Right now, American protest music sounds like
this.
...we don’t believe you, cuz we the people...
...a million dollar loan...
...If I don’t say something should I just
lie still...
But it wasn’t always this way.
While today’s protest music serves the same
purpose as music like this, the way it reaches
the audience has reshaped the genre time and
time again.
Early American protest songs like Yankee Doodle
and John Brown’s Body were pretty simple.
The melodies came from songs people already
knew.
The lyrics were repetitive and easy to remember
and that made it easier for the songs to spread
through the oral tradition.
But the rise of electrical sound recording
in the 1920s changed the way music was created.
It allowed artists to use complex tunes and
lyrics.
A famous example of that is Billie Holiday’s
Strange Fruit from 1939.
It was a powerful take on lynchings in the
South.
People had a really strong response to the
song — they either loved it or they hated
it.
It was almost completely banned on the radio,
which meant that most Americans heard about
it, if they heard about it at all, through
word of mouth.
But its omission from the radio didn’t take
the song out of history.
After World War two, protest music changed
again when folk music became popular through
the radio.
Woodie Guthrie is probably one of the most
famous folk music protest writers.
one of his most famous songs is This Land
is Your Land, which he wrote as a protest
song in response to this super popular song
the time called god bless America
Guthrie’s music became popular with the
working class and went on to inspire musicians
like Bob Dylan.
The times, they are a changin
But Dylan himself edged away from the suggestion
that he was a protest movement leader.
I got nothing to say about these things I
write.
I just write em.
I don’t have to say anything about them.
I don’t write them for any reason.
There’s no great message.
If you want to tell other people about that,
go ahead and tell em.
People turned to Dylan’s music for its unifying
message despite his reluctance to be a part
of any sort of movement.
But there were other artists, who were less
coy than him.
And everybody knows about Mississippi / god
damn
Nina Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddam”
in response to the 1963 murder of civil rights
activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi.
Mississippi goddam
In it, she also sings about the bombing of
the 16th street baptist church in Alabama
that same year.
Alabama’s got me so upset
The civil rights movement produced several
notable pieces of protest music.
But the late 60s and early 70s also saw a
lot of political unrest in the states.
So this is Marvin Gaye’s 1971 hit What’s
Going On.
brother brother brother / there’s far too
many of you dying…
It was a part of the famous wave of protest
music that followed the Kent State massacre
when the National Guard opened fire and killed
four unarmed students protesting the Vietnam
War.
Later as the Vietnam war came to an end, protest
songs in America re-focused on issues of class.
The shift coincided with the rise of VH1 and
MTV in the 1980s which gave artists a visual
medium to express themselves.
Hip-hop quickly gained notoriety, in part
thanks to groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A.
Fuck the police / and that’s straight from
the underground
While hip-hop became a burgeoning space for
political thought, a feminist punk rock movement
also began to take shape.
the riot grrrl movement was led by all women
bands like Bikini Kill and Sleater Kinney.
and it was in the early to mid nineties when
all these women came together with a focus
on making their music try to forward progressive
agendas, specifically feminist ones
All girls should have A real man Should I
buy it?
I don't wanna
Our way of life, our very freedom came under
attack in a series of deadly terrorist attacks.
After 9/11 there was this huge pool of emotion
and frustration that helped singers make some
really good music.
But the lack of a unifying political movement
left a millennial protest song resurgence
sort of dead in the water.
But bands like Green Day gave a really good
effort and the title track of their 2004 album
American Idiot took aim at the war in Iraq
Don't wanna be an American idiot
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 brought
a different energy to protest music.
With the first black president in the White
House, musicians took up the empowerment song.
Kendrick Lamar’s Alright became a rallying
cry for Black Lives Matter toward the end
of Obama’s presidency.
Do you hear me / Do you feel me / we gon be
alright
And in this era social media became the biggest
tool for sharing music.
That change is even more evident in the face
of Donald Trump’s presidency.
A good example of that is Milck’s song called
Quiet
The songwriter, Connie Lim, used the internet
to recruit a choir for the song which became
an anthem for the Women’s March.
the purpose of protest music is to bring a
movement together.
So as long as people continue to leverage
these new tools that we have with social media
and with the internet to make these songs,
protest music will continue.
