A protest song is a song which protests against perceived problems in society. These songs cover a wide variety of topics, and deal with issues and concerns ranging from personal and interpersonal to local and global matters. Every major movement in Western history has been accompanied by its own collection of protest songs, from slave emancipation to women's suffrage, the labor movement, civil rights, the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, and many others. Over time, songs have come to protest more abstract, ethical issues, such as injustice, racial discrimination, the morality of war in general (as opposed to purely protesting individual wars), globalization, inflation, social inequalities, and incarceration. Such songs tend to become more popular during times of disruption among social groups. Phil Ochs summarised protest songs thus: "A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit" ^[1]

Some of the most internationally famous examples of protest songs come from the United States. They include "We Shall Overcome" (a song popular in the labor movement and later the Civil rights movement), Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On". Many key figures world-wide have contributed to their own nations' traditions of protest music, such as Victor Jara in Latin America, Silvio Rodríguez in Cuba and Vuyisile Mini in anti-apartheid South Africa. Protest songs are generally associated with folk music, but more recently they have been produced in all genres of music.

Types of protest song

Sociologist R. Serge Denisoff defined the five primary goals of the protest-propaganda song as:

1. pointing to some problem in society, usually in emotional terms
2. presenting a solution to that problem in terms of action and a desired goal
3. reinforcing the value structure of individuals involved with the movement
4. attempting to recruit individuals by arousing outside sympathy and support
5. creating moral unity and uniqueness in its world view. ^[2]

Denisoff goes on to define two sub-groups of protest songs: "magnetic protest songs", which fulfill all five criteria, offering remedies to the situations they protest, such as "We Shall Overcome"; and "rhetorical protest songs", which only fulfill part of the five primary goals by simply pointing out a problem, often from a more individual than social perspective, without offering a solution or generating some form of unity. Even though they do not fulfill all five goals, Denisoff argues for the inclusion of rhetorical songs in the protest-propaganda song canon due to their endeavors to change public opinion on current events or topics of debate. This type of song usually has a negative attitude towards a social condition and are most often sung in the first person singular in order to set the singer apart from the audience, or addresses the protested party directly as "you" in order to critically point a finger. In either case unity is not sought nor achieved. Examples include "Masters of War" by Bob Dylan and "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye. ^[3]

On a larger scale the two most prominent forms of protest songs are "Civil Rights Songs" (sometimes referred to as "Freedom Songs" ^[4]), which demand equality before the law in the magnetic protest-propaganda song format (although latter-day civil rights bands, such as Public Enemy, have moved increasingly towards a more rhetorical form of protest) with a strong sense of community unity and similitude, promoting the wisdom of the common man over the sophistication of the bureaucracy; and "Anti-War songs", which the oppose a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, or which decry the notion of war in general and promote pacifism - anti-war songs, such as the aforementioned "Masters of War", are generally written in the rhetorical format. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. said of the power of the magnetic protest song in the civil rights movement: "They invigorate the movement in a most significant way[...]these freedom songs serve to give unity to a movement."^[5]

North American protest songs

Eighteenth century

Prior to the American Revolutionary War, political songs appeared in the mid 1700s America in response to social injustices (such as the struggle between classes) and political issues (such as the opposing ideologies of the Whigs and Tories, and issues such as the stamp act). "American Taxation" written by Peter St. John and sung to the tune of "The British Grenadiers" was one such song which protested against "the cruel lords of Britain" who were "striving after our rights to take away, and rob us of our charter, in North America".^[6] "Come On, Brave Boys" (1734), "The American Hero" by Andrew Law, "Free America" by Dr. Joseph Warren, and "Liberty Song" by John Dickinson (1768) all equally protested against the British rule in America, and called for freedom.^[7] 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.^[8]

"Rights of Woman" (1795), sung to the tune of "God Save the King", written anonymously by "A Lady", and published in the Philadelphia Minerva, October 17, 1795, is one of the earliest American songs pointing out that rights apply equally to both sexes.^[7] The song contains many outspoken declarations of protest, and slogans such as "God save each Female's right", "Woman is free" and "Let woman have a share".

