| Author | Message | ||
     Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 863 Registered: 03-2006 |
I was musing on great political/protest songs and here's what I came up with. I realize not all of them are sung here by the original writers. The Go-Bees never did anything in that vein, did they? They weren't very political...well, maybe with a small "p"... Here goes: Masters of War – Bob Dylan Hurricane – Bob Dylan And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda – the Pogues The Message – Grand Master Flash Tramp the Dirt Down – Elvis Costello Shoot Out the Lights – Richard Thompson Pride In the Name of Love – U2 I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore – Phil Ochs Let’s Impeach the President – Neil Young Stay Free – the Clash Them Belly Full – Bob Marley The Harder They Come – Jimmy Cliff Nuclear War – Yo La Tengo Badlands – Bruce Springsteen Underdog World Strike – Gogol Bordello What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye Ball of Confusion – the Temptations All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose – Billy Bragg Street Fighting Man – the Rolling Stones Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) – James Brown Any others? | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 660 Registered: 04-2005 |
Ohio - CSNY Mother Knows Best - Richard Thompson It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding - Dylan Stand Down Margaret - English Beat (I Ain't Gonna Play) Sun City - Artists United Against Apartheid Alabama - John Coltrane (instrumental, but its intent was stated) Zillions more, of course... | ||
| Hugh Nimmo Member Username: Nemo Post Number: 85 Registered: 07-2005 |
Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young A very powerful song. In a similar vein but probably not quite as good For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield Any number of songs from the albums recorded by Pearls Before Swine ( Tom Rapp.) My own personal favourite is 'Riegel' from The Use Of Ashes album which tells the tale of the 4000 thousand passengers and crew who lost their lives when the ship was torpedoed during World War II. I believe the song is based on a real incident. | ||
| Hugh Nimmo Member Username: Nemo Post Number: 86 Registered: 07-2005 |
You beat me to it Kurt. :-) | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 241 Registered: 01-2005 |
Only A Pawn In Their Game - Uncle Bob I Wanna Destroy You - The Soft Boys Volunteers of America - Jefferson Airplane Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues - Tom Paxton Fortunate Son - Creedence The Fish Cheer & I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag - Country Joe and The Fish 2+2=? Bob Seger System A great lost protest song from 1968. Bob lays it out over a walking bass line and a great fuzztone guitar. Here is a sample of it: Yes it's true I am a young man but I'm old enough to kill I don't wanna kill nobody but I must if you so will And if I raise my hand in question you just say that I'm a fool Cause I got the gall to ask you, can you maybe change the rules Can you stand and call me upstart, ask what answer can I find, I ain't sayin' I'm a genius, 2 + 2 is on my mind | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 606 Registered: 03-2005 |
Strange Fruit -- Billie Holiday, and everyone who's done it since. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 872 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Men Behind The Wire - Dublin City Ramblers Police And Thieves - Junior Murvin F*ck Tha Police - NWA Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt/Elvis Costello Cuyahoga - REM Mr Cop - Gregory Isaacs | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 73 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Bob Dylan I'm a Police Car - The Members Free Nelson Mandela - The Specials We Hate You South African Bastards - Microdisney (actually an ablum title rather than a song - but one of the best ever!) How about BAD protest songs. There have certainly been lots of them over the years - e.g: Eve of Destruction - Barry Maguire Ebony and Ivory - McCartney and Jackson | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 399 Registered: 10-2004 |
Protest Songs is a brilliant Prefab Sprout record. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 623 Registered: 05-2005 |
Fight For Your Right To Party - Beasties Boys. Party For Your Right To Fight - Public Enemy. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 624 Registered: 05-2005 |
I played Masters of War on a radio program just before the first Gulf War started. I thought I'd get fired. I didn't. I was at a show by Senseless Things when the bombing actually started. It was such a good show even the start of a war did not spoil it for me. (Sorry if that sounds callous, it was just how I felt at that exact moment). | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 608 Registered: 03-2005 |
I confess I find most protest songs to be bad. I've tried listening to the Billy Bragg antho I bought a month or so ago but so far each time I end up going "ugh, these lyrics are so bad" and move off to something else. I promise I'll eventually force myself to listen to the whole thing, probably in small staggered doses. I don't think music and politics mix at all well. Someone mentioned "Ugly Man" by Rickie Lee Jones on another thread. Hey I share the sentiment, but that song just sounds childish. People are too often angry when they write protest songs and nobody does much of anything very well when angry. Ebony & Ivory is so insipid it never even occurred to me that it might be a protest song. Is it? Woodie Guthrie was the master of timeless protest songs. I wonder if there will ever come a time when "Deportee" is not relevant. He was Dylan's hero and that's why our Mr. Zimmerman was one of the few who knew how to do a good protest or social commentary song. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 626 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, Billy's love songs - of which there are many - have always been far more interesting to me than his political songs (though I love a lot of them too). He is also very funny when you see him live; he really has a great sense of humour. His song about his father's death (Tank Park Salute) is an amazing tribute. So much so in fact that I can't listen to it without crying. It reminds me of my grandmother's death; I played it the morning I got the call that she had died. | ||
| jerry hann Member Username: Jerry_h Post Number: 251 Registered: 07-2005 |
I second What Padraig say about Billy,the love songs are his best, You say about the lyrics but there's something beautiful in the occasional clumpisness of expression.See him live at is an uplifting experience. | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 783 Registered: 05-2005 |
