3 Rock to Rap – The Evolution of Protest Music

“Rock and Roll is political. It is a meaningful way to express dissent, upset the status quo, stir up revolution and fight for human rights.”

– Joan Jett (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, 2015)

Here we are, 50 years since the defining era of resistance (the late Sixties) and we’re showing up at demonstrations in droves again. But this time, we’re doing it without massive protest anthems. On March 24, 2018, 1.2 million people joined the “March for Our Lives” protest across America, making it one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War. The Women’s Marches of 2018 drew even larger numbers with a nationwide crowd of 3 million. As Rolling Stone’s Sarah Jaffe put it, “Americans have been rediscovering the power of protest. They have embraced, in increasing numbers, disruption as a tactic for making their voices heard. As they have lost faith in the elites who run the world…”

We’re not just marching for Black lives, women’s rights and prevention of gun violence; we’re showing up for mother nature, too. On March 15, 2019, approximately 1.4 million students across 123 countries skipped school in a movement called “Fridays for Future” to demand greater climate policies. It was possibly one of the largest environmental protests in history.

There was a time when music and movements went hand-in-hand. Today, Gene Shelton is coordinator for diversity initiatives and professor at Kent State University, but back in the day, he was a music industry guru. A writer and publicist for Motown records, Shelton had the Rick James as his first artist. Shelton was also the man behind the iconic media profiles of colossal artists like Prince, the Supremes, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the list is impressive and exhausting to fit in its entirety. “Music was a major catalyst for the advancement and the platform and the agenda for the civil rights movement,” Shelton said. “Whether it was international war, the civil rights movement in the United States, there were songs that were created, and those songs were played on radio and they helped to change the mindset and make a turn. Folk music did it, R&B music did it, pop music did it. It was the social conscious period of addressing the social ills of our country. Music was something that reached people in a universal way.”

Music still reaches people in a universal way, but how did music with a message evolve from folk or even rock and roll to hip hop over the past 50 years? While the genres have totally distinct – even almost a mutually exclusive sound – they both have an incredible capacity for dissent. We may not have too much popular folky protest anthems anymore (although we still have very similar social ills) but we do have plenty of politically conscious hip-hop music. This is the story of how artists we look to as our town criers went from folkies with a guitar to hip hop artists with a mic.

Of course, music is more than just a powerful, often emotional release, it’s also recognized as a persuasive political tool, a space for resistance, and it’s even been argued by some scholars that there’s also an “assumption underlying the practices of propaganda, campaign, and censorship.” Put simply by two Communication and Journalism at Rider University, “popular music matters politically.” Few can speak on that topic with the authority of Tom Rush, a long-time soldier in the fight for equality and musical expression.  He was asked if music is as important for moving movements forward as it was in the Sixties.

Rush admits, “Going back to the Sixties, there were really two different functions that music served. One was preaching to the choir, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I think music helps to solidify movements and help to give a focal point to movements but a lot of the songs that were being created back then really were preaching to the choir. If you didn’t agree with the song, you just turned it off, you changed the station. The problem here, and I’m gonna get a little philosophical but, we’re dealing with emotionally held beliefs a lot of the time. Emotionally held beliefs are impossible to change with logic. You cannot make a logical argument that will persuade me to change my emotionally held beliefs.”

“My take was that some of the Phil Ochs’ material, some of Tom Paxton’s were preaching to the choir things,” Rush continued. “They were more logical, intellectual presentations of an ideology. They helped to solidify a movement, but I don’t think they changed anybody’s mind.” Let’s jump to present day. Has the musical landscape become so fragmented that everything is “too noisy” to really have a clear leader? Rush says he doesn’t really know the answer “like so many other people,” he says, “I am not really paying so much attention. In the Sixties, I was in the middle of it all. I was a musician, these other musicians were friends of mine, colleagues so I was very aware of what was going on then. Now I don’t listen to the radio, but I also don’t listen to much music anymore which I blush to admit. There are some fabulous musicians out there. The people that I’m aware of and think are really talented people are also not going down that road [of protest music].”

But Rush was quick to add that it’s not necessarily a sense of apathy in the musical community. He’ll tell you, “I think it’s partly enlightened self-interest. Musicians back then were actually passionate about the issues and didn’t really think too hard about, ‘Well, maybe this will turn people off.’  Now I think there’s more of a commercial take on things. People say, ‘Well I don’t wanna say things that are gonna alienate anybody because I want the biggest audience I can get. So, I’m gonna tread lightly and do love songs and stay away from getting involved in political or social issues.’” Maybe those messages have taken on a more subtle nature as well.  “I’m not proud to say it”, Rush will tell you, “but I kind of do the same. I’m actually getting a little bit more political on stage than I ever have. But my take has always been that my show should be a little oasis for people where they can go and get away from their problems. Just lay back and enjoy the music. So, if I say something nasty about Trump, some people in the audience are gonna be offended and it’s not gonna change their mind, it’s just gonna ruin their experience of the evening. If I go there, I try to do it humorously, I’ll put a line in a song. I used ‘no collusion’ in one of the funny songs that I do, and it gets a huge laugh but I’m not dwelling on it.”  But that doesn’t mean he shies away from political issues even today.