Nineteenth century

The Hutchinson Family Singers; a 19th-century American family singing group who sang about political causes in four-part harmony

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.^[11] Their subject matter most often touched on relevant social issues such as abolition, temperance, politics, war and women's suffrage. Much of 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-19th century, 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 60s such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, and are often referred to as America's first protest band.^[12]

A great number of Negro spirituals were sung as forms of protest by the enslaved African-American people both before and after the American Civil War.^[13] They called for freedom from oppression and slavery (as in, for example, "Oh, Freedom), and employed religious imagery to draw comparisons between their plight and the plight of the downtrodden in the bible (as in "Go Down Moses"). While these protest songs originated by enslaved African-Americans in the United States when Slavery was introduced to the European colonies in 1619, it was only after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by United States Secretary of State William Henry Seward on December 18, 1865 that the songs started to be collected. The two pioneering collections of Black Spirituals and protest songs were the 1872 book Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, by Thomas F. Steward, and a collection of "Black spirituals" which was published by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. The most famous song of protest of African-Americans is "Lift Every Voice and Sing", often referred to by the title "The Negro National Anthem". The song was originally written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1900 and performed in Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday on February 12, 1900 by a choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal. Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future. In calling for earth and heaven to "ring with the harmonies of Liberty," they could speak out subtly against racism and Jim Crow laws — and especially the huge number of lynchings accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century. In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as "The Negro National Anthem." By the 1920s, copies of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals.

The 19th century also boasts one of the first environmental protest songs ever written in the shape of "Woodman Spare That Tree!",^[14] 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.

1900- 1920; Labor Movement, Class Struggle, and The Great War

Joe Hill, one of the pioneering protest singers of the early 20th Century

The vast majority of American protest music from the first half of the 20th century was based on the struggle for fair wages and working hours for the working class, and on the attempt to unionize the American workforce towards those ends. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of two hundred socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States who were opposed to the policies of the American Federation of Labor. From the start they used music as a powerful form of protest.

One of the most famous of these early 20th century "Wobblies" was Joe Hill, an IWW activist who traveled widely, organizing workers and writing and singing political songs. He coined the phrase "pie in the sky", which appeared in his most famous protest song "The Preacher and the Slave" (1911). The song calls for "Workingmen of all countries, unite/ Side by side we for freedom will fight/ When the world and its wealth we have gained/ To the grafters we'll sing this refrain." Other notable protest songs written by Hill include "The Tramp", "There Is Power in a Union", "Rebel Girl", and "Casey Jones--Union Scab".

Another one of the best-known songs of this period was "Bread and Roses" by James Oppenheim and Caroline Kolsaat, which was sung in protest en masse at a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January-March 1912 (now often referred to as the "Bread and Roses strike") and has been subsequently taken up by protest movements throughout the 20th century.

The advent of The Great War (1914-1918) resulted in a great number of songs concerning the 20th's most popular recipient of protest: war; songs against the war in general, and specifically in America against the U.S.A.'s decision to enter the European war started to become widespread and popular. One of the most successful of these protest songs to capture the widespread American skepticism about joining in the European war was ?I Didn?t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,? (1915) by lyricist Alfred Bryan and composer Al Piantadosi.^[15]. Many of these war-time protest songs took the point of view of the family at home, worried about their father/husband fighting overseas. One such song of the period which dealt with the children who had been orphaned by the war was "War Babies"(1916) by James F. Hanley (music) and Ballard MacDonald (lyrics) which spoke to the need for taking care of orphans of war in an unusually frank and open manner.^[16] For a typical song written from a child's point-of-view see Jean Schwartz (music), Sam M. Lewis & Joe Young (lyrics) and their song "Hello Central! Give Me No Man's Land"(1918), in which a young boy tries to call his father in No Man's Land on the telephone (then a recent invention), unaware that he has been killed in combat.^[17].

1920s- 1930s;The Great Depression and Racial Discrimination

The 1920s and 30s also saw the continuing growth of the union and labor movements (the IWW claimed at its peak in 1923 some 100,000 members), as well as widespread poverty due to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, which inspired musicians and singers to decry the harsh realities which they saw all around them. It was against this background that folk singer Aunt Molly Jackson was singing songs with striking Harlan coal miners in Kentucky in 1931, and writing protest songs such as "Hungry Ragged Blues" and "Poor Miner's Farewell", which depicted the struggle for social justice in a Depression-ravaged America. In New York City, Marc Blitzstein's opera/musical The Cradle Will Rock, a pro-union musical directed by Orson Welles, was produced in 1937. However, it proved to be so controversial that it was shut down for fear of social unrest.^[18] Undeterred, the IWW increasingly used music to protest working conditions in the United States and to recruit new members to their cause.

