The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / Too many protest singers, too few protest songs

Too many protest singers, too few protest songs

by 57 Comments

In a recent podcast we lamented the fact that few younger artists seem to be writing about the malaise that the world is in now. There is no anti Trump anthem, no pro Brexit one unless you count Mike Read’s UKIP Calypso. Do younger artists write about the big political ideas anymore or did they really ever? Why is it that Neil Young, Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Paul Simon have a crack at it – it can’t simply be because hay have safe careers that won’t be hurt by backlash from traditional and social media. Did the furore over The Dixie Chicks incident have that deep an effect and made people just shut up and sing? Or are artists that are writing the modern equivalent of 911 As A Joke, Masters Of War or even Eve Of Destruction just not reaching wider audience

At a time when politics has never been more at the front of everyone’s lives as it has been recently why are musicians so silent? Maybe they are just preaching to the converted

When one voice rules the nation
Just because they’re on top of the pile
Doesn’t mean their vision is the clearest
The voices of the people
Are falling on deaf ears

Our politicians all become careerists
They must declare their interests
But not their company cars
Is there more to a seat in parliament
Then sitting on your arse?
And the best of all this bad bunch
Are shouting to be heard
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

Outside the patient millions
Who put them into power
Expect a little more back for their taxes
Like school books, beds in hospitals
And peace in our bloody time
All they get is old men grinding axes

Who’ve built their private fortunes
On the things they can rely
The courts, the secret handshake
The Stock Exchange and the old school tie
For God and Queen and Country
All things they justify
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

God bless the civil service
The nations saving grace
While we expect democracy
They’re laughing in our face
And although our cries get louder
Their laughter gets louder still
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

1

Comments

  1. You are right, DFB, it is surely time for another Bragg, cos I neither can think of any current protest singers bar a few of similar age on the folk circuit. It was intersting to see Bragg at Bearded Theory in early June, in full on political agitator mode, exhorting Bremain and singing all his rousing anthems of yesteryear. And Sexuality.

      • I’ve never known a girl like you before
        Now just like in a song from days of yore
        Here you come a knockin’, knockin’ on my door
        And I’ve never met a girl like you before
        You give me just a taste so I want more and more
        Now my hands are bleeding and my knees are raw
        Cause now you’ve got me crawlin’, crawlin’ on the floor
        And I’ve never known a girl like you before
        You’ve made me acknowledge the devil in me
        I hope to God I’m talkin’ metaphorically
        Hope that I’m talkin’ allegorically
        Know that I’m talkin’ about the way I feel
        And I’ve never known a girl like you before
        Never, never, never, never
        Never known a girl like you before
        This old town’s changed so much
        Don’t feel like I belong
        Too many protest singers
        Not enough protest songs
        (And now you’ve come along
        Yes you’ve come along
        And I’ve never met a girl like you before

        (c) E. Collins 1994

          • I too saw The Young uns support The Unthanks and to be honest apart from their cover of Between the Wars I thought they were extremely dull. I know that isn’t the prevailing view as they were well reviewed elsewhere.
            My post suggesting quality protest songs were extinct didn’t elaborate. In the past good protest songs had the chance of more widespread appeal i.e. Blowing in the Wind Tec these days good protest songs continue to stay largely unheard by the masses.

  3. In defence of Paul Simon, I would point out that his current song (do singles still exist?) Wrist Band is a pointed attack on the inequality all too evident in the Western World, and of course elsewhere. Springsteen’s song 61 Shots has been reintroduced into recent set lists, perhaps unsurprisingly.

    I look forward with anticipation to Jeremy Corbyn’s Christmas album “Red Christmas”.

    No idea why there isn’t more protest material about. It isn’t as if there’s a shortage of stuff to be outraged about.

  4. Just listen to Hip Hop! There’s oodles of protest there. Can I recommend Kendrick Lamar & Run The Jewels?

    You see, pop music is merely frivolous fluff these days and young rock bands no longer exist. You are looking in the wrong place.

    Other than that, please add Ry Cooder to your list of oldie protesters.

    • No young rock bands? Well they are certainly clogging up venues up and down the country, the landfill bastards.

      And a lot of hip hop artists are just shouting into an echo chamber. Its really unusual for a mainstream artist to actually take a stand against anything anymore. For instance, when they were both at the height of their fame – Dusty Springfield and Ray Charles refused to play in front of segregated audiences and stood up to discriminatory laws and regimes.

      Recently Springsteen cancelled a concert in North Carolina due to what he saw as their discrimination of transgender people. I think Pearl Jam followed suit shortly after. I’m guessing younger rock and pop acts didn’t do likewise. And they shouldn’t be forced to if they don’t want to but they will be asked to justify it. The reason “I’m just here to entertain people” is perfectly valid as people go to gigs to escape real life for a while. Badly Drawn Boy during his Beck support slot made several comments about the referendum and then acknowledged that the audience had come here to escape the news storm raging.

      A lot of acts have pulled out of concerts in Israel due to pressure from Palestinian supporters etc etc. We ain’t gonna play Sun City etc. All that social consciousness in music of the 60s -80s seems very alien now and reserved to a charity X Factor single at Christmas.

      • Israel is, like, totally the same as apartheid-era South Africa, maaan. If this is the yardstick for social consciousness in pop/rock then I’m delighted to see it in retreat.

  5. Quality protest songs are pretty much extinct these days and I think largely because the audience are less engaging in politics in their music.