“There’s one called ‘East of Eden.’ It’s about a family trying to migrate into the US and they’re stopped by this wall. It’s a very sympathetic song to their point of view. I’ve got a funny song that goes ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with America, I’ll tell why times are so tough. The poor have too much money and the rich don’t have enough.’ It goes on from there. It’s a humorous song and I can see some people scowling in the audience, but they don’t get up and leave.”

Rush adds that modern politics has also taken him back to his roots.  “That’s why I’m breaking my decade’s long rule about not getting political on stage and starting to dip my toe in the water a little bit. But I still don’t wanna just piss people off for no good reason. If I can present a song that might make them more sympathetic to another way of looking at things, that’s one thing, but I don’t wanna just make them angry without presenting an alternative way of looking at something that’s emotionally based because again, logic is totally irrelevant in the situation.”

Rush adds that relevance is still the key, but in many cases so is a sense of impartiality saying, “A lot of it is fear-based on both sides. With the gun issue, for instance, the gun people are afraid they won’t be able to defend themselves in some hypothetical and frankly farfetched situation and the gun control people are afraid that they are gonna be shot by somebody with a gun. So, there’s fear on both sides of that. I guess that my argument is that writing a song about the logic of gun control with statistics about how many shootings there have been is not gonna be effective but if you can pick a person – a little girl who was shot – and make people care about that little girl, then that song might have some impact.” Also, remember what he said about preaching to the choir. Media plays a role. “There’s a lot of research coming out now about how when you hear something that contradicts your emotional beliefs, you just dig in deeper. Now with all the ways you can customize your newsfeed, you can avoid having to endure hearing something you don’t agree with. Both sides can live in their bubbles and ignore the other side and it’s a strange dynamic culturally because we have at least two totally different counties living inside these boundaries. People who see the world in totally different ways.” But that’s not to say certain media isn’t biased. Google takes as much blame as social media.

“The internet has done a lot of amazing things and some really alarming things. In the good old days, before the internet, everybody watched the same thing, NBC, CBS or ABC but everybody watched the same news shows and whatever the newsman said, they were very trusted whatever they said was the way things were. That was the truth. It all splintered when the internet came along, and you can tailor your newsfeed to your own biases. The liberals do the same thing too. I recently saw something, even people who are very aware of this dynamic are still unable to change it in the way they process new information. The people on the right are saying the left is all fake news and the people on the left are saying the right is all fake news. Meanwhile in the background are the Russians or whoever is actually feeding false news into the internet genuine false news.”

Rush admits it can be a frustrating process. “People who want to believe that stuff will believe it because it reinforces their bias. I think the Russians, one of the Russian’s main goal was to just sow discord, to get the two sides fighting harder than they were before. So, they were putting false news on both sides of the equation just to stir up trouble and they were very successful.” Even so, Rush hopes a new standard bearer can emerge to fight the good fight.  “Yeah, I do. I think the right kind of song could get people on either side to maybe consider softening their opposition. To become sympathetic toward that little girl and her family. It might not even occur to them that it has something to do with the bigger picture, but it might get inside their psyche and soften their opposition to gun control. It could work either way. But yes, I do think music could help bring us back together.”

It seems protest music from the defining age is, well, easier to define. It’s too easy to point to prolific songs from that era and say, “Yep, that’s a protest song” and that’s thanks to their straightforward characteristics. The formula is easy: there’s a problem, a call to action, and it’s easy to repeat, like a mantra that can sell the masses on the solution. “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” Easy to chant, easy to digest, easy to sell. But today’s music with a message is a little more complicated than that: it’s often buried in commercial concerns and living on a landscape that depends on concert ticket sales rather than album sales, thanks to technology that allows us to easily stream singles instead of having to buy a physical disc that homes all of the artists’ available tunes.

But between then and now one thing in music with a message hasn’t changed; it’s always been for the masses and intended to be popular.  Back in 1974, researchers Fox & Williams  defined “popular” as “belonging to the people,” “widely favored,” and “well-liked.” Popular music is, of course, a category of entertainment that regularly addresses politics Moreover, it’s been said that “popular music has tremendous affective power, and the affective nature of music is ineffable.”

Recalling the insight of Tom Rush and spurred by our own findings we were compelled to ask; how did all this power get teed up for the protest music of the late 1960s and Seventies? Enough to inspire an entire generation of youth to rise against their parents’ tired ideology they once followed blindly? It all began with rock and roll. We may think we know the roots by heart, but a quick visit serves as a helpful refresher on the power of musical protest that we will go on to explore in the chapters to come. Let’s step back to an earlier time of emerging media.