The 1920s and 30s also saw a marked rise in the number of songs which protested against racial discrimination, such as Louis Armstrong's "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue" (1929), and the anti-lynching song, "Strange Fruit" by Lewis Allan (which contains the lyrics "Southern trees bear strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root / Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze"). 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 1930s 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".

1940s- 1950s; The labor movement vs McCarthyism; Anti-Nuclear songs

1940s protest singer Woody Guthrie

Josh White, one of the leading proponents of political blues and anti-segregation songs among 1940s African American artists

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.

Paul Robeson, singer, actor, athlete, and civil rights activist, was investigated by the FBI and was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for his outspoken political views. The State Department denied Robeson a passport and issued a "stop notice" at all ports, effectively confining him to the United States. In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, labor unions in the U.S. and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia on May 18, 1952.^[22] Paul Robeson stood on the back of a flat bed truck on the American side of the U.S.-Canada border and performed a concert for a crowd on the Canadian side, variously estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 people. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953,^[23] and over the next two years two further concerts were scheduled.

In the 1940s, one of the leading musical voices of protest from the African American community in America was Josh White, one of the first musicians to make a name for himself singing political blues.^[24]. White enjoyed a position of political privilege, especially as a black musician, as he established a long and close relationship with the family of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and would become the closest African American confidant to the President of the United States. He made his first foray into protest music and political blues with his highly controversial Columbia Records album Joshua White & His Carolinians: Chain Gang, produced by John H. Hammond, which included the song "Trouble," which summarised the plight of many African Americans in its opening line of "Well, I always been in trouble, ?cause I?m a black-skinned man." The album was the first race record ever forced upon the white radio stations and record stores in America's South and caused such a furor that it reached the desk of President Franklin Roosevelt. On December 20, 1940, White and the Golden Gate Quartet, sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt, performed in a historic Washington, D.C. concert at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which abolished slavery. In January 1941, Josh performed at the President's Inauguration, and two months later he released another highly controversial record album, Southern Exposure, which included six anti-segregationist songs with liner notes written by the celebrated and equally controversial African American writer Richard Wright, and whose sub-title was "An Album of Jim Crow Blues". Like the Chain Gang album, and with revelatory yet inflammatory songs such as "Uncle Sam Says", "Jim Crown Train", "Bad Housing Blues", Defense Factory Blues", "Southern Exposure", and "Hard Time Blues", it also was forced upon the southern white radio stations and record stores, caused outrage in the South and also was brought to the attention of President Roosevelt. However, instead of making White persona-non-grata in segregated America, it resulted in President Roosevelt asking White to become the first African American artist to give a White House Command Performance, in 1941.

After the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th 1945, many people the world over feared Nuclear warfare, and many protest songs were written against this new danger to planet. The most immediately successful of these post-war anti-nuclear protest songs was Vern Partlow's "Old Man Atom" (1945) (also known by the alternate titles "Atomic Talking Blues" and "Talking Atom"). The song treats its subject in comic-serious fashion, with a combination of black humour puns (such as "We hold these truths to be self-evident/All men may be cremated equal" or "I don't mean the Adam that Mother Eve mated/I mean that thing that science liberated") on serious statements on the choices to be made in the nuclear age ("The people of the world must pick out a thesis/"Peace in the world, or the world in pieces!""). Folk singer Sam Hinton recorded "Old Man Atom" in 1950 for ABC Eagle, a small California independent label. Influential New York disc jockey Martin Block played Hinton's record on his 'Make Believe Ballroom.' Overwhelming listener response prompted Columbia Records to acquire the rights for national distribution. From all indications, it promised to be one of the year's biggest novelty records. RCA Victor rush-released a cover version by the Sons of the Pioneers. Country singer Ozzie Waters recorded the song for Decca's Coral subsidiary. Fred Hellerman - then contracted to Decca as a member of the Weavers - recorded it for Jubilee under the pseudonym 'Bob Hill.' Bing Crosby was reportedly ready to record "Old Man Atom" for Decca when right-wing organizations began attacking Columbia and RCA Victor for releasing a song that reflected a Communist ideology. According to a New York Times report on September 1, 1950.

