the U.K., featuring anti-war, anti-state, and anti-capitalist themes. The punk culture, in stark contrast with the 1960s' sense of power through union, concerned itself with individual freedom, often incorporating concepts of individualism, free thought and even anarchism. According to ''Search and Destroy'' founder V. Vale, "Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."[5]The most significant protest songs of the movement included " God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols, "If the Kids are United" by Sham 69, "Career Opportunities" (protesting the political and economic situation in England at the time, especially the lack of jobs available to the youth), and "White Riot" (about class economics and race issues) by The Clash, and "Right to Work" by Chelsea. See also Punk ideology.
At the start of the 1980s the punk movement had taken hold with a disillusioned German youth, reulting in a strand of highly politicized new wave punk known as the "Deutschpunk" movement, which mostly concerned itself with politically radical left-wing lyrics, mostly influenced by the Cold War.Probably the most important Deutschpunk band was Slime from Hamburg, who were the first band whose LP was banned because of political topics. Their songs "Deutschland" ("Germany"), "Bullenschweine", "Polizei SA/SS", and the anti-imperialist "Yankees raus" ("Yankees out") were banned, some of them are still banned today, because they propagated the use of violence against the police or compared the police to the SA and SS of Nazi Germany.
A 1983 protest song from Germany which gained considerable attention worldwide was "99 Luftballons" by Nena. The song protested the escalating rhetoric and strategic maneuvering between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The leading voice of protest in Thatcherite Britain in the 1980s was Billy Bragg, whose style of protest song and grass-roots political activism was mostly reminiscent of those of Woody Guthrie, however with themes that were relevant to the contemporary Briton. Across the Atlantic, the Reagan administration was also coming in for its fair share of criticism, with many mainstream protest songs (for example Bruce Springsteen's " Born in the U.S.A.", Billy Joel's "Allentown", and "Bonzo goes to Bitberg" by The Ramones) attacking his policies. The 1980s also saw the rise of rap and hip-hop, and with it bands such as N.W.A. ("Fuck tha Police") and Public Enemy ("Fight the Power", "911 (Is a Joke)" etc.) who vehemently protested the discrimination which the black community faced in America, in particular focusing on police discrimination. Punk music continued to be a strong voice of protest in the 1980s, however it had for the most part, developed a heavier and more aggressive sound, as typified by Black Flag and Bad Religion, who paved the way for 90's hip-hop/metal/punk protest bands such as Rage Against the Machine and Rise Against. Of the few remaining old-school punks still recording in the late 80's, the most notable protest song is Patti Smith's 1988 recording "People Have the Power."
Rage Against the Machine, formed in 1991, have been one of the most popular 'social-commentary' bands in the last 20 years, with protest songs such as "Killing in the Name", "Bullet In The Head" and "Bulls On Parade", and also laid the path for a series of hard-rock protest bands throughout the 90's, such as Anti-Flag. However, for the most part the 90's signalled a decline in the popularity of protest songs in the mainstream media and public consciousness - even resulting in some parodies of the genre. The 1992 film Bob Roberts is an example of protest music parody, in which the title character - played by American actor Tim Robbins - is a guitar-playing U.S. Senatorial candidate who writes and performs songs with a heavily reactionary tone.