Radio was all the mid-1950s kids really had – that and limited television, so whatever was on there had better be good. They were just about sick to death of the pillow-y soft music they were being spoon-fed by their parents, but who could save them? The romantic bops their parents adored were too nice and easy — no beat; nothing to dance to.

Rock ‘n roll, as it was originally coined, was the hero the mid-1950s kids were looking for. It didn’t wear a red cape or fight crime, but its infectious energy was authoritative enough to become a something a young person doesn’t just jive to on the radio, but an attitude one could embody. Today’s youth has plenty of attitudes to choose from since they pretty much live online, the bottomless marketplace of ideas and attitudes. Taking a deep dive into any one genre or niche market takes no more than two seconds. No matter how specific your taste, you can find communities that love the same type of thing you do. Today’s internet surfer never really feel alone and should rarely be bored – or at least as bored as the pre-rock and roll 1950’s kids were.

Once the recording industry saw big dollar signs in “Black music”, “race music” or “rhythm and blues” as they would go on to label it, they had a new product to sell the kids. If you’re only skimming the history books, it’s easy to believe the term was created by Hollywood the moment in 1956 when Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock became the theme for the film The Blackboard Jungle or with the release of Elvis Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender. But we know there’s more to the story. Before Presley popped up, swiveling his hips and howling to a hound dog, this term was regularly used in early Black music – mostly as a fun term for sex. In a Fifties television show, Fats Domino said of the new genre’s origin, “Rock & roll is nothing but rhythm & blues and we’ve been playing it for years down in New Orleans.”

The late Bob West was a beloved Kent State professor (for the school of journalism and mass communication) and was revered for his legacy in Cleveland broadcasting. He and Edmund P. Kaminski wrote “Radio, Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Civil Rights Movement” and put rock and roll’s influence during the civil rights movement into its proper timeline and highlighted the extreme (to the point of humorous) reactions—from horrified conservative parents to the all-too-eager-teens who couldn’t get enough.

As West and Kaminski saw it, there are two main components needed for an idea or event to catch on: exposure and acceptance. Certainly, one of the main things that can stop an event from becoming popular is segregation, which is what the recording industry did with Black music until 1949. Music created by Black artists were put on “race records” — a term used by recording industry since 1920. Things were kept in separate boxes like this until shortly after the second world war. It was during this time that folks became more sensitive to the word “race.” So, the industry decided to drop the term — changing it to “rhythm and blues,” which West and Kaminski called “a convenient catchall term for all Black music.”

During the post-war economic expansion, both southern Black and Whites moved North — resulting in closer working relationships, which gave White audiences a deeper listen to this rhythm and blues business. As it was becoming more popular with White audiences throughout the late 1940s into the ‘50s, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed capitalized on the moment, creating the Moondog show on WJW radio, where he would only play Black music. While record store owner Leo Mintz introduced the term to Freed,  the infamous DJ is the one credited with having officially coined the term “rock and roll,” giving Northeast Ohio yet another thing to brag about birthing, besides Lebron James. At any rate, this move forever cemented Freed in media history. In fact, he has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and for about 12 years, his ashes were kept on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he is an inductee and consistently recognized as the man behind it all.

For Freed, rhythm and blues and rock and roll were the same thing. Consequently, teens used the terms interchangeably just as Freed did, that is until the 1954 emergence of Elvis Presley. Presley was, of course, as West and Kaminski pointed out, hugely responsible for the growth of rock and roll both as a musical form and a symbol for 1950s teens. When America record producer Sam Phillips dreamed of finding “a White man who had the negro sounds and the negro feel” he was pleased as punch when before his eyes stood a young, impossibly beautiful White man who echoed the compelling sound and feel of Black music. Phillips’ dream of racking up big bucks swiftly came true (he would later sell Presley’s contract to RCA for a quick buck and probably a lifetime of regret).

In a 1990 Rolling Stone article, reporter Robert Palmer wrote, “With the flowering of the postwar baby boom, teenagers, especially White teenagers with money in their pockets, represented a potentially enormous and largely untapped consumer group. It didn’t take a genius to realize, as Sam Phillips and other early-Fifties indie-label owners did, that more and more of these free-spending kids were listening to Black records, spun on local radio stations by a new generation of Black-talking but mostly White-skinned disc jockeys. If a White performer with an R&B style and teen appeal could be found …”

Rock and roll quickly became more than just a beat to dance to. According to West and Kaminski, it also served as “a cohesive bond for a youthful generation that was searching for an identity. Further, it served as a line of demarcation from the ‘establishment’ and the ‘old’ ways of viewing society.” Palmer also said about the decade of music that “changed the world” that “Rock and roll wasn’t just a type of sound, it was a lifestyle and a new ideology for youth looking to break off into some cool territory unknown by their sleepy parents. We were believers before we knew what it was that had so spectacularly ripped the dull, familiar fabric of our lives. We asked our friends, maybe an older brother or sister. We found out that they called it rock & roll. It was so much more vital and alive than any music we had ever heard before that it needed a new category: Rock & roll was much more than new music for us. It was an obsession, and a way of life.”