Those who protested against the song's issuance on records insisted that it parroted the Communist line on peace and reflected the propaganda for the Stockholm 'peace petition.' Mr. Partlow said yesterday, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Los Angeles, that his song was 'not part of the Stockholm or any other so-called peace offensive.' He added, 'It was written five years ago long before any of these peace offensives.'^[25]

Other anti-nuclear protest songs of the period include "Atom and Evil" (1946) by Golden Gate Quartet ("if Atom and Evil should ever be wed/Lord, then darn if all of us are going to be dead") ^[26] and "Atomic Sermon" (1953) by Billy Hughes and his Rhythm Buckeroos ^[27]

1960s; the Civil Rights Movement, The Vietnam War, and Peace and Revolution

Civil Rights March on Washington, leaders marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963.

Bob Dylan with Joan Baez during the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C., 1963

One of the key figures of the 1960s protest movement was Bob Dylan, who produced a number of landmark protest 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). While Dylan is often thought of as a 'protest singer', most of his protest songs spring from a relatively short time-period in his career; Mike Marqusee writes:

The protest songs that made Dylan famous and with which he continues to be associated were written in a brief period of some 20 months ? from January 1962 to November 1963. Influenced by American radical traditions (the Wobblies, the Popular Front of the thirties and forties, the Beat anarchists of the fifties) and above all by the political ferment touched off among young people by the civil rights and ban the bomb movements, he engaged in his songs with the terror of the nuclear arms race, with poverty, racism and prison, jingoism and war.^[28]

Pete Seeger, formerly of the Almanac Singers and The Weavers, was a major influence on Dylan and his contemporaries, and continued to be a strong voice of protest in the 1960s, when he produced "Where Have All the Flowers Gone", and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (written during the 1950s but released on Seeger's 1962 album The Bitter and The Sweet). Seeger's song "If I Had a Hammer" had been written in 1949 in support of the progressive movement, but rose to Top Ten popularity in 1962 when covered by Peter, Paul and Mary), going on to become one of the major Civil Rights anthems of the American Civil Rights movement. "We Shall Overcome", Seeger's adaptation of an American gospel song, continues to be used to support issues from labor rights to peace movements. Seeger was one of the leading singers to protest against then-President Lyndon Johnson through song. Seeger first satirically attacked the president with his 1966 recording of Len Chandler's children's song, "Beans in My Ears". In addition to Chandler's original lyrics, Seeger sang that "Mrs. Jay's little son Alby" had "beans in his ears", which, as the lyrics imply,^[33] ensures that a person does not hear what is said to them. To those opposed to continuing the Vietnam War the phrase suggested that "Alby Jay", a loose pronunciation of Johnson's nickname "LBJ", did not listen to anti-war protests as he too had "beans in his ears". Seeger attracted wider attention in 1967 with his song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy", about a captain — referred to in the lyrics as "the big fool" — who drowned while leading a platoon on maneuvers in Louisiana during World War II. In the face of arguments with the management of CBS about whether the song's political weight was in keeping with the usually light-hearted entertainment of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the final lines were "Every time I read the paper/those old feelings come on/We are waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on." And it was not seriously contested that much of the audience would grasp Seeger's allegorical casting of Johnson as the "big fool" and the Vietnam War the foreseeable danger. Although the performance was cut from the September 1967 show, after wide publicity,^[34] it was broadcast when Seeger appeared again on the Smothers' Brothers show in the following January.

Phil Ochs, one of the leading protest singers of the decade (or, as he preferred, a "topical singer"), performed at many political events, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City's The Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat" who turned into an "early revolutionary" after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which had a profound effect on his state of mind.^[35] Ochs summarised protest songs thus: "A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit" ^[36] Some of his best known protest songs include "Power and the Glory", "Draft Dodger Rag", "There But for Fortune", "Changes", "Crucifixion, "When I'm Gone", "Love Me I'm a Liberal", "Links on the Chain", "Ringing of Revolution", and "I Ain't Marching Anymore". Other notable voices of protest from the period included Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie (whose anti-war song "Universal Soldier" was later made famous by Donovan), and Tom Paxton ("Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation" - about the escalation of the war in Vietnam, "Jimmy Newman" - 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 protest song to reach number one in the United States was P.F. Sloan's Eve of Destruction, performed by Barry McGuire in 1965.^[37]