Panic - Smiths | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 426 Registered: 08-2004 |
Depeche Mode -Personal Jesus Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology/Inner City Blues Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain/Maggie's Farm The Specials - Too Much Too Young Public Enemy - Fight The Power & many more Some really bad one's Genesis - Land Of Confusion Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise Simple Minds - Mandela Day | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 244 Registered: 01-2005 |
Blowin' in the Wind - Uncle Bob Oxford Town - Uncle Bob again! Talking World War III Blues - Uncle Bob again!! W Sucks (But Rumsfeld is the Anti-Christ) - Robyn Hitchcock | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 671 Registered: 04-2005 |
Much of Lou Reed's "New York" album and the rather puerile but funny "Sex With Your Parents" from "Set the Twilight Reeling." Do You Believe in Rapture? - Sonic Youth | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 872 Registered: 03-2006 |
Would you consider "Kill Your Sons" a protest song, Kurt? Since it was a song about using electroshock therapy to "cure" Lou's homosexuality, I'm guessing he was against the practice! Can stuff like that really have happened in our lifetimes? Lynching, too (the subject of the brilliant "Strange Fruit") was going on in the 60's... Bobby Zimmerman probably has too many great ones to list in these pages, but he's written some bad ones, too. Anybody remember "George Jackson"...very clunky - it also had the life span of a gnat - it was only relevant for about 15 minutes. Not so "Masters of War" which I've heard lately and marvelled at how timeless and timely it is today... Can't believe I left "Shipbuilding" off of my list, being the Elvis freak I am. That might be the best one on this whole thread, for its simplicity, subtelty and absolute refusal to judge the characters in the town it describes. | ||
| jerry hann Member Username: Jerry_h Post Number: 256 Registered: 07-2005 |
The Beat-Stand Down Margaret Billy Bragg-Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards Specials-Ghost Town Elvis Costello-Tramp The Dirt Down | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 676 Registered: 04-2005 |
Fight the Power - Isley Brothers Better than the Public Enemy song of the same name. LK, I guess "Kill Your Sons" is kind of a protest song--taking on controversial psychiatric practices. Lou, of course, was very anti-protest for a long time, known for his famous couplet on the "Take No Prisoners" album: "Are you political, Lou? Give me an issue, and I'll give you tissue. You can wipe my ass with it." Then again, have you heard "Prominent Men" from the '65 demo tape disc of the VU box set? | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 875 Registered: 03-2006 |
Not for a while, but I have that box set, so I'll have to pull it out... Some highly amusing things come out of Lou's mouth. While being a great artist, he sounds like he's really one of the worlds' greatest a-holes. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 677 Registered: 04-2005 |
Not just an a-hole, but one who tweaked himself with speed for over a decade. That made for some lively interviews and stage banter! He's supposedly been clean for a long time, but he's still prickly as hell. Didn't he walk out on Terry Gross during a Fresh Air interview years back? I mean, if he couldn't handle her thoughtful and diplomatic questions... Laurie Anderson must be really tough to have survived a decade-plus with irascible old Lou! (I'm aware I'm posting way too much about Uncle Lou today. I can rattle on about him even more than I can about the Go-Betweens.) | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 248 Registered: 01-2005 |
A couple of great Lou lines from a 1989 interview: "That's not my conceit, that's my conviction". "Oh, that's a good one". | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 887 Registered: 05-2005 |
Kurt, I've had what I would call a love-hate relationship with Lou since 1974. The Velvets were obviously amazing, as was Transformer and (for me as a 16 year old) so was Berlin. I dont think Berlin sounds too great today. I was in last year of High School when I heard Rock n Roll Animal and in a similar way to David Live I wore the grooves out of that record. I wouldnt want to hear either of these live albums today. Which leads me on to the VUs Live 69, quite simply the best live album ever made imo. Jumping forward a bit,the late 70s and the 80s were when Lou and I fell out, apart from two of his career highlights Blue Mask and New York which were both resurrections to compare with Dylans last 3 albums. The albums from the 90s like Magic and Loss and Set The Twilight Reeling were respectable efforts but not too inspiring. I still believe that Lou has at least one more "career high" record left in him. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 678 Registered: 04-2005 |
I hope you're right. I thought "Ecstasy" was quite good, but "The Raven" was a major lapse in judgment on Lou's part. I read a recent interview where he admitted he hasn't written any songs for awhile. Perhaps the songwriting well has run dry? Or maybe he will get fired up about the problems senior citizens face in society and write a scathing song-cycle about that. He seems to need to have a theme these days to be productive, and it seems like getting old is his biggest problem these days. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 402 Registered: 10-2004 |
The Clash - Washington Bullets. I generally agree with the sentiments of a lot of the protest songs mentioned here, but so often the lyrics themselves make for a pretty cringe-inducing experience. I like the Clash's Washington Bullets because it really just kind of discusses US intervention in third world countries, particularly in Central and South America, where US involvement has had a history of major human rights abuses against the indigenous population. I like how the song itself is actually a lovely little pop tune with a gorgeous marimba part throughout. There's something understated about it, and it's not your stock blunt or overbearing protest, but an informed view reporting on the situation as it was in 1981. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 679 Registered: 04-2005 |
I always wondered if the title was a knowing pun on the NBA team's name, or just an accident. I have trouble picturing Joe and Mick as basketball fans in 1980. | ||
| C Gull Member Username: C_gull Post Number: 46 Registered: 05-2005 |
Talking of The Clash - what about Straight to Hell - still sends shivers down my spine even when I heard it used as backing music on a tv show the the other night. |