    While I was at Hyde Park for the Caroe King gig Michael Kiwanuka sang what for me was one of the highlights of his set ‘Black man in a white mans world’.
    As I walked to the gents following his set I overheard two guys ‘He was good but I didn’t like that Black man song. I want to be entertained by musicians not lectured at’.
    Is this a prevailing view these days?

    • Sorry, bollocks. You’re just not looking in the right place.

      If you care to wander into the arena of slightly folkie anarchist punk you’ll find some brilliant stuff by the King Blues. I suggest you check out their album Punk and Poetry in particular.

      And if proper folk music doesn’t turn you off, Teesside’s The Young Uns have songs about EDL racism (The Biscuits of Bull Lane), Pakistani honour killings (Streets of Lahore) and the media’s treatment of working class people (You Won’t Find Me on Benefits Street).

      • Actually yes saw The Young Uns support The Unthanks and they played Benefits Street but they and the anaracho -socialist commune, brother, have always done that. Folk music and punk are both of the people and the dispossessed

      • Folkie anarchist punk: this is true but, by and large, this whole, arguably, Levellers based genre is hardly the domain of young men. 2 prime examples might be Merry Hell, who effectively evolved from the Tansads, and Ferocious Dog, who include Fruitbat from Carter USM.
        No less worthy but the shortage seems to be of teens and twenties.
        Even the Young ‘Uns are embarrassed now by their name as they hit midlife.

    • Good call Steve. Mr Kiwanuka has recently joined the polycarbonate throng on my shelves. His performance of “(I’m A) Black Man In A White World” at Glastonbury was beyond brilliant. Check out the Shuggy Otis guitar shapes and the groove – it’s still on iPlayer – mesmeric and driven; outstanding stuff.

  6. The dearth of proper protest might have something to do with the limitations of the format. Masters of War or The Universal Soldier had the benefit of being novel – at least in the sense that they reached people who hadn’t grown up in the folk or blues traditions. Hey kids – politicians are bad! But fifty years later, don’t we kind of know that now?

    Counterpane mentions the King Blues. Their leader, Itch, calls himself an anarchist and writes songs like ‘Let’s Hang The Landlord From The Top Of The Stairs’. The only social change that’s going to influence is it might make more 13-year-olds buy his records.

    I’d like to hear a protest song where verse one lays out the problem, verse two addresses the shortcomings of the current approach to it and verse three presents an alternative strategy (the bridge should ideally provide details on how this would be funded). But that’s really dull, so Let’s Hang The Landlord it is.

    Here’s a good attempt at a useful protest song:

    or this:
    Why are we terrified the crooks who made the whole world poor
    Will take their ugly business and fuck off to Singapore?

  7. Here’s a relatively recent protest song I quite enjoy, even though I don’t share its politics:

    We made love on the living room floor
    With the noise in the background
    Of a televised war
    And in that deafening pleasure
    I thought I heard someone say:
    “If we walk away, they’ll walk away”.

  9. Yeah but nobody’s trying to put protest into the charts, are they.
    Where’s Adele’s song about immigrants getting abused on buses?
    Where’s Coldplay’s song about homophobic bullying?

    • When you get a record deal now, the label make you listen to The War Song by Culture Club and Another Day In Paradise by Phil Collins in case you were thinking of writing anything so risible.

  10. Helpfully 1989 is mentioned in the very first line of Public Enemy’s Fight the Power. I love Public Enemy because they never let the matter drop – they’re not going to lighten up. The line about Elvis in that song was the one that really stood out Blasphemy!

    • Funnily, I was listening to ‘Don’t believe the hype’ yesterday on the way home. My son then dissected ‘5-oh said freeze…’ for me

      And I thought that (especially in America just now) this is a voice that needs to be heard. It’s loud, it’s angry, and it’s smart.

  12. I’m with Tigger. If you want to hear the sound of modern protest, hip hop is the place to look, with Kendrick Lamar as a prime example.

    If anyone emerges to continue in the spirit of the wonderful Billy Bragg, I doubt very much that they’ll be playing a guitar. The likes of Kate Tempest (now she went down well on the AW!) is more likely.

  17. As far as I can see protest songs have always been the exclusive preserve of the left wing

    I’ve been trying to think of any right wing protest songs without too much success. I guess there are some in the country music world (Merle Haggard’s Okie From Muskogee for example) but they are mostly tongue-in-cheek. Randy Newman also did a few (Political Science, Rednecks etc) but he was definitely being ironic.

    But how about this: Ballad of the Green Berets a 1966 pro-Vietnam War song by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler.

    Back in the day this record was guaranteed to turn any hand-wringing leftie SJW (including me) apoplectic.

    Enjoy

  18. Protest singers in general tend to be preaching to the converted rather than making new converts. Anyone going to see Billy B knows exactly what they are going to. A few floating voters perhaps, brought along by friends, but not many UKippers or Tories buying tickets.

    I suspect Kendrick doesn’t sell too many tickets in, for example, Nashville.

  21. A Theory:
    I remember the 80s as a time of many protest and posturing songs. There was a lot fro people to get angry about, and a very polarised political situation.
    The Protest Song was one form of venting that anger and getting your message across for others to think about.
    The “power” of the Protest Song is probably now getting lost under the cloud of ill-informed social media pub philosophers.
    History suggested that at the time of the Referundum, opinion and thought would’ve filtered through into song, comedy, even theatre – what we ended up with was bitch fighting on Facebook

Leave a Reply