After the 90s the protest song found renewed popularity in the Western World after the turn of the century as a result of 9/11 in America, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the Middle East, with America's president George W. Bush facing the majority of the criticism. Many famous protest singers of yesteryear, such as Neil Young, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Morrissey and Bruce Springsteen, have returned to the public eye with new protest songs for this new American war. Young approached the theme with his song, "Let's Impeach the President" - a stinging rebuke against President George W. Bush and the War in Iraq - as well as Living With War, an album of anti-Bush and anti-War protest songs. Smith has written two new songs indicting American and Israeli foreign policy - "Qana", about the Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana, and "Without Chains", about the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Tom Waits has also covered increasingly political subject matter since the advent of the Iraq war, with "Hoist That Rag" and "The Day After Tomorrow", while "Road To Peace" deals explicitly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East in general. Ex-Smiths frontman Morrissey has also attacked both sides of the Atlantic with "America is Not the World" and "Irish Blood, English Heart" from his 2004 You Are the Quarry album. Bruce Springsteen has also been vocal in his condemnation of the Bush government, among other issues of social commentary. In 2000 he released American Skin (41 Shots) about tensions between immigrants in America and the police force, and of the police shooting of Amadou Diallo in particular. For singing about this event, albeit without mentioning Diallo's name, Springsteen was denounced by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in New York who called for the song to be blacklisted and by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani amongst others [6]. In the aftermath of 9/11 Springsteen released The Rising, which exhibited his reflections on the tragedy and America's reaction to it. In 2006 he released , a collection of 13 covers of protest songs made popular by Pete Seeger, which highlighted how these older protest songs remained relevant to the troubles of the modern America. An extended version of the album included the track "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live" in which Springsteen actually rewrote the lyrics of the original to directly address the issue of Hurricane Katrina.
Modern-day mainstream artists to have written protest songs on this subject include Pink with her appeal to Bush in "Dear Mr. President", Bright Eyes with "When the President Talks to God" (which was hailed by the influential Portland, Oregon, alternative paper Willamette Week as "this young century's most powerful protest song." [7]), Dispatch's anti-war underground hit "The General", and Devendra Banhart's "Heard somebody Say" in which he sings "it's simple, we don't want to kill". Pearl Jam also included two anti-Bush songs ("World Wide Suicide", "Marker In The Sand") in their 2006 album ''Pearl Jam''. Arcade Fire's 2007 Neon Bible contains many oblique protests against the paranoia of a contemporary America 'under attack by terrorism'. The album also contains two more overtly political protest songs in the form of "Windowsill", in which Win Butler sings "I don't want to live in America no more", and "Intervention", which criticises religious fanatacism.
Utah Philips, and David Rovics, among many other singers have continued the folk tradition of protest. In John Mayer's 2006 release CONTINUUM, the lead single " Waiting on the World to Change", Mayer is critical of the desensitizing of politics in youths. He goes on to say in "Belief", "What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand? Belief can. What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand? Belief can." However the protest album to achieve the most mainstream success has been Green Day's "American Idiot, which was awarded a Grammy for "Best Rock Album" in 2005, despite its strong criticism of current American foreign policy and George Bush. The title track from the album has been described by the band as their public statement in reaction to the confusing and warped scene that is American pop culture since 9/11.
While country music has offered the loudest voice in support of the war (through artists such as Toby Keith ("Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)" - which Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, publicly criticised as "ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant."[8]}), Darryl Worley ("Have You Forgotten") and Charlie Daniels) many established country artists have released strongly critical anti-war songs. Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, the Dixie Chicks and Nanci Griffith have been the most vocal in this regard.
The honesty of artists recording protest songs in the twenty-first century wasn't always as certain, though, as due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed 9/11, disapprovement of president Bush and his administration suddenly became very popular. This caused a lot of more commercially inclined artists to record protest songs, such as the aforementioned Dear Mr. President by Pink, which was only released as a single in Europe, where ventilating anti-Bush sentiments was virtually riskless.
Some artists who are not traditionally right-leaning have questioned the validity of the recent spate of anti-war protest songs. Florida-based punk-folk band Against Me! released a song called White People For Peace that questions the effectiveness of people singing "protest songs in response to military aggression" when their governments simply ignore them.
Irish rebel music is a sub genre of Irish folk music, played on typically Irish instruments (such as the Fiddle, tin whistle, Uilleann pipes, accordion, bodhrán etc.) and acoustic guitars. The lyrics deal with the fight for Irish freedom, people who were involved in liberation movements, Celtic unity, and attacked the so-called 'British invaders'.
