In his 2015 book Pop Grenade: From Public Enemy to Pussy Riot - Dispatches from Musical Frontlines, Matthew Collin opens by quoting Nigerian musician Fela Kuti:
"Music is the weapon of the future; music is the weapon of the progressives; music is the weapon of the givers of life."
Rather than offering itself as a straight forward biography of protest music, Collin presents what he terms as a series of 'dispatches' and as such illustrates an arena in which, "a cast of righteous preachers, libertine conspirators, delirious cultists, rock and roll visionaries, techno-activists and holy fools" (2015: Page 5) take to the battlefields in order to enact meaningful change. This change, whether it be political, social or cultural will be my central focus and by identifying significant milestones in the history of popular music I will pinpoint moments where protests have been heard, what their legacy has been and moments where politicians have appropriated pop protests for their own objectives. In short, I shall establish who, as Collin classes it, can be labeled as, 'an agent of change'.
Scientist Steven Pinker describes music, in his 1997 book How The Mind Works as, "auditory cheesecake" (1997: Page 534). He goes onto argue, "Compared with language, vision, social reasoning, and physical know-how, music could vanish from our species and the rest of our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged"(1997; Page 528). If music is, as Pinker suggests, "pure pleasure technology" (1997: Page 528) then this would dismiss Collin's visionaries are mere confectioners rather than the agents of change he champions.
Countering Pinker's cheesecake thesis, science writer Philip Ball (The Music Instinct) highlights Pinker's ethnocentricity, "It implies all people listen to music simply because they like to do so." (2010; Page 11) Ball goes on to reflect upon other cultures and their relationship with music, including, "the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea, music allows communion with the dead." (2010; Page 11). Whilst Pinker's thoughts on music may, as Ball suggests, be very Western, it is a very narrow Western view at that. Within our own Western culture, music features in many of our domestic rituals; weddings, funerals, dinner parties, driving, train journeys and walking to the shops. It facilitates associations with people, places and times as well as being a distraction whilst getting from A to B.
In addition to dealing with how music moves and mobilises, the label 'protest' must also be addressed. In his 2011 book 33 Revolutions Per Minute, music writer Dorian Lynskey acknowledges that the term 'protest', when dealing with music, is "regarded with suspicion" (2011: Lynskey, ebook). Lynskey argues that critics of protest songs, "dismiss all examples as didactic, crass or plain boring" (2011: Lynskey, ebook) and as such, to overcome this criticism and be able to broaden his scope of songs, he suggests classing them as straightforward pop music. Whilst he acknowledges some may not be the best examples of the genre, he is able to look beyond the more obvious choices and, in some way, overcome Adorno's concern addressed in the homepage video. Lynskey claims, "The difficulty of contorting a serious message to meet the demands of entertainment is the grit that makes the pearl." (2011: Lynskey, ebook). He claims the political content of truly formidable songs of protest, "is not an obstacle to greatness, but the source of it." (2011: Lynskey, ebook). Whilst not all of the songs I shall deal with could be classed as protest songs, they are pieces of music first and foremost. Blues, Jazz, Rock, Punk, Funk, Soul, they all have a message, and they have all, in some way or another activated an audience. Amongst the songs Lynskey lists as truly great are Ohio, A Change Is Gonna Come, Ghost Town and the first of my landmark 'agent of change' songs, Strange Fruit.
"the sudden smell of burning flesh..."
In June 1939, a 24 year old singer on the cusp of mainstream studio success was described by Time Magazine as,"a roly-poly young colored woman with a hump in her voice...She does not care enough about her figure to watch her diet, but she loves to sing." Up to this point, the young Billie Holiday had enjoyed success working with the likes of Jazz greats The Teddy Wilson Orchestra, Count Basie and Artie Shaw. It was '39 however that elevated Holiday to studio and mainstream success, largely on the back of a song that 60 years later, Time Magazine voted Song of the Century.
"Here is a strange and bitter crop"
Inspired the the image of the 1930 lynchings of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith (left), American writer Abel Meeropol wrote a poem in 1937, under the pseudonym Lewis Allan, entitled Bitter Fruit for the union paper The New York Teacher. The poem itself was greeted with suspicion as Meeropol was a card carrying member of the Communist party and a teacher. In 1940, he was questioned by a committee investigating Communism in schools and, as a teacher, was asked specifically if, "the American Communist Party had paid him to write the song."
