Protest songs

I was thinking just now about protest songs. As I wrote in my last post, I had to quickly change the radio station the other day because the news was this guy describing the anatomy of a missile and how it operates and how star wars theoretically works and I just can't handle that #$%% at 7 am, let alone any time. But isn't it interesting how you can calmly, methodically discuss war and bombs and it seems the most normal thing--but what if this guy were saying, well, when you murder someone with a knife, the trajectory of the knife is important, and where the target is on the body, and the force you apply affects how quickly you kill them.

I have tried writing protest songs. Not easy. There's some truism--was it Irving Berlin who said, "if you want to send a message, use Western Union?" It's so hard not to be heavy handed or cliched. I have a few brewing. Mountains to Flatten, which is on my CD, is a protest song, of sorts, talking about how political apathy leads to environmental destruction. Wow, doesn't that make this song sound just so compelling and exciting? Of course, I do have it posted as a free download on my site. So maybe "free" is more enticing than "geological ramifications of sociopolitical ennui." The lyrics are here.

There's a cool article in the November 2004 issue of Vanity Fair on protest songs. They list the best and discuss them:

1. Woody Guthrie: "This Land Is Your Land," "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)," "Do-Re-Mi," "Vigilante Man," "This Train Is Bound For Glory"

2. Bob Dylan: "Masters of War," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "With God on Our Side," "Only a Pawn in Their Game," "The Times They Are A-Changin'," "Blowin' in the Wind"

3. John Lennon: "Imagine," "Give Peace a Chance," "Working Class Hero," "Woman Is the Nigger of the World"

4. Buffy Sainte-Marie: "Universal Soldier"

5. Billie Holiday: "Strange Fruit"

6. Marvin Gaye: "What's Going On"

7. Neil Young: "Ohio"

8. Bob Marley: "Get Up, Stand Up"

9. Les McCann and Eddie Harris: "Compared to What"

10. Pete Seeger: "We Shall Overcome"

Wow, seems to me they forgot Stevie Wonder's "Living Just Enough for the City" and "You Ain't Seen Nothing," to name just two. There was a song Bette Midler recorded in the 90s too, "From a Distance."