Among the many examples of the genre, some of the most famous are "A Nation Once Again", "Come out Ye Black and Tans", "Erin go Bragh"[9], "The Fields of Athenry" and the Republic of Ireland's national Anthem "Amhrán na bhFiann" ("The Soldier's Song").Music of this genre has often courted controversy, and some of the more outwardly anti-British songs have been effectively banned from the airwaves in both England and the Republic of Ireland.
Paul McCartney also made a contribution to the genre with his 1972 single "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" which he wrote as a reaction to Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972. The song also faced an all-out ban in England, and has never been re-released or appeared on any Paul McCartney or Wings best-ofs.
While the protest song was enjoying its Golden Age in America in the 1960's, it also saw many detractors overseas who saw it as having been commercialized. Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara, who played a pivotal role in the folkloric renaissance that led to the ''Nueva Cancion Chilena'' ['NCC'] (New Chilean Song) movement which created a revolution in the popular music of his country, criticised the "commercialized" American ''‘protest song phenomenon’'' which had been imported into Chile. He criticized it thus:
Nueva canción (literally "new song" in Spanish) was a type of protest/social song in Latin American music which took root in South America, especially Chile and other Andean countries, and gained extreme popularity throughout Latin America. It combined traditional Latin American folk music idioms (played on the quena, zampoña, charango or cajón with guitar accompaniment) with some popular (esp. British) rock music, and was characterised by its progressive and often politicized lyrics. It is sometimes considered a precursor to rock en español. The lyrics are typically in Spanish, with some indigenous or local words mixed in.
Its lyrics characteristically revolve around about poverty, empowerment, the Unidad Popular, imperialism, democracy, human rights, and religion. There are some hundreds of songs with influences from British and American pop rock that was popular with college youths. The Chilean coup of 1973 impacted the genre's growth, as the musical movement was forced to go underground. During the days of the coup, Victor Jara, a well known singer/song-writer, was kidnapped, jailed, tortured and shot. Other groups, such as Inti-Illimani and Quilapayun found safety outside the country. The military government went as far as to ban many traditional Andean instruments, but as a testament to how far the country has come since then, the stadium where Victor Jara was murdered now bears his name.
★ John Greenway, ''American Folksongs of Protest'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953; New York: A.S. Barnes, 1960).
★ Civil Rights anthem
★ Wobblies
★ Folk-punk
★ Antiwar Songs - a collection of pacifist and antimilitarist songs lyrics from all over the world and of any time, based on free contributions by readers and collaborators.
★ Strange Fruit - a PBS Web site devoted to the history of protest music
★ Vietnam: The music of protest, Steve Schifferes, BBC News, Sunday, 1 May, 2005
★ [10] Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems
★ Integrity is Not a Chore Interview with Welsh singer/songwriter Martyn Joseph
★ [11] - Wobbly songs
★ [12] People's Music Network, an organization for protest musicians
★ [13] People's Voice Cafe, a New York City-based venue specializing in left-wing protest music.
★ [14] "Autocantantes" Spanish Song Protest from Madrid.
1. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam007.html
2. http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/no_more_auction_block_for_me.htm
3. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/depression.html
4. http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/music/protest_overcome.html
5. Savage (1991), p. 440
History
The oldest protest song on record is "The Cutty Wren" from the English peasants' revolt of 1381 against feudal oppression. Many songs were written during the American Revolutionary War and the abolitionist movement of the 19th century. During the American Civil War, traditional songs and spirituals served as protest songs. "We Shall Overcome" was a song popular in the labor movement and later the Civil Rights movement. Songs of protest continue to be written well into the 21st century.