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.^[4] 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,^[38] and many of these became Civil Rights anthems. Many soul singers of the period, such as Sam Cooke ("A Change Is Gonna Come" (1965)), Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin ("Respect"), James Brown ("Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud"[1968]; "I Don?t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I?ll Get It Myself) ? [1969]) and Nina Simone ("Mississippi Goddam" (1964), "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" (1970)) wrote and performed many protest songs which addressed the ever-increasing demand for equal rights for African Americans during the American civil rights movement. The predominantly white music scene of the time also produced a number of songs protesting racial discrimination, including Janis Ian's "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking), (1966)" about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers and a culture that classifies citizens by race.^[39] Steve Reich's 13-minute long "Come Out" (1966), which consists of manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by an injured survivor of the Harlem Race Riots of 1964, protested police brutality against African Americans.

In the 1960s and early 1970s many protest songs were written and recorded condemning the War in Vietnam, most notably "Simple Song of Freedom" by Bobby Darin (1969), "The War Drags On" by Donovan (1965),"I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Phil Ochs (1965), "Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation" by Tom Paxton (1965), "Bring Them Home" by Pete Seeger (1966), "Requiem for the Masses" by The Association (1967), "Saigon Bride" by Joan Baez (1967), "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" by Pete Seeger (1967), "Suppose They Give a War and No One Comes" by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band(1967), "The "Fish" Cheer / I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish (1968)^[40] "One Tin Soldier" by Original Caste (1969), "Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane (1969), and "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969). 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. As an extension of these concerns, artists started to protest the ever-increasing escalation of Nuclear weapons and threat of Nuclear warfare; as for example on Tom Lehrer's ""So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)", "Who's Next?" (about Nuclear proliferation) and "Wernher von Braun"^[41] from his 1965 collection of political satire songs That Was the Year That Was.

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" (1966) 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. Merle Haggard & the Strangers' ?Okie from Muskogee? (1969), despite being strongly patriotic, was listed in PopMatters' July 2007 list of the top 65 protest songs because it is, as the webzine puts it,

in fact a protest against changing social mores, alternative lifestyles, and, well, protests[...] In a time when protest songs filled the airwaves, it is ironic that Haggard scored his biggest hit protesting the rise of a discontented culture.^[39]

1970s; The Vietnam War, Soul Music

The Kent State shootings of May 4 1970 amplified sentiment against the United States' invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War in general, and protest songs about The Vietnam War continued to grow in popularity and frequency. Anti-war songs such as Chicago's "It Better End Soon" (1970), "War" (1970) by Edwin Starr, "Ohio" (1970) by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (about the May 4th Kent State shootings), and "Imagine" (1971) by John Lennon captured the spirit of the time. Another great influence on the anti-Vietnam war protest songs of the early seventies was the fact that this was the first generation where combat veterans were returning prior to the end of the war, and that even the veterans were protesting the war, as with the formation of the 'Vietnam Veterans Against the War' (VVAW). Graham Nash wrote his "Oh! Camil (The Winter Soldier)" (1973) to tell the story of one member of VVAW, Scott Camil. Other notable anti-war songs of the time included "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 Helen Reddy's feminist hit "I Am Woman" (1972), which became an anthem for the women?s liberation movement. Bob Dylan also made a brief return to protest music after some twelve years with "Hurricane" (1976), which protested the imprisonment of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter as a result of alleged acts of racism and profiling against Carter, which Dylan describes as leading to a false trial and conviction.

Soul music carried over into the early part of the 70s, 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. Another hugely influential protest album of the time was poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron's "Small Talk at 125th and Lenox", which contained the oft-referenced protest song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". The album's 15 tracks dealt with myriad themes, protesting the superficiality of television and mass consumerism, the hypocrisy of some would-be Black revolutionaries, white middle-class ignorance of the difficulties faced by inner-city residents, and fear of homosexuals.