An amateur musician himself, Meeropol put the words to music and in the Summer of 1938 it, "became a fixture at left wing gatherings sung by his wife and various friends." (2011: Lynskey, ebook) It was Robert Gordon, Billie Holiday's director at the non-segregated Cafe Society, who heard it at one of these small gatherings and brought it to the club's founder Barney Josephson. "Meeropol played Josephson his song and asked if he could bring it to Holiday. The singer later insisted she fell in love with it right away." (2011: Lynskey, ebook)
In 33 Revolutions Per Minute, Lynskey describes Josephson as a 'natural showman' who understood the power behind the marriage of singer and song, "There was no point slipping Strange Fruit into the body of the set and pretending it was just another song". (2011: Lynskey, ebook). The set up was this; Strange Fruit would end Holiday's set. Firstly, the bar and waiters would stop serving, the room would be in complete darkness save for a single spot on the stage and, most importantly, there would be no encore, "'People had to remember Strange Fruit, get their insides burned by it,' he explained." (2011: Lynskey, ebook)
The impact of Holiday's version was immediate and divisive, it, "tantalised and disturbed in equal measure" (2015: Page 176). Peter Doggett notes the differing reactions in his 2015 book Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of Pop Music, "It was greeted by the New York Post as the unofficial national anthem for America's 'exploited' black population and dismissed by one of her most vehement supporters, critic John Hammond, as, 'artistically the worst thing that has ever happened'." (2015: Page 176). When the single went to press, it was as stage managed as a live performance of Holiday herself at Cafe Society. As Lynskey notes, "On the single, Holiday doesn't open her mouth until 70 seconds in. Like Josephson with his spotlight, the musicians use that time to set the scene." (2011: Lynskey, ebook). Meeropol put the piece to music, and singled out Holiday to make people take notice. The song made number 16 in the charts, divided audiences in both political and musical arenas but as Sam Grafton from the New York Post affirmed, "If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise."(2011: Lynskey, ebook)
This embodiment of the song is what Roland Barthes refers to as the, "pheno-song" (1977: Page 182). As Barthes continues, the pheno-song "covers all the phenomena, all the features which belong to the structure of the language being sung, the rules of the genre, the coded form of the melisma, the composer's idiolect, the style of the interpretation: in short, everything in the performance which is in the service of communication,representation, expression, everything which it is customary to talk about, which forms the tissue of cultural values" (1977: Page 182). Rather than being a stage managed performance as in Josephson's club or the recording studio, it was actually Holiday's performance that carried the song with the weight of the political message behind it. This explains the socially and culturally divided opinions that greeted the song at the time and praise and respect it demands today.
One could detect a Darwinian reading of Holiday's interpretation of Meeropol's writing in both performance and reception. In The Descent of Man, Darwin draws comparison between the relationship of music and emotion, "It awakens the gentler feeling of tenderness and love, which readily passes into devotion. In the Chinese annals, it is said, "Music hath the power of making Heaven descend upon Earth"...The powerful and mingled feelings may well give rise to the sense of sublimity."(1871: Page 335) This is not to say that songs like Strange Fruit and singers like Holiday hold one emotion throughout and it is the holding of that chosen emotion that sweeps you up. Philip Ball references German composer Paul Hindemith who, "scoffed at the notion that composers actually feel, while they are composing, the emotions they strive to convey" (2011: Page 259) Ball continues, "Tchaikovsky agreed... 'Emotions - sad or joyful - can only be expressed retrospectively'" (2011: Page 259). That is to say, it is the collective emotional experience of the audience who can bring their personal impressions to the song. There are, however, exceptions to the rule and Holiday, Ball proposes, is one of them, "I don't think any of her audience could imagine...that her emotions are anything less than fully engaged." (2011: Page 265)
Prior to 1939, protest songs were confined to a specialist niche of the record store. Or, as John Peel discovered researching his BBC Radio 1 1987 series on Protest Music, "I spent several days lost in the trades union section of the BBC record library." (2008: Page 235) In his collection The Olivetti Chronicles which was published after his death, Peel looked to the early years of the American labour movement to chart the origins of songs of protest. Whilst he found many examples that he called 'stirring', including, "such gems as Gene Autry's tribute to Mother Jones, recorded in 1931 and 'Rich Man Poor Man' by David McCarn, a millworker, recorded a year earlier during an especially grim strike" the audience at the time was limited to those of a similar background and could easily be referred to as songs that preached to the converted. Peel also noticed that his findings were all politically aligned to the left. He goes on to reflect, "The Right does not bother to write songs of protest. Records which concern themselves with the uncertainty of pricing in the claret market...are in pretty short supply." (2008; Page 236)
It was the combination of Meeropol's imagery and Holiday's "courage and intensity of performance" (2011: Lynskey, ebook) that brought politics and pop into the mainstream. It became the song of the century and emerged as the counter argument to Adorno's rejection of music as a tool for protest and Pinker's notion that we could exist without music.
"the wonderful fulfillment of a great expectation..."