Eighteenth century
Prior to the civil war era, political songs appeared in the mid 1700's America in response to social injustices (such as the struggle between classes) and political issues (such as the opposing ideologies of theWhigs and Tories, and issues such as the stamp act). The earliest known American election campaign song was "God Save George Washington", issued in 1780 and sung to the tune of "God Save The King", a common practice as the majority of political songs at the time were based on already well known music and were often published with only the lyrics in newspapers and broadsides, and a "sung to the tune of" direction. [1]
Nineteenth century
The Hutchinson Family Singers; a 19th-century American family singing group who sang about political causes in four-part harmony
The nineteenth century saw a number of protest songs being written, for the most part, on three key issues: War, and the American Civil War in particular ( such as "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" from Ireland, and its American variant, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again", among others); The abolition of slavery ("Song of the Abolitionist"[1] and "No More Auction Block for Me"[2], among others) and Women's suffrage, both for and against in both Britain and the U.S.
Perhaps the most famous voices of protest at the time - in America at least - were the Hutchinson Family Singers. From 1839, the Hutchinson Family Singers became well-known for their protest songs, especially songs supporting abolition. They sang at the White House for President John Tyler, and befriended Abraham Lincoln [2]. Their subject matter most often touched on relevant social issues such as abolition, temperance, politics, war and women's suffrage. Much of their their music focused on idealism, social reform, equal rights, moral improvement, community activism and patriotism.
The Hutchinsons' career spanned the major social and political events of the mid-19thcentury, including the Civil War. The Hutchinson Family Singers established an impressive musical legacy and are considered to be the forerunners of the great protest singers-songwriters and folk groups of the 1950s and 60's such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, and are often referred to as America's first protest band [3].
The 19th century also boasts one of the first environmental protest songs ever written in the shape of "Woodman Spare That Tree!" [4], which was extremely popular at the time. The words were taken from a poem by George Pope Morris which had been published in the New York Mirror, while the music was composed by Henry Russell. The conservation sentiments of the work can be seen in verses such as the 2nd, which reads:" That old familiar tree,/Whose glory and renown/Are spread o'er land and sea/And wouldst thou hack it down?/Woodman, forbear thy stroke!/Cut not its earth, bound ties;/Oh! spare that ag-ed oak/Now towering to the skies!"
Twentieth century
In the 20th century, the union movement, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement, and the war in Vietnam (see Vietnam War protests) all spawned protest songs.
1920's- 1950s; Labor Movement, Class Struggle, and Racial Discrimination
The 1920s produced songs such as the anti-lynching song, "Strange Fruit." It also saw the birth of the union and labor movements, which produced "The Cradle Will Rock", a pro-union musical so controversial that it was shut down for fear of social unrest.[3]
1940's protest singer Woody Guthrie
The 1940s and 1950s saw the rise of music that continued to protest labor, race, and class issues, and produced artists who would have an enduring influence on the protest music genre, most notably Woody Guthrie ("This Land Is Your Land", "Deportee", "Dust Bowl Blues", "Tom Joad"), whose guitar had a sticker attached which read: "This Machine Kills Fascists". Guthrie had also been a member or the hugely influential labor-movement band The Almanac Singers, along with Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, and Pete Seeger. Politics and music were closely intertwined with the members' political beliefs, which were far-left and occasionally led to controversial associations with the Communist Party USA. Their first release, an album called "Songs For John Doe", urged non-intervention in World War II, while their second album "Talking Union", was a collection of labor songs, many of which were intensely anti-Roosevelt.
A similarly influential folk music band who sang protest songs were The Weavers, of which future protest music leader Pete Seeger was a member. The Weavers were the first American band to court mainstream success while singing protest songs, and they were eventually to pay the price for it. While they specifically avoided recording the more controversial songs in their repertoire, and refrained from performing at controversial venues and events (for which the leftwing press derided them as having sold out their beliefs in exchange for popular success), they nevertheless came under political pressure as a result of their history of singing protest songs and folk songs favoring labor unions, as well as for the leftist political beliefs of the individuals in the group. Despite their caution they were placed under FBI surveillance and blacklisted by parts of the entertainment industry during the McCarthy era, from 1950. Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested at their performances and harassed promoters. As a result of the blacklisting, the Weavers lost radio airplay and the group's popularity diminished rapidly. Decca Records eventually terminated their recording contract.