1980s; Anti-Reagan protest songs, and The Birth of Rap

The Reagan administration was also coming in for its fair share of criticism, with many mainstream protest songs attacking his policies, such as Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." (1984), and "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down" by The Ramones. This sentiment was countered by songs like "God Bless The USA" by Lee Greenwood which was seen by many as a protest against protests against the Reagan Administration. Billy Joel's "Allentown" protested the development of the rust belt, and represented those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry. Reagan came under significant criticism for the Iran-Contra Affair, in which it was discovered that his administration was selling arms to the radical Islamic regime in Iran and using proceeds from the sales to illegally fund the Contras, a guerrilla/terrorist group in Nicaragua. A number of songs were written in protest of this scandal. "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," (1984) by Don Henley, protested against the U.S. involvement with the Contras in Nicaragua, while chastising Americans for only wanting to dance, while molotov cocktails, and sales of guns and drugs are going on around them, and while "the boys" (the CIA, NSA, etc.) are "makin' a buck or two".^[42] Other songs to protest America's role in the Iran-Contra affair include "The Big Stick," by Minutemen, "Nicaragua," by Bruce Cockburn, and "Please Forgive Us," by 10,000 Maniacs.

The 1980s also saw the rise of rap and hip-hop, and with it bands such as Grandmaster Flash ("The Message [1982]"), Boogie Down Productions ("Stop the Violence" [1988]),"N.W.A ("Fuck tha Police" [1988]) and Public Enemy ("Fight the Power" [1989], "911 (Is a Joke)" etc.) who vehemently protested the discrimination and poverty which the black community faced in America, in particular focusing on police discrimination. In 1988 The Stop the Violence Movement was formed by rapper KRS-One in response to violence in the hip hop and black communities. Comprised of some of the biggest stars in contemporary East Coast hip hop (including Public Enemy), the movement released a single, "Self Destruction", in 1989, with all proceeds going to the National Urban League.

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 (whose debut album Damaged (1981) was described by the BBC as "essentially an album of electric protest songs[..., which] takes a swing at the insularities and shortcomings of the ?me? generation."^[43]), Dead Kennedys (whose sweeping criticism of America, "Stars and Stripes of Corruption" (1985), contains the lyric "Rednecks and bombs don't make us strong/ We loot the world, yet we can't even feed ourselves"), and Bad Religion; a tradition carried on in the following decades by punk revivalists like Anti-Flag and Rise Against. Of the few remaining old-school punks still recording in the late 80s, the most notable protest song is Patti Smith's 1988 recording "People Have the Power."

1990s; Hard-Rock Protest Bands, Women's Rights, and Protest Parodies

In 1990, singer Melba Moore released a modern rendition of the 1900 song "Lift Every Voice and Sing" - which had long been considered "The Negro National Anthem" and one of the 20th Centry's most powerful civil rights anthems - which she recorded along with others including R&B artists Anita Baker, Stephanie Mills, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Brown, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osborne, and Howard Hewett; and gospel artists BeBe and CeCe Winans, Take 6, and The Clark Sisters. Partly because of the success of this recording, Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing was entered into the Congressional Record as the official African American National Hymn.

Rage Against the Machine, formed in 1991, has been one of the most popular 'social-commentary' bands of the last 20 years. A fusion of the musical styles and lyrical themes of punk, hip-hop, and thrash, Rage Against the Machine railed against corporate America ("No Shelter", "Bullet in the Head"), government oppression ("Killing in the Name"), and Imperialism ("Sleep Now in the Fire", "Bulls on Parade"). The band used its music as a vehicle for social activism, as lead singer Zack de la Rocha espoused: "Music has the power to cross borders, to break military sieges and to establish real dialogue".^[44]

The 90s also saw a huge movement of pro-women's rights protest songs from most musical genres. Ani DiFranco was at the forefront of this movement, protesting sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights as well as racism, poverty, and war. Her "Lost Woman Song" (1990) concerns itself with the hot topic of abortion, and with DiFranco's assertion that a woman has a right to choose without being judged. Sonic Youth's "Swimsuit Issue" (1992) protested the way in which women are objectified and turned into a commodity by the media. The song, in which Kim Gordon lists off the names of every model featured in the 1992 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, was selected as one of PopMatters' 65 greatest protest songs of all time with the praise that "Sonic Youth reminds us that protest songs don?t have to include acoustic guitars and twee harmonica melodies stuck in 1965. They don?t even have to be about war."^[45]

For the most part the 1990s signaled 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

Neil Young, pictured here on the CSNY "Freedom Of Speech Tour '06", has returned to the front of the protest music scene with his album Living With War

R.E.M., who had been known for their politically charged material in the 1980s, also returned to increasingly political subject matter since the advent of the Iraq War. For example "Final Straw" (2003) is a politically-charged song, reminiscent in tone of "World Leader Pretend" on Green. The version on their Around the Sun album is a remix of the original , which was made available as a free download on March 25, 2003 from the band's website. The song was written as a protest of the U.S. government's actions in the Iraq War.

