The painful truth is that my wife enjoyed High Fidelity (the movie) far more than I did, but, then she's been to enough functions at which conversations centered around the original drummer of some band nobody's ever heard of, and whether he or she was still married, and how much better that one 45 was than anything the band did on the way to its stellar career...so she's entitled to like High Fidelity.
One of the painfully accurate details was the fondness we critics (semi-retired, in my case) have for compilation tapes, or CDs, or playlists, or whatever's in vogue. We want to inflict our taste on as broad an audience as possible. (And fail. Often and painfully.)
And so, purely in the spirit of breaking the July doldrums and giving myself some other thing to think of as I'm trying to sleep, following the fold is a playlist of protest songs that for, no good reason, I felt my new friends here ought to know about.
In the spirit of the compulsion in whose grip I remain, I am duty-bound to note that what follows is not sequenced. It is not complete. It is mostly off the top of my head, and reflects my very personal weaknesses and delights. I am going to render it in the order I wrote it down while waiting for my daughter to finish her breakfast.
It has been argued, in many places, including the pages of the magazine I once published, that there have been few (or none) great protest songs written after the 1960s. (I would add to that critique that there have been few, if any, new protest gestures since that era, but that's an argument for another day.) I tend to think this critique is both true and unhelpful, as most of the modern songs I will share, in a moment, have received little if any airplay. The fashions have changed.
The point of all this...well, I'm not sure, save casting this particular demon from my skull...the point of all this is to see if my list jogs other memories, if there are more songs worth adding, as of course there are. The point is to have a spot of fun on a warm Wednesday afternoon.
Without further ado, then...
"With God On Our Side" was written by Bob Dylan, back in the halcyon days of such things. But the version I wish here to draw your attention to was recorded by Buddy Miller on an album called the Universal United House of Prayer (New West, 2004). I have no particular fondness for Dylan. But this song, in Buddy's voice...
"John Walker's Blues" from Steve Earle's Jerusalem (Artemis, 2002) is among the least didactic political songs Earle has recorded. A simple character study. A change of pace in a long, ambitious album. A tempest in a teapot, and somewhere there's a videotape of Pat Buchanan calling me an idiot, which is as close to a high point as I've had in my career. (Buddy played in Steve's band for a while. I guess that's the link I'm after here.)
"99 And A Half" from Mavis Staples' We'll Never Turn Back (Anti-, 2007). An astonishingly powerful record, from a woman whose family stood and sung with Martin Luther King Jr. As powerful a song as one can hope to hear.
"Ohio" from CSN, available on any decent greatest hits package. It is important -- for me -- to remember that the 1960s were filled with hope, that it really was believed the world could be changed. Maybe it was, maybe it was just a big, long, party. I'm too young to know. This song still brings tears.
"We Can't Make It Here" by James McMurtry, from Childish Things (Compadre, 2005). Yes, he's the son of, but pay that no matter (he doesn't). Yes, his new record is more political. No, he'll never write a better, more angry, more spot-on song than this.
Hmmm. Funny how the mind works. "A Few Honest Words" comes from the debut of cello player Ben Sollee, Learning To Bend (Thirty Tigers, 2008). An honest plea for honesty in high places.
"God Save The Queen" from the Sex Pistols' debut (Warner Bros., 1977). Their only real album. The only song they ever had to make. I'm tempted to add the Gang of Four's "I Love A Man In Uniform" here, but I don't think the irony translates to the screen. I would also note that, for all the sturm und drang about punk and politics, I can think of very few indelible punk songs which fit this list. Others are bound to -- and should -- disagree. (Doubtless the Clash belong, but they weren't my band.)
"Deportees," by Woody Guthrie. The danger of topical songwriting is that it ages poorly. This one, alas, ages well.
"Tough Times" by John Brim, better known for that song "Ice Cream Man" Van Halen butchered so joyously. I found it on an album split with Elmore James songs that Chess put out several times (called Whose Muddy Shoes, originating in 1969), but for some annoying reason I can't put my hands on it just now. Regardless, I've always thought of the blues as the music of endurance, and the joy found in between that enduring. It is rarely this direct, at least those corners of it which I've made time to explore.
"Come Together" by Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods. Another tonic of hope. It can't all be grim, these calls to action and descriptions of decay.
"Traveling Soldier" by the Dixie Chicks, written by Bruce Robison, and pulled off the radio in the midst of their anti-Bush furor. Waste of a good song, a needed song, a terrific tear-jerking song. Yes, I have a broad definition of protest.
"Ballad of Ira Hayes," as recorded by Johnny Cash, went to #3 on the Billboard country charts in 1964.
"Fortunate Son" by CCR. Cheating again, but it sounds good.
"We Seek No Wider War" by Phil Ochs. He wrote other, better-known songs, and fell before Dylan's sword, all that. But this song seems to fit this moment, too. (And, hey, I like the poetry of Robert Service...)
Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. All of it. I'm not conversant in rap, not in any depth, not in any detail. But this one...this one really is and was special.
"Heaven Is Not My Home" by the Duhks, the obvious song -- they got a country Grammy nomination for it -- from their 2006 album, Migrations (Sugar Hill). The lead singer has left, but no matter. It's a nice tonic on which to end this list.
Y'all will let me know if this was a good idea.
And I left out Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes," which I shouldn't have done. My mom trained to be an architect at UCal Berkeley, but at a time when women couldn't get As. So, for mom, I'll toss in Peggy Seeger's chestnutt "I Wanna Be An Engineer," which also should not be forgotten.
And now I'll stop.