1960s; the Civil Rights Movement, The Vietnam War, and Peace and Revolution
John Lennon rehearsing the anti-Vietnam War anthem ''Give Peace a Chance''
The 1960s was a fertile era for the genre, especially with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the ascendency of counterculture groups such as Hippies and the New Left, and the escalation of the War in Vietnam. The protest songs of the period differed from those of earlier leftist movements that had been more oriented towards labour activism, adopting instead a broader definition of political activism commonly called social activism, which incorporated notions of equal rights and of promoting the concept of 'peace'. The music often included fairly simple instrumental accompaniment including acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Bob Dylan produced a number of landmark songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1962), "Masters of War" (1963), "Talking World War III Blues" (1963), and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1964). Pete Seeger produced "Where Have All the Flowers Gone", "If I Had a Hammer" (which was written in 1949, but rose to Top Ten popularity in 1962), and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (also written earlier but released in the early 1960s), among others. "We Shall Overcome", his adaptation of an American gospel song, continues to be used to support issues from labor rights to peace movements. Other notable voices of the period included Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sainte-Marie (whose anti-war song "Universal Soldier" was later made famous by Donovan) and Tom Paxton ("Jimmy Newman" - about the story of a dying soldier, and "My Son John" - about a soldier who returns from war unable to describe what he's been through), among others. The first ever protest song to reach number one in the States was Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire in 1965. [5]. Woody Guthrie's son Arlo Guthrie also wrote one of the decade's most famous protest songs in the form of the 18 minute long talking blues song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a bitingly satirical protest against the Vietnam War draft.
The American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s often used Negro spirituals as a source of protest, changing the religious lyrics to suit the political mood of the time. The use of religious music helped to emphasize the peaceful nature of the protest; it also proved easy to adapt, with many improvised call-and-response songs being created during marches and sit-ins. Some imprisoned protesters used their incarceration as an opportunity to write protest songs. These songs were carried across the country by Freedom Riders,[4] and many of these became Civil Rights anthems. Many soul singers of the period, such as Sam Cooke ("A Change Is Gonna Come"), Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin ("Respect") wrote and performed many protest songs which addressed the ever-increasing demand for equal rights for African Americans during the American civil rights movement.
In the 1960s and early 1970s many protest songs were written and recorded condemning the War in Vietnam, most notably "Masters Of War" (1963) by Bob Dylan, "The War Drags On" by Donovan (1965),"I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" by Phil Ochs (1965), "Requiem for the Masses" by The Association (1967), "Saigon Bride" by Joan Baez (1967), "The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" (1968) by Country Joe and the Fish, "One Tin Soldier" (1969) by Original Caste, "Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane (1969), "Fortunate Son," (1969) by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and "Give Peace a Chance" by John Lennon (1969).
The 1960s also saw a number of successful protest songs from the opposite end of the spectrum; the political right which supported the war. Perhaps the most successful and famous of these was Ballad of the Green Berets by Barry Sadler, which was one of the very few songs of the era to cast the military in a positive light and yet become a major hit.
1970s; The Vietnam War, Soul Music and Punk
Protest songs about The Vietnam War continued in the 1970s, such as "War" (1970) by Edwin Starr, "Ohio" (1970) by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, "Imagine" (1971) by John Lennon. "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens (1971), "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath (1971), and Stevie Wonder's frank condemnation of Richard Nixon 's Vietnam policies in his 1974 song "You Haven't Done Nothin'." Protest singer and activist Joan Baez dedicated the entire B side of her album Where Are You Now, My Son? (1973) to recordings she had made of bombings while in Hanoi.
While war continued to dominate the protest songs of the early 70s, there were other issues addressed by bands of the time, such as The Rolling Stones' protest against police brutality with their single "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" in 1973.
Soul music carried over into the early part of the 70's, in many ways taking over from folk music as one of the strongest voices of protest in American music, the most important of which being Marvin Gaye's seminal 1971 protest album " What's Going On", which included "Inner City Blues", " Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", and the title track.
