As I was running this evening my iPod spit up two songs in a row that, unless you think about it, have nothing in common - Rockin' In The Free World by Neil Young and B.Y.O.B by System Of A Down. Yes, they both rock but they are totally different sounding songs. What do they have in common? They're both protest songs.
And today being May 4th, the anniversary of the Kent State shootings, the obvious song of the day is Ohio by CSNY.
And, in another reference to Neil Young, his new album, Living With War, has just been released and contains protest songs.
I'm hardly qualified to discuss the entire history of protest songs. Being born in 1959 I missed much of the old folk music of Woody Guthrie and the like and came of age in the Age of Dylan. Remarkably, Dylan doesn't see himself as the Voice of Protest but he did come up with some great songs - The Times They Are A-Changin' and Masters Of War to name a couple.
Protest songs come in all shapes and sizes - the metal War Pigs by Black Sabbath to the folksy Abraham, Martin and John by Dion to the surprising (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding by Elvis Costello (courtesy of Nick Lowe) to the angry If I Had A Rocket Launcher and Call It Democracy by Bruce Cockburn.
These songs obviously resonated with us at the time they were released and sadly, these same songs seem to be relevant almost any time you hear them.
So, I thought, if anybody reads this, maybe we could get a discussion going of what our favorite protest songs are, or what makes a good protest song.
I'll do a poll and put the songs I mentioned on it (plus a few more) even though I realize there are many, many songs I will leave out.