Tom Waits has also covered increasingly political subject matter since the advent of the Iraq war, with "The Day After Tomorrow". In this song Waits adopts the persona of a soldier writing home that he is disillusioned with war and is thankful to be leaving. The song does not mention the Iraq war specifically, and, as Tom Moon writes, "it could be the voice of a Civil War soldier singing a lonesome late-night dirge." Waits himself does describe the song as something of an "elliptical" protest song about the Iraqi invasion, however.^[46] Thom Jurek describes "The Day After Tomorrow" as "one of the most insightful and understated anti-war songs to have been written in decades. It contains not a hint of banality or sentiment in its folksy articulation."^[47] Waits' recent output has not only addressed the Iraqi war, as his "Road To Peace" deals explicitly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East in general.

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.^[48] 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 We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, 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. His 2007 long-player, Magic, continues Springsteen's tradition of protest song-writing, with a number of songs which continue to question and attack America's role in the Iraqi war. "Last to Die", with its chorus of "Who'll be the last to die for a mistake.... Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break," is believed to have been inspired by Senator-to-be John Kerry's 1971 testimony to the US Senate, in which he asked "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"^[49][50] "Gypsy Biker" deals with the homecoming of a US Soldier killed in action in Iraq, and Springsteen has said that "Livin' in the Future" references extraordinary rendition and illegal wiretapping.^[50] "Long Walk Home" is an account of the narrator's sense that those people living at home "he thought he knew, whose ideals he had something in common with, are like strangers." The recurring lyric "it?s gonna be a long walk home" is a response to the violation of "certain things", such as "what we'll do and what we won't", in spite of these codes having been (in the words of the narrator's father) "set in stone" by the characters' "flag flyin' over the courthouse."

Contemporary Protest Songs

Conor Oberst, lead singer/songwriter of the band Bright Eyes, writer of the anti-Bush protest song "When the President Talks to God"

The hip-hop group The Beastie Boys had a number of protest songs on their 2004 release To the 5 Boroughs. Songs such as "It Takes Time To Build" and "Right Right Now Now" take particular aim at the Bush administration and its policies.

American avant-garde singer Bobby Conn wrote an album of anti-Bush songs with his 2001 collection The Homeland. Conn said of his art that "All the records that I've done are a critique of what's going on in contemporary America" ^[54], and he is an outspoken critic of the Bush regime. Conn has admitted that while he actively protests what he sees as the evils of American society, he is not always at ease with such a label for himself. "I?ve always done lots of social commentary that I believe in pretty strongly but I am very uncomfortable with the role of the artist as a meaningful social critic...my whole generation [is] a confused group of people with an ambivalent way of dealing with protest." ^[55] . Discussing his most recent album King For a Day (2007), Conn said "it's political, but just in a contemporary culture kind of way[...] Two of the songs are about Tom Cruise, and I don't know if there's a more political statement than Tom Cruise. He kind of symbolizes a lot of what's going on in this country right now and how people are responding to it." ^[56]

Bobb Conn on being a 'protest singer':

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 contains the line "Don't want to fight, don't want to die", and criticizes religious fanaticism in general. However the protest album to achieve the most mainstream success in the first decade of the 21st century 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.

In particular, rapper Eminem has encountered controversy over protest songs directed towards George W. Bush. Songs such as Mosh, White America, and We As Americans have either targeted Bush or the U.S. government in general. Eminem, in fact, registered to vote for the first time in 2004, just for the sake of voting Bush out of office, which would ultimately prove unsuccessful.