For years, researchers have pointed out that youth tend to use music to manage their personal and social identities and as a form of self-expression. Rock and roll did indeed wake and rattle up the teens, which seemed to freak out not only their parents, but the media as well. In 1956, Time magazine chronicled the results of rock and roll and reported that it bore “a passing resemblance to Hitler mass meetings.” The comparison is, of course, laughable today, but it only serves as physical proof that rock and roll was powerful enough to provoke fear. Palmer pointed out, “Much has been made of Sixties rock as a vehicle for revolutionary social and cultural change, but it was mid-Fifties rock & roll that blew away, in one mighty, concentrated blast, the accumulated racial and social proprieties of centuries. What could be more outrageous, more threatening to the social and sexual order subsumed by the ingenuous phrase traditional American values, than a full-tilt Little Richard show?”

Of course, this was not the goal radio had in mind. “Radio and the recording industry did not initiate nor perpetuate the rock and roll phenomena with any regard to its potential impact on society,” West and Kaminski wrote. “They were not interested in improving race relations nor were they deliberately attempting to alienate any segment of society. Quite simply, the issue here was money.”

There was money alright, but the impact on society came with it. By the mid-1950s, according to author Charlie Gillett, there were three main complaints against rock and roll: it was too sexual, too vulgar, too much rebellion or attitudes that “seemed to defy authority” and finally, that the rock and roll singers “were negroes or sounded like negroes.” This last complaint was a “matter of most open concern in the south.” Rock and roll sparked fear and hysteria within conservative communities and quite frankly, enraged racists.

“It’s easy to see why young White teenagers were to take up the civil rights movement on such a personal basis when it erupted in the early 1960s,” West and Kaminski wrote. Rock and Roll quickly became the musical lubricant that helped further the divide between youth and the conservative establishment. “The enemies of rock and roll were the same enemies of integration and fairness to Blacks.” This new craze even had a language of its own that only the youth seemed to understand. “Whether it was the lyrics or the chatter, the youth of the 1950s picked up a jargon which the adults neither liked nor understood,” West and Kaminski wrote. “The language was ‘secret’ and its alienating effects upon the traditional establishment was welcomed by the youth.”

Ed Ward, co-author of Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll, wrote of the phenomenon, “Here you were, an insignificant teenager, bumbling your way through school, filled with teenage anxieties and problems and fears of the opposite sex, and here was this guy – a White guy, at that – playing weird records with sort of dirty lyrics, talking into your ear, like a co-conspirator. He knew who you were…’the late people’ who stayed up to hear that show, to groove on this weird stuff. It was your own secret society! Blacks, of course, had always had their own secret society, , one forced upon them by racism and segregation. It was hardly surprising then, that youngsters in search of change would seek out Black music.”

As the civil rights movement was under way, West and Kaminski wrote, the rock and roll advocates would soon rally together against the “forces of oppression that were against their music and their musicians” making the movement and the music a package deal. Eventually, rock blended with folk, creating a folk-rock hybrid — perfect for strumming away the blues, or more specifically, political woes. As we mentioned in a previous chapter, folk rock legend David Crosby – founding member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) – has a musical legacy that’s marked its place in protest music history time and again.

In a phone interview with Cleveland Scene to promote his 2018 concert in Kent, Ohio, Crosby attempted to put his finger on the diagnosis of the musical times and the apparent shift in genres. But first came his frank mention of then President Trump, stating emphatically at that time, “He’s just… he’s a dick.” He didn’t have a reason to beat around the bush about the former chief executive.  Crosby has been laying down his truth boldly and publicly for 50 years.

Crosby was very vocal and equally specific in his concerns, “He’s doing great harm. He’s been lying to our country,” he continued about Trump. The at-the-time 77-year-old music legend seemed worried but also matter of fact. Crosby has a long history of resistance toward the government. His candor was reminiscent of the young, defiant Crosby of the Byrds from half of a century ago, the one who openly questioned the Warren Report on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.

“They’re shooting this for television. I’m sure they’ll edit this out. I wanna say it anyway even though they will edit it out,” the 26-year-old Crosby professed to the crowd with his guitar slung over his shoulder. “When President Kennedy was killed, he was not killed by one man. He was shot from a number of different directions by different guns. The story has been suppressed. Witnesses have been killed and this is your country ladies and gentlemen,” he casually finished without missing a beat. Four months after this biting declaration, he was kicked out of the Byrds.

