I love old music. I grew up on Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. As a child I was sung Beatles and Grateful Dead songs at night. I have James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, and scores of other Sixties and Seventies era musicians on my MP3 player, and really excited when I learned my marching band would be playing the music of the Who (sadly, we had to drop Baba O'Reilly) One aspect of 60s and 70s era music I love is the concept of the protest song. The music of that era was very socially conscious, with appeals to the anti-war, anti-poverty, labor, and civil rights movement. Which begs the question, in these uncertain times, were are all the protest songs?
I have compiled a list (by no means definitive) of songs written in recent years to protest certain aspects of society. It is by no means definitive, and I invite others to add to the list
"Valerie Plame" by The Decemberists- a song about the alleged outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by government officials. The Decemberists have a pretty prolific catalogue, and other songs they have written also come to mind as protest songs "Sixteen Military Wives*," for one
"Anti-Christ Television Blues" by Arcade Fire- a song attacking one of my favorite targets -big media. Actually, much of their Neon Bible album has political or cultural significance
"Death and All of His Friends" by Coldplay- In a rare moment of social conscious for the British band, the singer calls for pacifism in one of the more earnest pleas I've heard from the music industry in years 'I don't want another cycle of recycled revenge/I don't want to follow Death and all of his friend"
"Living Well is the Best Revenge" by REM- these guys are no strangers to political songs. In 2004, while playing a show shortly after George Bush's re-election, the band broke into "It's the End of the World." In the past, songs have focused on Ronald Reagan and other targets. "Living Well," off of their new album Accelerate is a great example of the band staying on message, launching into lines like "don't turn your talking points on me/History will set me free/The future is ours, and you don't even rate a footnote"
I'm sure that there have been many more examples. It just seems odd to me that in such a politically volatile time, more protest music hasn't been made. I will admit to bias in my list -it is devoid of rap, country, and other music genres I rarely listen to- and I encourage the reader to add to the list.
*in an earlier post, I had refered to the Decemberist song as "Sixteen Army Wives" not the proper name "Sixteen Military Wives"