Outside of pop music, folk, punk and country music continue to follow their strong traditions of protest. 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." Folk singer Dar Williams's song "Empire" from her 2005 album My Better Self accuses the Bush administration of building a new empire based on the fear of terror, as well as protesting the administration's policy on torture: "We'll kill the terrorizers and a million of their races, but when our people torture you that's a few random cases." Lucy Kaplansky, who has also performed protest songs with Dar Williams in their side project Cry Cry Cry, has written many songs of protest since 9/11, including her tribute to that day - "Land of the Living" - however her most recognised protest song to date is "Line in the Sand", which includes the line : "Another bomb lights up the night of someone's vision of paradise but it's just a wasted sacrifice that fuels the hate on the other side." Tracy Grammer's song "Hey ho", from her 2005 album Flower of Avalon addresses how children are taught from a young age to play at war as soldiers with plastic guns, perpetuating the war machine: "Wave the flag and watch the news, tell us we can count on you. Mom and dad are marching too; children, step in line."

Punk rock still is a formidable force and constitutes a majority of the protest songs written today. Artists such as Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, NOFX, Rise Against, Authority Zero, to name just a few, are noted for their political activism in denouncing the Bush administration and the policies of the American government in general. The political campaign Punkvoter, which started the project Rock Against Bush, was kicked off with a collection of punk rock songs critical of President Bush called "Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1", and a sequel was released in 2004. Representatives from the punk community such as Fat Mike of NOFX, Henry Rollins (formerly of Black Flag), and Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys are noted for their continuing political activism.

While country music has offered the loudest voice in support of the war through artists such as Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)" (which Natalie Maines publicly criticized as "ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant."^[57]), Darryl Worley's "Have You Forgotten" and Charlie Daniels, many established country artists have released strongly critical anti-war songs. These include Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, the Dixie Chicks ("Not Ready to Make Nice" (2006)) and Nanci Griffith.

Criticism

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.

More recently anti-globalization writer Naomi Klein has attacked the replacement of grass-roots protest by celebrity-endorsed festivals or events, such as the Make Poverty History campaign; a trend which she calls the ?Bono-isation? of protests against world poverty. She is quoted in The Times newspaper as attesting that "The Bono-isation of protest, particularly in the UK, has reduced discussion to a much safer terrain [...] there?s celebrities and then there?s spectators waving their bracelets. It?s less dangerous and less powerful [than grass roots street demonstrations].?^[58]

European protest songs

Protest songs from the U.K.

Early protest songs from the U.K.

Some sources claim that the oldest European protest song on record is "The Cutty Wren" from the English peasants' revolt of 1381 against feudal oppression.^[59] This attribution was first made by A.L. Lloyd in his 1944 book "The Singing Englishman," in which he infers that the song had originally been "a magical song, a totem song, which about this time[the time of the 1381 revolution] took a strong revolutionary meaning." ^[60] However, some commentators argue that this reading of the song's meaning is unfounded.

Later examples include the 17th century ballad "Diggers' Song" (known also as "Levellers and Diggers") composed by Gerrard Winstanley. The ballad deals with land rights, inspired by the Diggers movement.

20th Century U.K. songs of protest

Colin Irwin, journalist for The Guardian, identifies the birth of the modern British protest with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's 1958 53-mile protest march from Trafalgar Square to Aldermaston, which "fired up young musicians to write campaigning new songs to argue the case against the bomb and whip up support along the way. Suddenly many of those in skiffle groups playing American songs were changing course and writing fierce topical songs to back direct action." ^[61] A theme protest song was specially written for the march: "The H-Bomb's Thunder", a poem by novelist John Brunner set to the tune of "Miner's Lifeguard", including lyrics such as: "Men and women, stand together/Do not heed the men of war/Make your minds up now or never/Ban the bomb for evermore." ^[62]

The leading voice of this new British protest movement was Ewan MacColl, who by the 1950s was singing pro-communist songs such as "The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh" and "The Ballad of Stalin", as well as volatile protest and topical songs concerning the nuclear threat to peace, most notably "Against the Atom Bomb". "There are now more new songs being written than at any other time in the past 80 years - young people are finding out for themselves that folk songs are tailor-made for expressing their thoughts and comments on contemporary topics, dreams and worries," MacColl told the Daily Worker in 1958.^[61]

John Lennon rehearsing the anti-Vietnam War anthem Give Peace a Chance

The 1970s also saw a number of U.K. songs protesting areas other than war, such as The Rolling Stones song against police brutality "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" (1973)