Drum Magazine, South Africa 1959
Three years before the release of Strange Fruit, Theodor Adorno wrote a paper called On Jazz in which he proposed to deconstruct Jazz as a genre and dismiss it as a style, calling it, "the very antithesis of anything avant-garde or progressive" (1989: Page 161). Sociologist Robert W Witkin, in his 1998 book Adorno On Music maintained that Adorno saw Jazz as, "a masochistic submission to the dominating force of the collective over the individual" (1998: Page 162). Whilst Adorno's net conclusion of Jazz is less than favourable, "The objective sound is embellished by a subjective expression which is unable to dominate it and therefore exerts a fundamentally ridiculous and heart-rending effect" (1989: Page 67), he does acknowledge that the idea of Jazz is something more inviting and owes its inventiveness "primarily to sound and rhythm, without fundamentally breaking the harmonic-melodic convention of traditional dance music. Syncopation is its rhythmic principle." (1989: Page 45). It is the unexpected nature of the music, what Adorno refers to as the genres modifications, that displays, "an extraordinary complexity" (1989: Page 46) in some of the best examples of jazz. His issue with the genre however comes with the mass production of the music and in breaking the rules of musical form and structure, it creates a whole new set of rules that both maker and audience fall into line behind, "In psychological terms, jazz succeeds in squaring the circle." (1989: Page 66) Adorno is at his most dismissive when he writes about libido and the 'sex appeal' of the music, "obey, and then you will be allowed to take part...l will only be potent once I have allowed myself to be castrated." (1989: Page 66). The castration one experiences is the desire to engage in the mass produced, the adherence to rules of a once progressive genre.
In Ted Gioia's 2011 The History of Jazz, Gioia refers to the "synergistic process" (2011: Page 5) whereby the US, in the late 1800's saw an, "Americanization of African music...and with it came an Africanization of American music" (2011: Page 5). Gioia continues, "Anthropologists call this process syncretism - the blending together of cultural elements that previously existed separately." (2011: Page 5)
This mixing of cultures was never more prominent than in South Africa in 1959. At the turn of the 20th Century, the arts in South Africa had a distinctly European feel, "Not only did a vast range of performers and companies come here, they also left behind many individuals who not only created a local corps of performers, but who also had the entrepreneurial skills to act as booking agents, form local companies, train other local performers, and eventually even to build new theatres and set up a network of performance venues" (2007: Hauptfleisch, ebook). This growing theatrical settlement led to, "numerous Repertory Societies, Gilbert and Sullivan societies and Shakespeare Circles – found in most cities and larger towns."(2007: Hauptfleisch, ebook)
At the same time that this was happening, there was a counter-culture, a rise in indigenous nationalism. In 1912, the South African Native National Congress, later the African National Congress (ANC), was founded with the express aim of ending apartheid and giving the vote to black and mixed race voters. The growing presence of nationalism led to a demand for a cultural uprising, "cultural nationalism made far more rigorous demands of the arts and artists, and asked for the establishment of an own indigenous theatrical tradition which could promote the cause of Afrikaans and Afrikaner nationalism." (2007: Hauptfleisch, ebook) In what was later hailed by John Blacking as, "an end of the era during which black artists looked to European models" (1983: May, ebook), King Kong 'An all African Jazz Opera' was first staged in 1959.
The story of King Kong The Musical is based on the life of Ezekiel Dlamini, a South African boxer who was known for his flamboyant style in the ring and later his rapid professional and personal demise and apparent suicide at the age of 36. It was a landmark artistic statement in many ways. Not least because it was the first production to be made entirely by South Africans, in South Africa. In Todd Matshikiza's With the Lid Off: South African Insights from Home and Abroad 1959-2000, his son John reflects on the impact the musical had, "It was an artistic collaboration between black people and white people on a scale that had never before been considered possible in the country...It was a story about black lives that gripped the imaginations of people of all races." (2000: Page 95)
For such a significant event, the musical itself was created over a relatively short time. Dlamini was found dead in 1957 and the show opened in Johannesburg in 1959. In Elizabeth May's Music of Many Cultures (1983), John Blacking acknowledges King Kong as a 'landmark' production, "because it was the first South African show to make a large profit". (1983: Page 197) However, he goes on to say, "King Kong signaled both a climax of interracial cooperation and the end of the era during which black artists looked to European models. If the whites had the money and skills for promotion and production, it became clear that what audiences wanted was black music and artists." (1983: Page 197) Among other prominent figures, Nelson Mandela was in the audience with his new wife Winnie. The premiere was held just weeks before the Treason Trials were due to resume in Pretoria. Mandela, as a defendant, had been mid preparation and took time out to attend the opening night of King Kong. John Matshikiza's account of Mandela's reaction only goes to highlight the significance of this production, "At the interval, he congratulated composer Todd Matshikiza on weaving a subtle message of support for the Treason Trial leaders into the opening anthem Sad Times, Bad Times" (2000: Page 96). Whilst Mandela was later acquitted, Apartheid rapidly took its toll on the country culturally and politically, "a severe tightening of apartheid legislation removed King Kong's threat to white theatre by depriving blacks of the opportunity of performing to white audiences" (1983: Page 198). Mandela has spent the two years following his acquittal often in hiding and visting other countries representing the ANC and meeting with politicians and anti-apartheid activists. On returning to South Africa after a visit to Ethiopia, he was arrested and following a two year trial, he was sentenced with leaving the country without permission and inciting workers strikes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and, in the early years, hard labour. Mandela was released in 1990 following a series of meetings with then President FW De Clerk.