As the 1970s progressed, the louder, more aggressive Punk movement became the strongest voice of protest, particularly in the U.K., featuring anti-war, anti-state, and anti-capitalist themes. The punk culture, in stark contrast with the 1960s' sense of power through union, concerned itself with individual freedom, often incorporating concepts of individualism, free thought and even anarchism. According to ''Search and Destroy'' founder V. Vale, "Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."[5]The most significant protest songs of the movement included " God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols, "If the Kids are United" by Sham 69, "Career Opportunities" (protesting the political and economic situation in England at the time, especially the lack of jobs available to the youth), and "White Riot" (about class economics and race issues) by The Clash, and "Right to Work" by Chelsea. See also Punk ideology.
1980s; The Cold War, Thatcherite Britain, and The Birth of Rap
Hardcore Punk band Black Flag in 1984
N.W.A., an influential hip-hop band who protested racial discrimination in America in the 1980s
At the start of the 1980s the punk movement had taken hold with a disillusioned German youth, reulting in a strand of highly politicized new wave punk known as the "Deutschpunk" movement, which mostly concerned itself with politically radical left-wing lyrics, mostly influenced by the Cold War.Probably the most important Deutschpunk band was Slime from Hamburg, who were the first band whose LP was banned because of political topics. Their songs "Deutschland" ("Germany"), "Bullenschweine", "Polizei SA/SS", and the anti-imperialist "Yankees raus" ("Yankees out") were banned, some of them are still banned today, because they propagated the use of violence against the police or compared the police to the SA and SS of Nazi Germany.
A 1983 protest song from Germany which gained considerable attention worldwide was "99 Luftballons" by Nena. The song protested the escalating rhetoric and strategic maneuvering between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The leading voice of protest in Thatcherite Britain in the 1980s was Billy Bragg, whose style of protest song and grass-roots political activism was mostly reminiscent of those of Woody Guthrie, however with themes that were relevant to the contemporary Briton. Across the Atlantic, the Reagan administration was also coming in for its fair share of criticism, with many mainstream protest songs (for example Bruce Springsteen's " Born in the U.S.A.", Billy Joel's "Allentown", and "Bonzo goes to Bitberg" by The Ramones) attacking his policies. The 1980s also saw the rise of rap and hip-hop, and with it bands such as N.W.A. ("Fuck tha Police") and Public Enemy ("Fight the Power", "911 (Is a Joke)" etc.) who vehemently protested the discrimination which the black community faced in America, in particular focusing on police discrimination. Punk music continued to be a strong voice of protest in the 1980s, however it had for the most part, developed a heavier and more aggressive sound, as typified by Black Flag and Bad Religion, who paved the way for 90's hip-hop/metal/punk protest bands such as Rage Against the Machine and Rise Against. Of the few remaining old-school punks still recording in the late 80's, the most notable protest song is Patti Smith's 1988 recording "People Have the Power."
1990s; Hard-Rock Protest Bands and Protest Parodies
Rage Against the Machine, formed in 1991, have been one of the most popular 'social-commentary' bands in the last 20 years, with protest songs such as "Killing in the Name", "Bullet In The Head" and "Bulls On Parade", and also laid the path for a series of hard-rock protest bands throughout the 90's, such as Anti-Flag. However, for the most part the 90's signalled a decline in the popularity of protest songs in the mainstream media and public consciousness - even resulting in some parodies of the genre. The 1992 film Bob Roberts is an example of protest music parody, in which the title character - played by American actor Tim Robbins - is a guitar-playing U.S. Senatorial candidate who writes and performs songs with a heavily reactionary tone.
