Music Blogs

The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was accompanied by the first documented song of proletarian dissent, the Cutty Wren. A jaunty allegory, it essentially advised dragging oppressive feudal landlords into the greenwood, eviscerating and boiling them, then feeding the remains to the poor. Now that's a protest song.

The Cutty Wren begat a noble (if less cannibalistically inclined) tradition of decanting civil opposition into justly inflammatory anthems--a tradition that has birthed such iconic epistles as "We Shall Overcome," "Strange Fruit," "Give Peace A Chance," "What's Going On," "Free Nelson Mandela" and "Fight The Power"--all of them substantive proof of dissenting song's transformative muscle. In 1973, a despotic Chilean junta was so threatened by the oppositional songs of activist-poet Victor Jara that they machine-gunned him to death--not perhaps the best advertisement for a career in protest song but undeniable proof of its potency. Moreover, the political landscape of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s can actually be mapped in protest song, from "Blowin' In The Wind" and "For What It's Worth" to "Give Ireland Back To The Irish," "God Save The Queen," "Johannesburg" and dozens of others.

All of which makes the current lack of decent protest anthems all the more curious, nay disturbing. Think about it. When was the last time you had your blood summoned and your sinews stiffened by a roistering musical clarion call which actually addressed contemporary "issues"? It's not as though there's a dearth of contentious matters about which to remonstrate: a Middle East in meltdown, a US Government insouciantly peddling "Vietnam 2," the climate in freefall etc... And yet, where is the song that synthesises, articulates, mobilizes dissent on such matters? Where is the new folk's political firebrand? Who will pen this generation's "Shipbuilding"?

In such a parlous climate the author of that moving, anti-Falklands War epistle, Elvis Costello, could once have been relied upon to pen a mighty, rallying diatribe but now prefers uxorious hymns to his spouse, Diana Krall. On his estimable new album, Robert Wyatt, "Shipbuilding"'s still politically engaged singer, addresses issues like Iraq only elliptically--and the same can be said for recent missives by Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Radiohead, Arcade Fire and others. Making an explicit political statement in song just isn't cool anymore, apparently.

Isolated outbreaks of hectoring invective like Neil Young's "Let's Impeach The President" have tended to lack the successful protest anthem's sine qua non, poignancy, while Ian Brown and Sinead O'Connor's "Illegal Attacks" was well-intentioned but, frankly, pants. "Dear Mr. President," a righteously irate single by that noted Rosa Luxemburg of the pop barricades, Pink, meanwhile, vented daring anti-Bush sentiments but was then spinelessly released only in Europe.

Those who could make a big and effective anti-US noise (hello Messrs Hewson, Sumner, Dwight and co) are apparently too in thrall to the corporations who fund them (and too wary of Midwest record burning "ramifications") to take the full protest plunge--shame on their lily livers.

It's enough to make you pine for Chumbawamba. Almost.

For daily MOJOness, visit www.mojo4music.com