King Kong represents a nation and a race on its knees refusing to be beaten. It made a huge profit, it toured the world and it brought white people and black people together at a time where the minority government had to introduce new laws in order to prevent further collaboration. The BBC called King Kong The Musical a show that, "defied the colour bar and lead the way as part of a cultural renaissance." (BBC Website) In The Queue comes at a point in the musical where King, in his downward spiral, looses a bout, is taunted by a group of people in a queue and he stands up to them. A metaphor for a race, a country and an ideology. Despite a politically bleak future, "King Kong somehow breathed a sense of immense hope into South Africans". (2000: Page 97)
"some folks are born silver spoon in hand..."
In 1968, critic Jon Landau wrote, "Rock and Roll may be the new music but rock musicians are not the new prophets" (Rolling Stone Magazine 1968). Echoing Adorno, Landau went on to call musicians, "banal, amateurish and insipidly stupid when they try to explain their philosophy of life in the context of popular music". Peter Doggett, in his 2015 book Electric Shock, refers to Juan Rodriguez, from influential music magazine Hit Parader and how he took the anti-message chorus one step further by attacking the audience, "The musicians dish out the most pretentious trash and the audience hails it as great...Pretentiousness is the scourge of modern pop music" (2015: Page 400). Despite the backlash by the likes of Adorno and the more traditional music critics, the audience wanted more and as Doggett observes, "Musicians pronouncements on Vietnam, the atom bomb and the ethics of capitalist culture were being heeded more closely than those of society's elected rulers." (2015: Page 400)
The 1960's was a turbulent decade politically in the US. It started with a youthful John Fitzgerald Kennedy becoming the 35th President of the United States and ended with a moon landing. During the decade, the scourge of war was knocking on the door of political stability. It started with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion which was closely followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis and in 1963, the assassination of Kennedy. During this time, there was an ongoing involvement in the Vietnam War. This escalated under Lyndon B Johnson who wanted to war to focus on the fight against Communism. Historian Stanley Karnow quotes Johnson in his 1997 book Vietnam: A History, "the battle against communism ... must be joined ... with strength and determination." (1997: Page 323).
This strength and determination was matched with a growing discontent over a war that many people saw as a battle that wasn't theirs to fight. The anti-war movement saw one of music's most ferociously peaceful protests at the end of the 1960's over 4 days on a dairy farm in the Catskills, New York. The Woodstock Music and Art of 1969 was billed as an, 'Aquarian Exposition' promising 'Three Days of Peace and Music'. What it provided was a gathering of 4 days that brought over 400,000 people together and, as Peter Doggett reports, they were, "short on food and water, exposed to heat and rain...and discovered that they did not lynch each other but collaborated in their hippie solidarity - that felt like a political triumph." (2015: Page 402).
One month after that political triumph, one of Woodstock's headline acts, Creedence Clearwater Revival, released Fortunate Son. Whilst not mentioning the Vietnam war directly, the song is an attack on white privilege and the ability of those who are considered fortunate to be able to dodge being drafted to fight. The song itself was inspired by the wedding of Richard Nixon's daughter to Dwight Eisenhower's son. Writer John Fogerty explains, "Julie Nixon was hanging around with David Eisenhower and you just had the feeling that none of these people were going to be too involved with the war." (Rolling Stone Magazine). The song has widely been hailed as one of the more significant of the anti-war movement and whilst it may not be considered to be one of Creedence Clearwater Revival's classic hits, it has been widely hailed as a landmark protest song. When they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, Fortunate Son was hailed as a song that, "eloquently expressed the counterculture’s resistance to the Vietnam War and sympathy for those who were fighting in what now stand as an anthem of those troubled times." (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: website). Further to this, Rolling Stone Magazine listed it as number 99 in its 2011 list, 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list and in 2014, it was listed as a song of significance by the Library of Congress. On its inclusion, Historian and music journalist Hank Bordowitz praised Fortunate Son for its directness of message, "It went straight into attack mode, one of the greatest class consciousness songs to ever become a hit record". (Bordowitz, H; LoC website).
As a song, it remains a significant part of popular culture, featuring in platforms from video games to film. It also featured in a Jeans advertisement thanks, in large part, to the fact the Fogerty released rights to his songs early in his career. In a blow to capitalism, when Fogerty was asked about the use of the song in the advertisement, he responded, "They turned my song into pants...if there's some other [Creedence] song that was probably just a simple rock 'n' roll song, maybe I wouldn't feel so strongly, but Fortunate Son has a real point to it." (Spinner Magazine; Web archive). The LA Times picked up on this story and as a result, despite feeling it was an, "ode to the common man", Wrangler dropped the ad serving as proof that it continues to be an agent of change.
"You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out..."
Before Wranglers were appropriating protest songs to sell Jeans on television, Capitalism was already making an impact on popular culture and steering messages. One of the most significant messages to come out of the 1960's was 'Black Power'. In his 1993 book New Day in Babylon: Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-75, American Historian William L. Van Deburg reflects upon the origin of the term, "As a political slogan, Black Power entered the vocabulary...after 16th June 1966." He goes onto say, "...an assembly of civil rights workers heard Stokely Carmichael declare...
"This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain’t going to jail no more!
The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over.
What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!"