The band’s bassist, Chris Hillman put Crosby’s departure from the Byrds this way, “David just had this knack for causing trouble. … He was an extrovert and had a lot of guts – which sometimes meant he could be an arrogant jerk.” Unsurprisingly, Crosby saw it a little differently. In a 1980 interview he said of Hillman and the band’s front man Roger McGuinn, “[they] came zooming up in their Porsches and said that I was impossible to work with and I wasn’t very good anyway and they’d do better without me. And frankly, I’ve been laughing ever since. F—- ’em. But it hurt like hell. I didn’t try to reason with them. I just said, ‘it’s a shameful waste … goodbye.’”  Needless to say, it didn’t result in Crosby taking any pause in his outspoken views on personal, public and political issues.

That same fiery spirit of unfiltered defiance continues to burn over 50 years later. While discussing why mainstream protest anthems don’t seem to exist anymore, he was asked if he thinks if we had a moderate or left-leaning candidate we might notice different themes in mainstream music. First, he said, “Well, it would inspire everybody to feel better about their country. What’s going on now is pretty horrific.” From there, he humorously went on to describe Trump as “a spoiled child who broke into his dad’s office and he’s peeing on all the papers because he was never allowed in there.” A one-of-a-kind metaphor, but at the same time, not too outlandish.

“The worst thing of all,” Crosby noted about the Trump’s Administration was “not addressing climate change. We are doing a disservice to everybody. Every human being on the planet. Every single human person, we are doing a bad thing to. And if you believe in karma, well, chew on that one for a while.”

This disservice to the planet seems to be the reason Crosby continues to keep his spirit of protest alive in his songs and in his interviews. “I’m not gonna let these stupid bastards kill us all because they’re being so short-sighted and so focused on profit. They just don’t want to have less profit. It’s about money. And they’re being shortsightedly stupid about the evidence because they just don’t wanna look at it. But it is what it is, and it’s worse than anybody knows.”

His words were reminiscent of a song he and Graham Nash made together in 1989. The lyrics state, “It’s not that we don’t know, it’s just that we don’t want to care.” The song is called “To the Last Whale” and it’s either an ode to or frankly, an obituary for dying whales, with an overall theme of our apparent disregard for our planet. It points to the overwhelming human interest for short-term, cosmetic benefits like makeup in exchange for the lives of nature’s oldest beasts. “I can see your body lie,” the song continues, “it’s a shame you have to die to put the shadow on our eye.”

Another, perhaps even more pointed song about climate change from CSNY comes from their 1988 song “Clear Blue Skies.” It echoed fear about the physical state of our planet before we had as much damning evidence as we do now.

“Clear blue skies, not too much to ask for,
They were here before we came,
Will they be here when we’re gone?
Clean water, not too much to hope for,
It’s the basis of our lives
And without it we are done.”

(Clear Blue Skies lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC)

Despite his open anxieties and criticisms about the Trump Administration, the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer offered an optimistic remedy. “This is hard times. I like to tell people that music is a lifting force, you know? Like they say, ‘when the war drags us down, music drags us up.’ I think it tells me things better,” he said. “I think it gives people substance for their soul. I think this is really hard times for us. I think our democracy is in danger. I think we’re in a really rough situation. People love [music], man. They love the lift of music.” Crosby doesn’t just use his music to speak on current events. Rolling Stone gave him an advice column, where he regularly addressed political strife. Apathy continues to be a silent bad guy we’ve all been fighting in the political arena for a while, but Crosby gives a bitter reminder of why it’s important to keep going. In an early 2020 edition of the “Ask Croz” column, the singer was asked by a reader how to deal with apathy that was prevalent at the time. “Look at the situation we’re in,” wrote Crosby. “We have global warming and a president who doesn’t believe in it or anything that doesn’t provide a personal profit to himself. The guy running the senate, Mitch McConnell, also only cares about profit. We can’t not fight them. I can’t conceive of rolling over and putting my paws up. We must fight.”  Crosby’s fears were eased a bit soon after Joe Biden’s inauguration when the new administration brought an end to the Keystone XL Pipeline and rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement that was rejected by Trump.

Since we don’t seem to have many new, well-known protest anthems in the United States, we no longer have songs that are easy to chant and unite crowds at demonstrations (think of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Give Peace a Chance”). In 1978, Charles J. Stewart argued at a Purdue University graduate seminar on social movements that “protest music emerges from a felt need, social anxiety, or a perceived state of relative deprivation” and that “protest songs frequently focus on the identification of a problem situation that requires the movement as a solution, thus legitimizing the movement.” Folk had this covered in the Sixties and Seventies-era of protest music and hip-hop largely has this covered now, with a keen focus on Black Lives Matter (BLM).

