How Many Times?

If you can’t achieve immortality through song lyrics as deep and meaningful and insightful and poignant and timeless as Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind, then you should at least get a Nobel Prize for it.

Long Time Gone

Since no one seems to be writing protest songs anymore, why don't we just have another listen to this?

Say It Again Y’all

If you’re going to be remembered for only one song, Edwin Starr’s War is a pretty good one.

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing

Just Like The Time Before And The Time Before That

I got three things to say about Bob Dylan’s Hurricane:

1)    I don’t know much about Scarlet Rivera’s work other than what she did with Dylan, but she must have been a Beatles fan.  The violin solos are like Beatles backward guitar tracks from Revolver.

2)    Dylan's Nobel Prize is right there in this song.  The horror, the outrage, the compassion at the stupidity of ignorance and hate over love – summing up the human condition in one spellbinding song.

3)    Who says Dylan can't sing?

Nowhere To Run

A thumping beat that punches you in the back.  A relentless riff that hooks and then numbs your brain, until you suddenly find yourself inside the song.  Biting social commentary.  Energy.  Pathos.  Rebellion.  Despair.  Hope.

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Born In The USA should be Bruce Springsteen’s entry in the contest for best rock song of all time.

Before The Dawn

I don’t know: maybe all the protest songs have already been written.

Have a listen to Long Time Gone by Crosby Stills and Nash.  Sure, it’s about the assassination of RFK, but it’s about more than that right? 

Turn any corner
Hear what the people say
You know that something is going on around here
It surely, surely, surely won't stand the light of day

Speak out, you got to speak out against the madness
You got to speak your mind
If you dare

RFK spoke out against racism, inequality, a stupid war …  Wow!  That sounds like today.

But why use a 45 year old song – as compelling as it is - to talk about today?  How can that work?  Old fogeys like me will hear it and think about the 60’s.  Younger folk don’t listen to CSN(Y).  Who is singing out about today’s issues?

There’s Something Happening Here

There is unrest in the land.  Check the headlines.  Turn on the news.  Things are not right, and the people are ticked.

How come, then, Rolling Stone’s 10 Best Protest Songs of All Time has one song from 1992, one from 1975, and 8 songs from the 60’s?  How come Dylan gets on the list four times?  Wait a minute: that’s obvious.

OK, but how come half the songs are about the Vietnam War?  Like nothing bad has gone down since?  No, that’s not true.  Check the headlines.

Is the musical world in denial?  Is its collective head in the sand?

Why are we singing “I’m coming up so you better get this party started,” when “there’s a battle outside and it’s raging?”  I thought art was supposed to imitate life, not avoid it.

Back over to you, Bob, I guess.

I Can See Through Your Masks

Go have a listen to Eddie Vedder’s rendition of Masters of War at the Bob Dylan 30^th Anniversary Concert.

            You ain’t worth the blood that runs in your veins

            Even Jesus would never forgive what you do

            All the money you made will never buy back your soul

Ouch!  It might not be the most popular protest song of all time, but it’s got to be the angriest, and Vedder’s performance is spellbinding.

Is that kind of anger still out there and I just can’t find it?  Don’t we have a few things to protest about?  The world don’t look too perfect to me, man.  Why aren’t we, like we used to say, telling it like it is?

Absolutely Nothing

What is war good for?  Absolutely nothing.  So sang Edwin Starr, as we are reminded in Gibson’s 10 Vietnam Era Rock Classics.

There was a lot of major stuff going down in the 60’s: the cold war, the space race, and civil rights to name a few.  Not to mention the unrelenting march of rock music to its pre-eminent position in modern culture.  All against the horrendous, inescapable backdrop of the Vietnam War.  So the Vietnam War and the music of the late 60’s and early 70’s are inextricably mixed.

As the list makes clear, there weren’t many attempts to romanticize or justify that conflict.  The cruelty, the futility and the stupidity are front and centre as some of the best songwriters of the time moved pop music from its innocent, puppy-love and hand-holding storytelling towards much-needed social commentary.

The songs listed are full of outrage and indignation, but also of hope.  They offer an alternative, a future full of love, compassion, respect.  They understood what was going on, they could see that the times were changing, and they imagined a better world.

Too bad we stopped listening.

Just Follow Me

It’s funny how you can listen to a familiar song and suddenly get a new insight.

Case in point: I was listening to John Lennon’s Working Class Hero the other night and realized it wasn’t an angry song, it was sad.