...the audience responded immediately, "Black Power!" (1993; Page 32) Whilst there had been documented uses of the term before, it was Carmichael who was credited for it being used as a political slogan. As Black Power grew in strength as a term and a movement, Carmichael, who later changed his name to Kwame Ture, wrote a book that acted as a history lesson and campaign manifesto. Black Power: Politics of Liberation in America (1967) aims to set a pathway for the future by looking at the events of the past. Carmichael poses a significant question regarding change and the progress made to date in the afterward, published in 1992, "Did the system change on its own or did Africans force the change, through consistent, uncompromising struggle?" (1967; Page 192) He was driven to ask that as a result of what he refers to as the 'Capitalist Press' and their claims that they, "spread revolution" (1967; Page 192). Carmichael's argument is that the press didn't play a role in the growth of the movement and that they are doing everything they can to "thwart the process"(1967; Page 192). This thwarting comes despite Carmichael's claim that African's have been fighting exploitation long before the Capitalist press tried to appropriate the slogan and, "intoxicate the masses" (1967; Page 192).
The 1960's was a significant decade for the Civil Rights movement and the rise of Black Power. From the end of the 1950's with the arrest of Rosa Parks, through to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act the following year through to the assassinations of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, African Americans saw a tumultuous decade close with Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1968. This furthered the previous act of 1964 by also prohibiting discrimination in regards to housing, both renting and purchasing. Carmichael thought that leaders, "believe that political power grows out of the lens of press cameras, and the more lenses the more power". (1967; Page 192) Whilst this could suggest Carmichael assumes that leaders such as Johnson may be appropriating causes for their own political gain, it does also point to the greater issue of media manipulation. He goes so far as to quote South African political dissident Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, "The press did not make us, the press cannot break us" (1967; Page 192).
The dawn of the 1970's saw the carnage of riots and deaths continue, most prominent amongst these happened within 11 days of each other; the Kent State and Jackson State University shootings, both of which were as a result of the police shooting into the crowd and the resulting deaths only went to heighten the ongoing conflict between Civil Rights and Vietnam protesters and the State.
One student who aspired to create change was Gil Scott Heron. The son of an opera singer and a soccer player, he was hugely inspired by poet Langston Hughes, and for this reason, he enrolled at Hughes' alma mater, Lincoln University. It was after interviewing Hughes as part of a senior school project that drove him to focus on his Lincoln application, "He was impressed with Hughes' ability to get across a message with a dose of humour." (2014: Baram, ebook). Journalist Marcus Baram, in his 2014 biography Pieces of a Man quotes Heron as being 'in thrall' of Hughes, "He was one of the front runners in capturing the ways in which black people talk and express themselves." (2014: Baram, ebook). It was the way Hughes expressed himself and knew exactly who his audience was that inspired Heron to generate his own style, "He was very gracious and humble...he had come to master so many arts forms. That also was very influential because I like to write many different things myself: poetry as well as longer pieces and music." (2014: Baram, ebook)
Heron thrived at Lincoln University. As Baram states, "the campus was full of intellectual debate, radical politics and black students who wanted to change the world."(2014: Baram, ebook) It was the assassination of Martin Luther King however that drove a nineteen year old Heron to take action. He felt isolated due to the distance he was away from the protests and so he took to writing for the University paper, The Lincolnian. Late December, 1968, he submitted his first piece of writing for the paper; a poem that anticipated possible outcomes of the current rioting:
"Red neck enemy
of dark
who survives under
a blanket of night.
Revolts will blend
us all or
kill us"
(The Lincolnian 1968)
This was the first of many enraged pieces of writing that included op eds ('Black Judas' was a piece about student apathy, "Black bodies with white ideals...masturbating under the table") and the beginning of two novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory. It was one night, in the Spring of 1970, that Heron and a couple of his closest friends were watching a new bulletin about one of the latest demonstrations, "The newscasters started talking about how many people were taking part. We said 'people ought to get out there and do something; the revolution won't be televised'. A cat said, 'you ought to write that down'." (2014: ebook) Over the following few weeks, Heron would focus on the dichotomy between news broadcasts and the advertisements that followed. The most startling contrast was between the sound bite of demonstrations and the longer, more tuneful and persuasive advertisements. As Baram defines, "One was on TV, and the other was live". (2014: ebook)
As a pre-cursor to Hip Hop, Heron's style ensured that his audience knew he was talking to them personally. The prose is direct, "You will not be able to stay home, brother", familiar, "The revolution will not go better with Coke" and satirical, "The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal". His music was reminiscent of the music of Marvin Gaye (1969), The Temptations (1970) and The Isley Brothers (1969).
It was Heron's message that differed from the others. He picked up on the things that we take for granted; the TV Themes songs, the characters in the TV shows, the products that we use on a daily basis. They were all Heron's targets. The album, Pieces of a Man reached number 25 in the charts in 1971. The message reached many more. As Stokely Carmichael stated in Black Power, "...just because the capitalist press does not record history, does not mean history is not being made." (1967; Page 194).