In a 1964 interview with Vogue, American protest singer and songwriter Phil Ochs provided some insight on the intention of those who sang protest songs (Sixties-era) stating, “We’re trying to crystalize the thoughts of young people who have stopped accepting things the way they are,” he said. “Young people are disillusioned; we want to reinforce their disillusionment, so they’ll get more involved and do something – not out of a general sense of rebellion, but out of a real concern for what’s happening.”

Of course, during the era of resistance in the United States in the late 1960s and Seventies, were the overt concerns over civil rights and ending the devastating war in Vietnam. The unique result was the fusion of the music with the movements, which gave folk or protest singers not only an eager audience but also a mission. Despite the awakened power of protest, not only in the States but around the world, why aren’t we hearing as many mainstream anthems? “I think most of the people who get into show business get into it for the money,” Crosby said, adding, “Which I don’t really give a shit about. I think they don’t want to be political because it gets in the way of getting the money.”

He’s not wrong. It’s uncommon for pop music to deliver a strong, political opinion because it’s just not sexy. Katy Perry tried it for a second in 2017, with something she called “purposeful pop.” Her song “Chained to the Rhythm” pointed to obvious difficulties in the Trump era. The problem was, however, that the upbeat, clubby sound overshadowed the a little-too-broad message of the song, making it sound like just another unthoughtful pop track; seemingly cranked out in a factory where today’s pop music is manufactured. Would the song have been taken more seriously if its lyrics were packaged through hip-hop or simply delivered by a less bubblegummy pop artist? Maybe.

On the other hand, Crosby reasoned that his long-time role as a singer-songwriter is a different job. His role is simply to “carry the news from town to town. We’re the town criers. Well, that’s part of our job. It’s not all of our job. But that’s what protest music really is; it’s us being a witness. It’s us saying, ‘Oh my God, the United States of America is shooting its own children or putting them in cages.’ We have to witness this.”

“In my opinion,” he continued, “it should be only part of what we do. Our main job is to take you on emotional voyages or make you boogie, make you wanna dance. Make you feel good. Every once in a while… ‘Ohio.’” Of course, “Ohio” is considered the quintessential protest song. Rolling Stone’s David Browne hailed it the “impossible to top” protest song. He also pointed out after watching Crosby and other artists perform it at a 2018 Carnegie Hall concert that “For better or worse in terms of America, ‘Ohio’ sounded as if it had been written this year.”

Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin’
Four dead in Ohio

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

(Ohio lyrics © Universal Music – Z Tunes LLC)

“Ohio” was of course written as a devastated response to the May 4th Kent State shootings. Young wrote in the liner notes of his 1977 anthology, Decade, “It’s still hard to believe I had to write this song. It’s ironic that I capitalized on the death of these American students. Probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning. My best CSNY cut. Recorded totally live in Los Angeles. David Crosby cried after this take.”

It’s been over 50 years and we still haven’t had another protest song hit with the same gusto, even though artists have no shortage of inspiration. The never-ending news cycle rarely leaves the palm of our hands. Today when there is a national tragedy, like hearing that a good chunk of California is on fire or there was another senseless shooting, our pockets and handbags buzz immediately. Despite push-notifications giving us and artists instant access to current events, we just don’t see as many impactful or mainstream musical responses like we did 50 years ago.

Crosby was asked why he thinks this is the case. He said, “I wish more people felt compelled to stick up for what they believe in but there are quite a few of principled people in the music business. Bonnie Raitt leaps to mind; James Taylor leaps to mind. There are some pretty decent folks,” he said. But unfortunately, he said he just doesn’t hear as much musical activism as he’d like to.

Chic Canfora, a May 4 witness and political activist has spoken with Crosby a few times and remains moved by his compassion for May 4 victims. “I took him on a tour of the May 4 Center,” Canfora said. “I had a chance to say to him, “where are the protest songs today?” There’s so much to disagree with right now. There is so much to raise awareness about now. Where are the protest songs? I think he was waiting for new young groups to emerge and convey messages. I know there’s a lot of that happening in hip-hop but for some reason they’re not sticking like they did with us.”

But that doesn’t mean Crosby isn’t doing his part to push songwriters of all genres to pump out some protest songs. “I’ve been appealing to other writers – a shit load of people on Twitter – I put it out there saying, ‘Anything you can write; we need a fight song. We need an ‘Ohio.’ We need a ‘We Shall Overcome.’ We need one. I’m trying to write it myself, and I’m also trying to encourage everybody else to write. In the meantime, I’m singing ‘Ohio,’” he laughed.

Crosby is not the only CSNY member rallying artists to write music with a message. “We are reaching out to you as musicians and artists,” Neil Young wrote on his website in the fall of 2019, “who will embrace their stories with humility, openness, and respect, and find a way within the music community … to amplify their voices and elevate the truth.” Young’s call to action implored musicians to use the very words of the “unaccompanied” immigrant children at the U.S. border found in published court filings in June of 2019, in hopes to give their accounts a platform that may resonate with listeners enough to give way to change.