Twenty-first century
The Iraq War and the Revival of the Protest Song
After the 90s the protest song found renewed popularity in the Western World after the turn of the century as a result of 9/11 in America, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the Middle East, with America's president George W. Bush facing the majority of the criticism. Many famous protest singers of yesteryear, such as Neil Young, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Morrissey and Bruce Springsteen, have returned to the public eye with new protest songs for this new American war. Young approached the theme with his song, "Let's Impeach the President" - a stinging rebuke against President George W. Bush and the War in Iraq - as well as Living With War, an album of anti-Bush and anti-War protest songs. Smith has written two new songs indicting American and Israeli foreign policy - "Qana", about the Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana, and "Without Chains", about the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Tom Waits has also covered increasingly political subject matter since the advent of the Iraq war, with "Hoist That Rag" and "The Day After Tomorrow", while "Road To Peace" deals explicitly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East in general. Ex-Smiths frontman Morrissey has also attacked both sides of the Atlantic with "America is Not the World" and "Irish Blood, English Heart" from his 2004 You Are the Quarry album. Bruce Springsteen has also been vocal in his condemnation of the Bush government, among other issues of social commentary. In 2000 he released American Skin (41 Shots) about tensions between immigrants in America and the police force, and of the police shooting of Amadou Diallo in particular. For singing about this event, albeit without mentioning Diallo's name, Springsteen was denounced by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in New York who called for the song to be blacklisted and by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani amongst others [6]. In the aftermath of 9/11 Springsteen released The Rising, which exhibited his reflections on the tragedy and America's reaction to it. In 2006 he released , a collection of 13 covers of protest songs made popular by Pete Seeger, which highlighted how these older protest songs remained relevant to the troubles of the modern America. An extended version of the album included the track "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live" in which Springsteen actually rewrote the lyrics of the original to directly address the issue of Hurricane Katrina.
Contemporary Protest Songs
Modern-day mainstream artists to have written protest songs on this subject include Pink with her appeal to Bush in "Dear Mr. President", Bright Eyes with "When the President Talks to God" (which was hailed by the influential Portland, Oregon, alternative paper Willamette Week as "this young century's most powerful protest song." [7]), Dispatch's anti-war underground hit "The General", and Devendra Banhart's "Heard somebody Say" in which he sings "it's simple, we don't want to kill". Pearl Jam also included two anti-Bush songs ("World Wide Suicide", "Marker In The Sand") in their 2006 album ''Pearl Jam''. Arcade Fire's 2007 Neon Bible contains many oblique protests against the paranoia of a contemporary America 'under attack by terrorism'. The album also contains two more overtly political protest songs in the form of "Windowsill", in which Win Butler sings "I don't want to live in America no more", and "Intervention", which criticises religious fanatacism.
Utah Philips, and David Rovics, among many other singers have continued the folk tradition of protest. In John Mayer's 2006 release CONTINUUM, the lead single " Waiting on the World to Change", Mayer is critical of the desensitizing of politics in youths. He goes on to say in "Belief", "What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand? Belief can. What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand? Belief can." However the protest album to achieve the most mainstream success has been Green Day's "American Idiot, which was awarded a Grammy for "Best Rock Album" in 2005, despite its strong criticism of current American foreign policy and George Bush. The title track from the album has been described by the band as their public statement in reaction to the confusing and warped scene that is American pop culture since 9/11.
While country music has offered the loudest voice in support of the war (through artists such as Toby Keith ("Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)" - which Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, publicly criticised as "ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant."[8]}), Darryl Worley ("Have You Forgotten") and Charlie Daniels) many established country artists have released strongly critical anti-war songs. Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, the Dixie Chicks and Nanci Griffith have been the most vocal in this regard.
Criticism
The honesty of artists recording protest songs in the twenty-first century wasn't always as certain, though, as due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed 9/11, disapprovement of president Bush and his administration suddenly became very popular. This caused a lot of more commercially inclined artists to record protest songs, such as the aforementioned Dear Mr. President by Pink, which was only released as a single in Europe, where ventilating anti-Bush sentiments was virtually riskless.