The messages conveyed in the tracks discussed so far are reliant on the answer to one major question: is the audience engaged? Meeropol specifically chose Billie Holiday for Strange Fruit, King Kong was written as a Jazz Opera, Creedence Clearwater Revival used good old fashioned Rock and Roll and Gil Scott Heron composed a laid back, psychedelic funk track. Stylistically, these elements were familiar, popular and more importantly, they were considered to be high quality advancements of trends that already existed. This led to a familiarity and it was these elements of familiarity that allowed the audience to be more receptive to the message. Mark Fisher, in his 2014 book Ghosts of My Life reflects upon artists who, "perform anachronism." (2014: Fisher, ebook) He goes on to say, "Whilst they are sufficiently historical sounding to pass on first listen...there is something not quite right about them." (2014: Fisher, ebook) In these cases, the thing that is not quite right is the message. The style is familiar, the instruments, the tone, the rhythm are all elements one could be nostalgic for, however, in all of these cases, it is the message that sets them aside and makes them stand out. The fact that the songs are still being referred to today are, as Fisher classes them, "belonging neither to the present nor to the past but to some 'implied' timeless era." (2014: Fisher, ebook). In other words, classics.
"Understand him, he'll understand you, for you are him, and he is you..."
In 1979, Sham 69 frontman Jimmy Pursey broke up the band. In an interview ten years later (and two years after reforming) for Flipside magazine, he called the album they released that year, The Game, "a pile of shit". He claimed he was forced into making the album and called it The Game, "because that's how the music business had become to me." (Flipside Interview). The first incarnation of Sham 69 proved controversial. The band had, "a large skinhead following (left wing, right wing and non-political)" (Sham 69 website) and their concerts often ended in violent clashes. They stopped performing live in 1978 after a concert was broken up by, "National Front-supporting white power skinheads fighting and rushing the stage." (Sham 69 website).
It was their 1978 song If The Kids Are United, their first song to enter the official Top Ten Singles Chart, that brought them to the attention of a main stream audience. They had a familiar punk sound but their music was littered with mob sensibilities. They constructed football crowd like chants within their music, allowing large sections of their songs to enter the public consciousness through repetition both lyrically and musically. So much so that Pursey being on stage was an iconic moment in one of 1978's most influential concerts, Carnival 2 at Brockwell Park, a follow up event to April 78's Rock Against Racism. In Daniel Rachel's 2017 book Walls Come Tumbling Down, he talks to many of the influential figures and organisers of Rock Against Racism. Syd Shelton explains the thinking behind the second event, "We saw the second carnival as a celebration: a victory parade. We had better PA. The weather was great. We knew what we were doing." (2017: Page 171). Alongside Aswad and Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Sham 69 were invited to be one of the headline acts. However, at the last minute, Stiff Little Fingers replaced Sham 69. Rock Against Racism's Ruth Gregory explains, "We had got Stiff Little Fingers in at the last minute to replace Sham 69 who had pulled out because Jimmy Pursey got death threats from their own fans." (2017: Page 174). The deaths threats came as a result of the band's anti-racist stance. Syd Shelton continues, "They said they'd kill Jimmy Pursey if he played the carnival...We knew it would ruin it and there would be a punch up." (2017: Page 174). Up to this point, whilst it was widely acknowledged that a large portion of the Sham 69 fan base were far right sympathisers, the band had never publicly spoken about their opposition to the National Front. This changed as a result of having to pull out of Carnival 2 and led to one of Rock Against Racism's most iconic moments. Misty had left the stage following their set and Jimmy Pursey came on stage and took to the mic:
"I decided in bed last night that I wasn't going to come today.
But this morning I met this kid who said, "You ain't doing it cos all your fans are National Front".
And I thought, "That's just what everyone'll think if I don't turn up."
WELL I'M HERE! I'm here because I support Rock Against Racism."
Jimmy Pursey, September 1978
Fast forward to Brighton, 2005 and the annual Labour Party Conference. The traditional anthem used to announce the arrival of the leader was The Red Flag. That year's conference theme was U2's Beautiful Day. It was a very different choice of music however that signaled the leader and sitting Prime Minister to the stage. To a rousing chorus of "If the kids are united then we'll never be divided", Anthony Charles Lynton Blair ascended the stairs to a mixture of applause and confusion. When Bill Clinton used Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop as his campaign theme in 1992, it made sense. A baby boomer using a piece of popular music to reinforce his image was a new idea. Clinton dismissed the traditional brass band used prior to the 1990's for a more contemporary sound and it worked wonders. So much so that the band reformed especially for Clinton. It was the choice of Sham 69 however that raised concern. There were issues of division amongst the leadership with talk of an orderly transition of power and it was seen as being a possible dig at Gordon Brown with lines like, "If we all stand together, it will just be the start". There were also concerns over the Messiah like message being given out with the verse, "I don't want to be rejected, I don't want to be denied, Then it's not my misfortune, That I've opened up your eyes". Alongside the immediate concern of band, music and lyric, ("More like sham 24/7," commented one senior figure on the left of the party." BBC Website) there was also the historic concern of right wing associations and the Sham 69 back catalogue. Their 1979 single What Have We Got contains the line "I'd like to buy a shotgun, Shooting MPs, Conservatives, Communists, They're all the bleeding same".