Making a political issue personal is arguably what folk protest music does best. Combining a wide variety of influences, songwriter Tom Rush has been presenting musical messages that carry a subtle intensity for the content that complements his unique style. He remains a long-time voice for social change and perception, and he has very distinct views about the age or protest and its direction. Rush also expressed in an interview for this book that “an emotional argument stands a chance, and this is where Woody Guthrie was good, and Dylan was good at his best in making the issues personal. Putting faces on things.” Rush raised another good point about what Guthrie tried to accomplish in his 1948 song “Deportee” – a response to a tragic plane crash the same year that killed 28 illegal immigrants. “The plane went down,” Rush said, “and the radio coverage that Guthrie heard was that this plane went down in and 57 people were killed, and they named the pilot and copilot, but the rest were ‘deportees’ and that bummed Guthrie,” Rush said. So, Guthrie wrote a song naming each passenger by name, wishing them a personal farewell. “It was a very powerful song and I think maybe made some people stop and think ‘wow these are people. They’re not just deportees. They have names, they have lives, they have children.’ So that kind of song that reaches you on an emotional level I think could change minds and maybe did. Dylan wrote some of those as well.”

This method of making the news – particularly news about immigrants in peril – is being pulled off over seventy years later by Young in that apparent plea to give face to the unnamed “others” we only read about. If only we had more musical leaders like the former CSNY folkies who remain defiant and willing to stand up and speak out. “We just need people willing to speak their minds and stuff. I think some of the big pop acts — notably Lady Gaga — and a couple others of the women are sticking up,” Crosby continued. “I don’t know… maybe it will get better. Maybe the rap people will get involved.”

Boy George — an LGBTQ legend best known for dominating the pop scene in the Eighties —  is known as one of the great male pop acts who helped forge a space in pop for androgynous expression and sexuality (besides, of course, Elton John, Prince, David Bowie, etc.). Ahead of a local show in 2018, Boy George chatted with Cleveland Scene and also pointed to rap as the genre making the most pointed political statements today.

When asked if music is as important today for shaping social movements as it was during that time period, George said, “Well, I don’t think that it’s the same. I think rap music definitely has more of a political voice. It’s not the same as Dylan or Sam Cooke. I think that music is definitely a reflection of the kind of social times that we live in. I think that we live in an age now where people get upset about almost everything. Do you know what I mean? [laughs]. So how do you work out what’s important? [laughs]. I was having this conversation with some friends. We were talking about this very subject and how everybody is just so prepared to get so upset about everything. So how do you work out what’s important? It’s that whole throwing the baby out with the bathwater thing. We were all talking about how much we fear people losing their sense of humor, you know, freedom of speech is being really attacked. So, no, I don’t think people are using music necessarily to say political things. Maybe rap music is probably the one exception. It’s a strange time for pop culture because there’s no one doing that, but that’s not to say it won’t happen. You know what I mean? I think it could very well come back.” And slowly, it has.

“Some of them talk about the truth,” Crosby continued about rap artists. “Some of them talk about important shit. It’s pretty rare though. Mostly they’re talking about, you know, tits and ass. But maybe it will get better. Maybe we’ll get another Bruce Springsteen come walking in out of nowhere. You just never know. But in the meantime, I’ve got a certain amount of time; I’m gonna spend it doing this.”

A new Bruce comin’ or not, the original Boss hasn’t gone anywhere. After having campaigned for Clinton in 2016, Bruce took some heat, learning just how “little” he means to Trump. Trump took aim at Springsteen at a rally in 2019 when he declared he didn’t need Clinton’s massive supporters, Beyoncé, Jay Z or “little Bruce Springsteen” to win the election. In an interview with Gayle King, Springsteen was asked if he was surprised to learn that Trump was still firing away at him. “Not really,” he responded. “We’re living in a frightening time… Unfortunately, we have somebody who I feel doesn’t have a grasp of the deep meaning of what it means to be an American.”

Of course, support from prominent music acts gives candidates a boost of perceived credibility that can have enough impact sway the masses, or at least the youth. But music plays another big role in campaigns too. The songs chosen to play at rallies sets a tone or intention and unites voters in a distinct way. Neil Young has been a megaphone of dissent toward Trump from the beginning but by 2020, the gloves came completely off. In a long, contemptuous letter to Trump on his archives website he kicked things off with, “You are a disgrace to my country.” He continued. “Your mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, our environment, and our relationships with friends around the world is unforgivable.… Our first Black president was a better man than you are.”