Some artists who are not traditionally right-leaning have questioned the validity of the recent spate of anti-war protest songs. Florida-based punk-folk band Against Me! released a song called White People For Peace that questions the effectiveness of people singing "protest songs in response to military aggression" when their governments simply ignore them.
International protest songs
Irish Rebel Songs
Irish rebel music is a sub genre of Irish folk music, played on typically Irish instruments (such as the Fiddle, tin whistle, Uilleann pipes, accordion, bodhrán etc.) and acoustic guitars. The lyrics deal with the fight for Irish freedom, people who were involved in liberation movements, Celtic unity, and attacked the so-called 'British invaders'.
Among the many examples of the genre, some of the most famous are "A Nation Once Again", "Come out Ye Black and Tans", "Erin go Bragh"[9], "The Fields of Athenry" and the Republic of Ireland's national Anthem "Amhrán na bhFiann" ("The Soldier's Song").Music of this genre has often courted controversy, and some of the more outwardly anti-British songs have been effectively banned from the airwaves in both England and the Republic of Ireland.
Paul McCartney also made a contribution to the genre with his 1972 single "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" which he wrote as a reaction to Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972. The song also faced an all-out ban in England, and has never been re-released or appeared on any Paul McCartney or Wings best-ofs.
Protest Music of Chile and Latin America
Víctor Jara a leading voice in the Latin American protest song movement known as Nueva canción
While the protest song was enjoying its Golden Age in America in the 1960's, it also saw many detractors overseas who saw it as having been commercialized. Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara, who played a pivotal role in the folkloric renaissance that led to the ''Nueva Cancion Chilena'' ['NCC'] (New Chilean Song) movement which created a revolution in the popular music of his country, criticised the "commercialized" American ''‘protest song phenomenon’'' which had been imported into Chile. He criticized it thus:
Nueva canción (literally "new song" in Spanish) was a type of protest/social song in Latin American music which took root in South America, especially Chile and other Andean countries, and gained extreme popularity throughout Latin America. It combined traditional Latin American folk music idioms (played on the quena, zampoña, charango or cajón with guitar accompaniment) with some popular (esp. British) rock music, and was characterised by its progressive and often politicized lyrics. It is sometimes considered a precursor to rock en español. The lyrics are typically in Spanish, with some indigenous or local words mixed in.
Its lyrics characteristically revolve around about poverty, empowerment, the Unidad Popular, imperialism, democracy, human rights, and religion. There are some hundreds of songs with influences from British and American pop rock that was popular with college youths. The Chilean coup of 1973 impacted the genre's growth, as the musical movement was forced to go underground. During the days of the coup, Victor Jara, a well known singer/song-writer, was kidnapped, jailed, tortured and shot. Other groups, such as Inti-Illimani and Quilapayun found safety outside the country. The military government went as far as to ban many traditional Andean instruments, but as a testament to how far the country has come since then, the stadium where Victor Jara was murdered now bears his name.
Further reading
★ John Greenway, ''American Folksongs of Protest'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953; New York: A.S. Barnes, 1960).
See also
★ Civil Rights anthem
★ Wobblies
★ Folk-punk
External links
★ Antiwar Songs - a collection of pacifist and antimilitarist songs lyrics from all over the world and of any time, based on free contributions by readers and collaborators.
★ Strange Fruit - a PBS Web site devoted to the history of protest music
★ Vietnam: The music of protest, Steve Schifferes, BBC News, Sunday, 1 May, 2005
★ [10] Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems
★ Integrity is Not a Chore Interview with Welsh singer/songwriter Martyn Joseph
★ [11] - Wobbly songs
★ [12] People's Music Network, an organization for protest musicians
★ [13] People's Voice Cafe, a New York City-based venue specializing in left-wing protest music.
★ [14] "Autocantantes" Spanish Song Protest from Madrid.
Footnotes
1. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam007.html
2. http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/no_more_auction_block_for_me.htm
3. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/depression.html
4. http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/music/protest_overcome.html
5. Savage (1991), p. 440
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