If I had met John Lennon when the song first came out I would have said:

1. I get it.  You need to put all the Beatle madness behind you, and Plastic Ono Band is your attempt to do that.  Fine.

2. Is all the swearing necessary?

3. Great song!

In the past I would have said it’s a powerful song with Lennon at his best (except for the killer riffs, which are absent): straightforward music and forceful lyrics.  It’s in your face; there’s nowhere to hide.  Good candidate for the angriest song of all time.

Not so, according to my new insight.  It’s desperately sad.

Listening now, I get the feeling that he wasn’t saying the middle class was an illusion.  He was saying it was doomed.  He was saying he was doomed.  “I might have lifted myself up,” he seems to be saying, “but it will all come to nothing.”

OK, maybe he was just saying what he felt, and didn’t presage a future any more bleak than the present he was observing.  But that’s what great art does, right?  The passage of time, hindsight and more recent events only give new depth and meaning.

This song is indeed a rage against the machine, but it’s also a lament.  As a working class hero, he knows the futility of resistance, and the cost that must be paid.

Tell the truth, give it a backbeat, put yourself out there, endure the madness – and get yourself shot.

“Just follow me,” he sings at the end.  How many of us have the courage to do that?

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

With a nod to the great/ongoing recession, Gibson has a list of 10 Songs For Hard Times.

Here's the list:
Patches, by Clarence Carter
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, by Derek and the Dominos
Coal Miner's Daughter, by Loretta Lynn
Busted, by Ray Charles
Inner City Blues, by Marvin Gaye
Aqualung, by Jethro Tull
Kill The Poor, by The Dead Kennedys
Waitin' on a Train, by Jimmie Rodgers
No Woman, No Cry, by Bob Marley
Why I Sing The Blues, by B.B. King

Lotta time, ground and genres covered by this list.  In fact, not sure many of these tunes live up to the genre in the title "Poor Man's Blues: 10 Songs For Hard Times."

A little curious about Aqualung, 'cause frankly I never saw him as a sympathetic character.  Surprised not to see anything by the likes of Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger.  I might have added:
Hobo's Lullaby, Woody or Arlo Gurthrie's versions
Match Box Blues, anyone's version, including (especially?) Ringo's
House Rent Boogie, by John Lee Hooker
Soon As I Get Paid or Crapped Out Again, by Keb Mo

What's surprising, really, is that there aren't a lot more current songs out there.  I'm pretty sure people are suffering, and they appear to be more than a little ticked off.

Where's the musical expression, people?

What Pilate Said

John Lennon famously said, " Say what you mean, make it rhyme, and give it a backbeat."

And I agree. I also agree in "three chords and the truth," wherever that quote came from.

But what is truth? And which truth? One single truth? Multiple truths hidden in multiple layers? A vague truth anyone can relate to? A personal truth? A universal truth? A cliche?

It's been said that great art makes you say, "ya, that's how I feel." Sometimes, say in a straightforward protest or love song, the point is obvious. Sometimes, though, not so much.

And maybe it's not clear to the songwriter either. I know when the words for one of my songs started coming to me, I thought it was about unrequited love. By the time I'd written it all down, I decided it was more about loss of faith. By the time I'd recorded it, I was wondering if it was some kind of commentary on the futility of hero worship.

The lyrics work on all three levels, but who knows what I meant? Not me.

Maybe that's a good thing, because it frees the listener to infer his/her own meaning, and make his/her own emotional connection to the song.

I know that some of the songs I have the strongest reactions to defy explanation. Lots of songs tighten my chest and open my tear ducts. Happy tears? Remorseful tears? Bitter tears? I never know. If you were to ask me why I'm reacting, all can explain is, "this song just gets to me."

So maybe truth isn't enough. Truth is meaningless without audience participation.

Eve Of Destruction Music

Gibson published this list of Top 10 Protest Rockers a while back.

Thankfully, Barry McGuire wasn't on it. I mean, Eve Of Destruction is just a little too down, now isn't it? No disrespect, but it certainly doesn't measure up to the poetry from the likes of Dylan.

Here's the list:
1. Phil Ochs
2. Public Enemy
3. MC5
4. U2
5. Rage Against The Machine
6. Dead Kennedys
7. Bob Dylan
8. John Lennon
9. The Clash
10. Bruce Springsteen

I think maybe Gibson's list makers confuse punk with protest, and I would have reversed the list, but nevermind.

What matters is we need more of this. You know, when we were on the eve of destruction, artists tended to balance their irrepressible optimism with the occasional protest song. And they were songs of protest. They said: "hey! this ain't right. We need to do something about it."

We don't do enough of that now. "You piss me off" just doesn't cut it.

Come on, people: protest!