But what really seemed to grind Young’s gears was Trump’s usage of his song “Rockin’ in the Free World” at his rallies. Despite Young’s numerous requests to stop, Trump kept on rockin’ the song. “[It] is not a song you can trot out at one of your rallies,” he writes. “Perhaps you could have been a bass player and played in a rock & roll band. That way you could have been onstage at a rally every night in front of your fans, if you were any good, and you might be …”  However, presidential candidates have long battled artists over use of their music on the campaign trail with Springsteen facing off against Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Isaac Hayes warning Bob Dole, and the Rolling Stones threatening legal action against the Trump campaign over use of their songs….which was probably the mildest threat “the Donald” faced by Jagger and company.  Back in 1989 Keith Richards threatened the future candidate with a knife backstage in Atlantic City during the Steel Wheels Tour when Trump attempted to attach his name to marketing the Stones. It didn’t start with rockers either.

Of course, we can’t forget to mention an earlier example that took place in the White House two years after May 4, 1970. In an apparent attempt at some positive publicity, Nixon invited Johnny Cash to perform some friendly, supportive songs at a White House concert. “Johnny, would you be willing to play a few songs for us?” He went on to specifically request, “I like Merle Haggard’s ‘Okie From Muskogee’ and Guy Drake’s ‘Welfare Cadillac.’” (He apparently missed the satire saturated throughout both of these songs.) “I don’t know those songs,” Cash told the President. “But I got a few of my own I can play for you.” In a tense but respectful show, Cash performed “What Is Truth?” an anthem for youth which lyrics ask, “Can you blame the voice of youth for asking ‘What is truth?’” A bold move, but an honest one.  Another bold move came from an outspoken admirer of Richard Nixon, but also one whom was touched by the historical significance of key events.

Offstage, Elvis Presley tended to keep a low profile. He paid every penny in taxes without deductions (due in part to manager Colonel Tom Parker’s status as an illegal alien from the Netherlands).  Plus, he didn’t really need the attention. He was Elvis and privacy was at a premium. Even so, Elvis was never a face of protest. In fact, this was a man who, according to Ringo in the Beatles Anthology documentary, tried to convince Nixon to ban the Beatles in America. But in 1968, as his country was staring into the face of fear and disillusionment, Presley penned what can be argued as a grossly underappreciated peace anthem.

In a 2018 film that explores the evolution of Presley, The Searcher features producer and director Chris Bearde, who helped produce Presley’s esteemed 1968 comeback special. Bearde explains that they knew they wanted to end the show in a major way, but initially weren’t quite sure how. One day as they were rehearsing for the show, a little black and white television sat in the corner of the room, broadcasting the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Bearde explained Presley’s panicked response, saying he jumped to his feet, grabbing his guitar and talking a mile a minute, he said to everyone in the room, “I need you to understand me because this is a time where we all have to understand each other.” Then they, of course, penned “If I Can Dream” and slated it as the final song of the special, resulting in an emotionally moving performance that cemented the special in history.

“If I Can Dream” is a song of radical peace and utopia, much like Lennon would go on to describe in “Imagine” only three years later. “Imagine” remains thought of as the biggest anthem for peace and Lennon’s greatest solo work. Some say it was inspired by his muse Yoko. But Lennon’s first hero was Elvis, who he has said without, there would be no Beatles. Elvis described a dream, Lennon asked us to imagine. Both offered optimism and sonically painted a picture of a better land as the country grieved its broken promises.

We also have to consider the misplaced political use of Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A” some years later.  To the untrained ear, the song is just a rally for American patriotism. But it is in fact a boldfaced attack on the broken promises that were made to U.S. soldiers after the hurt and letdown of Vietnam veterans. In 2019, music director Lauren Onkey described to Morning Edition Springsteen’s process when he penned the anthem, explaining the song was originally called “Vietnam.’”

“He did a big benefit in the summer of ’81 for Vietnam veterans in Los Angeles and met with vets,” Onkey said. “After that tour ends, there’s a number of places where he’s trying to write about the Vietnam veteran experience, so the song grows out of that moment.” Although the result Springsteen ended up with sounds more like an upbeat, patriotic celebration, many still understand the lyrics to be cynical and suspicious – but that tone apparently did not land with President Reagan. In an attempt to connect to a younger demographic during his 1984 campaign, he used “Born in the U.S.A. at rallies, making him appear out-of-touch, at least to Springsteen fans who understood the song’s intent.

It seems Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate to truly master integrating himself into youth culture through music and television. In the summer of ’92, Clinton made history when he played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show – a late-night talk show that dominated the culture for a brief time. This move made Clinton appear not only relatable but cool. In a 2018 documentary series The 90’s Greatest, Hall commented on the historic event, saying that having a presidential candidate on a late-night show “almost unheard of” and that Clinton “was intelligent enough to see the future of how we had to reach Americans.” Nineties sitcom legend Fran Drescher added to the documentary’s dialogue around Clinton’s unprecedented “cool guy” image saying Clinton, “paved the way for a new generation of politicians that were raised on rock and roll.”