In his 2014 lecture Going Overground: The Jam between Populism and Popular Modernism, part of his collection Post Punk: Then and Now, Mark Fisher writes about a similar mis-appropriation of song by politicians, "Eton Rifles which David Cameron - infamously and to (Paul) Weller's disgust - claimed was one of his favourite songs." (2014: Fisher, ebook) Whilst Cameron claimed he was one (an Eton Rifle), Fisher calls this appropriation, "a stupidity so colossal it is barely fathomable." (2014: Fisher, ebook). Why? Because in the current Post-Modern, Capitalist climate, politicians rely on nostalgia to engage their audience and, especially in the case of David Cameron, want to appeal to an audience that may ordinarily be out of their reach ideologically. The idea of a homecoming that nostalgia elicits is the over riding emotion. With that in mind, it could be argued that nostalgia is also reliant on the comfort and familiarity a homecoming evokes, and as a result, could lead to the clouding of detail. The choice of If The Kids Are United is reliant upon the concept of comradely unity in the conference whose main theme is the policy of Respect. As Fisher remarks, Cameron was passionate about Eton Rifles because it made him think of "protest" (2014: Fisher, ebook). Protest is fine. Until you delve a little deeper and discover that Paul Weller wrote the song after, "hearing Eton schoolboys jeering at Right To Work marchers". (2014: Fisher, ebook) Cameron is relying on people either not knowing that detail or at the very least, people forgetting it. As Professor Simon Goldhill asserted, "If we oversimplify history, we will live – as both Cicero and Kant predicted – with the shallow mindfulness of children." (Goldhill, S: TLS Website).
"The time has come..."
In 2004, Australian Prime Minister John Howard was asked what his favourite Peter Garrett song was. The question was a loaded one. Working backwards, Peter Garrett entered the political arena officially for the first time by standing as the Labour candidate for the Sydney seat of Kingsford-Smith. In 2000, Garrett and his band Midnight Oil closed the Sydney Olympics with their 1987 international hit single Beds Are Burning. It was earlier that year that Prime Minister Howard faced repeated calls to offer the hugely symbolic gesture of taking advantage of having the world's eyes on Australia and saying sorry to Indigenous Australians and members of the stolen generation. Howard constantly refused and as recently as 2014, still asserts that he was right not to apologise, "It’s very easy to apologise for other people’s mistakes. The Australian public would have a lot more confidence in politicians who apologised for their own mistakes rather than the mistakes of others." (2014; SMH website)
In 1986, Midnight Oil spent several months on the road with Warumpi Band for their Blackfella/Whitefella tour, taking in remote Aboriginal communities. Whilst Warumpi Band were never a mainstream success on the Australian music scene, they are thought of as being hugely influential in giving reconciliation the exposure it needed in the lead up to the 1988 Australia Bicentenary. This was in large part due to their partnership with fellow label band Midnight Oil. It was as a result of the tour and experiencing first hand how the indigenous population lived in these outback communities that Garrett and The Oils wrote their seminal album Diesel and Dust. The theme of the album was reconciliation and land rights. It was a particularly timely release, just a year before the bicentenary celebrations of the first fleet landings in 1788. Aside from the domestic politics of land rights and reconciliation, there was also a desire to broaden the Australian narrative overseas. In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Drummer Rob Hirst explained why Diesel and Dust was such an important release for them, "to write Australian music that people overseas could get into and understand, which would enlarge their whole vision of Australia past Vegemite sandwiches and kangaroo hops." (Rolling Stone website)
The song itself succeeds for many reasons. It embraces Rock and Roll in the simplest of ways. It has an attention striking opening, a repetitive beat and familiar guitar riffs. It's line 'The time has come', recalled Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's 1972 election cry of 'It's Time' that remains a landmark administration mainly due to the progress the Whitlam administration made with traditional land rights. The album and subsequent singles charted highly in Australia, the US and the UK with Beds Are Burning being listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll and in 2001, the APRA named it the 3rd Best Australian Song of all time.
In 1988, whilst the organised few were singing 'God Save the Queen', the gathering masses were chanting, "It belongs to them, Let's give it back'. It wasn't for another 20 years that in 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally said sorry and the next stage of reconciliation could begin. It didn't go unnoticed that Rudd opened his speech with the line, "The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history..."
"You're old enough to kill but not for voting..."
In the UK, 5 women in balaclavas performing punk music in a church, railing against the current administration might be considered performance art. However in 2012 in Russia, it was considered 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred' and three women, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich were each sentenced to 'two years deprivation of liberty in a penal colony'. The women, members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot were protesting in a church to highlight the church's support of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their defense was that they were appealing to the Russian Orthodox Church to rethink their support for Putin. The judge, when passing sentence, said their act showed a complete lack of respect and was "a grave violation of public order". Administrations across the globe expressed concern as to how disproportionate the response was from the Russian courts whilst Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church said their actions amounted to blasphemy. Amnesty International mounted a campaign, calling for the release of what they called 'prisoners of conscience', sending an open letter with over 100 signatures from internationally recognised musicians.
Despite this, two of the three served their sentences. It was during this time, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova declared she was going on hunger strike. In an open letter, she announced;
"...beginning 23 September, I am going on hunger strike and refusing to participate in colony slave labor. I will do this until the administration starts obeying the law and stops treating incarcerated women like cattle ejected from the realm of justice for the purpose of stoking the production of the sewing industry; until they start treating us like humans."
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Open letter)
It was Slavoj Žižek's support of the sentenced members of Pussy Riot that started one of the 21st Century's most unlikely yet compelling discourses. Žižek wrote an essay called The True Blasphemy in which he condemns the sentencing of the women as a, "gigantic obscene provocation". He quotes Trotsky from 1905, who labeled Tsarist Russia as, "a vicious combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market" and proposes that Trotsky's definition is also valid, "for the Russia of today". From this point, a correspondence began between Tolokonnikova and Žižek that was later documented in the 2014 book Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj. The letters start from the point of the hunger strike and Nadya's delight at the news of Žižek's support, "The three of us have been incredulous at the birth of this miraculous movement for political liberation". (2014: Page 19). What follows is a dialogue between the two, not always concurring, on contemporary politics and how to combat capitalism and a capitalist society. It is Žižek's observation on the power of Pussy Riot however that points to a possible approach to conflict that has, as yet, not been acknowledged, "Pussy Riot makes us all uneasy - you know very well what you don't know, you don't pretend to have fast and easy answers but what you are also telling us is that those in power don't know either." (2014: Page 23).
In a recent interview, Maria Alyokhina announced she was traveling to Australia to perform a DJ set and participate in a Q & A at Dark MoFo, Hobart in June 2017. She is also releasing Riot Days in September 2017, an account of her time spent in jail. She believes that the message of Pussy Riot is a global one and continues to travel the world in order to, "...overcome the indifference of people." (Guardian website) It is her belief that the election of Trump, the results of the Brexit referendum, the Putin administration aren't in themselves political platforms, but more of a 'symptom'. What we, as a society need to focus on is, "to remember what we have in common – in the community of those who disagree with them." (Guardian website)
Whilst Pussy Riot write their own music, it seemed fitting to argue that their cover of PF Sloan's Eve of Destruction is their most significant recording. Are we close to the eve of destruction? If so, what is the point of protesting? In October 2016, Pussy Riot released Make America Great Again in response to Donald trump's candidacy. In an interview with Time magazine, Nadja explains why Pussy Riot wrote the track, "we wanted to just say, ‘Fuck Trump, but we didn’t do that. We wanted to get our message across to people who might not be as aesthetically radical as we are at Pussy Riot.” Whilst Make America Great Again didn't prevent a Trump Presidency, it has played a part in mounting a movement against what Pussy Riot calls, "The rise of ultra right-wing nationalist populist moods in Europe, Putin in my country..." (Billboard website). With Eve of Destruction, the song reflects on the anger felt due to legislative inaction and the cyclic nature of politics, "Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space, but when your return, it's the same old place" (PL Sloan; 1965). That was 1965 and whilst there are still wars, shootings and a few Senators making choices for the many, we are all still here. More importantly, so is the music.
In his 1977 book Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Jacques Attali opens his first chapter with the statement, "For twenty five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand the world is not for beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible." (1977; Page 3) This point was never more evident than at the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States in January 2017. The Trump administration approached British singer Rebecca Ferguson and invited her to sing at Trump's inauguration. The invitation came with a suggestion of what she should sing. As Ferguson explains, "I wasn't comfortable with the song choice made on my behalf". (BBC Website) She agreed to sing, with one condition, that she should be able to choose the song she would perform. Her choice of song was Strange Fruit. The Trump administration declined her offer and she did not participate.
If music didn't matter, why did the Trump administration rescind the invitation once Strange Fruit was proposed? If music is "pure pleasure technology" (1997: Page 528) as Pinker suggests, why are people being sentenced, why are communities rallying for change, why are policies adapting, why are movements threatening lives of the people who perform? It is because protest offers concepts, thoughts and alternatives. In Comradely Greetings, Žižek suggests that the strength of Pussy Riot is not because they are women or Punk artists, rather it rests on what they say, "Their message is: IDEAS MATTER" (2014: Page 10) He goes on to say, "They're not individuals, they're an idea. And this is why they're such a threat: it is easy to imprison individuals, but try to imprison an idea!" (2014: Page 10).
Strange Fruit, In The Queue, Fortunate Son, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, If The Kids Are United, Beds Are Burning, Eve of Destruction are all songs. They are performed by accomplished musicians. They all feature familiar bars of music using stylistically recognisable genres. What stands them apart from a crowded market is that they contain ideas. Ideas conveyed by consummate artists. As Attali says, "Nothing else happens in the absence of noise" (1977; Page 3). That is why persuasive protest music will always move the argument forward. And that is why those who practice it are always at risk of being silenced.
Shane Morgan May 2017.