{"id":30,"date":"2025-12-19T15:51:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/?post_type=chapter&p=30"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:41:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:41:29","slug":"rock-to-rap-the-evolution-of-protest-music","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/chapter\/rock-to-rap-the-evolution-of-protest-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock to Rap \u2013 The Evolution of Protest Music"},"content":{"raw":"
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\u201cRock and Roll is political. It is a meaningful way to express dissent, <\/em>upset the status quo, stir up revolution and fight for human rights.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\r\n

\u2013 Joan Jett\u00a0(Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, 2015)<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nHere we are, 50 years since the defining era of resistance (the late Sixties) and we\u2019re showing up at demonstrations in droves again. But this time, we\u2019re doing it without massive protest anthems. On March 24, 2018, 1.2 million people joined the \u201cMarch for Our Lives\u201d protest across America, making it one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War. The Women\u2019s Marches of 2018 drew even larger numbers with a nationwide crowd of 3 million. As Rolling Stone\u2019s <\/em>Sarah Jaffe put it, \u201cAmericans 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\u2026\u201d\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re not just marching for Black lives, women\u2019s rights and prevention of gun violence; we\u2019re showing up for mother nature, too. On March 15, 2019, approximately 1.4 million\u00a0students across\u00a0123 countries\u00a0skipped school in a movement called \u201cFridays for Future\u201d to demand greater climate policies. It was possibly one of the largest environmental protests in history.\r\n\r\nThere 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<\/em> 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. \u201cMusic was a major catalyst for the advancement and the platform and the agenda for the civil rights movement,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cWhether 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nMusic 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 \u2013 even almost a mutually exclusive sound \u2013 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.\r\n\r\nOf course, music is more than just a powerful, often emotional release, it\u2019s also recognized as a persuasive political tool, a space for resistance, and it\u2019s even been argued by some scholars that there\u2019s also an \u201cassumption underlying the practices of propaganda, campaign, and censorship.\u201d Put simply by two Communication and Journalism at Rider University, \u201cpopular music matters politically.\u201d Few can speak on that topic with the authority of Tom Rush, a long-time soldier in the fight for equality and musical expression.\u00a0 He was asked if music is as important for moving movements forward as it was in the Sixties.\r\n\r\nRush admits, \u201cGoing 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\u2019t agree with the song, you just turned it off, you changed the station. The problem here, and I\u2019m gonna get a little philosophical but, we\u2019re 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.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy take was that some of the Phil Ochs\u2019 material, some of Tom Paxton\u2019s were preaching to the choir things,\u201d Rush continued. \u201cThey were more logical, intellectual presentations of an ideology. They helped to solidify a movement, but I don\u2019t think they changed anybody\u2019s mind.\u201d Let\u2019s jump to present day. Has the musical landscape become so fragmented that everything is \u201ctoo noisy\u201d to really have a clear leader? Rush says he doesn\u2019t really know the answer \u201clike so many other people,\u201d he says, \u201cI 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\u2019t listen to the radio, but I also don\u2019t listen to much music anymore which I blush to admit. There are some fabulous musicians out there. The people that I\u2019m aware of and think are really talented people are also not going down that road [of protest music].\u201d\r\n\r\nBut Rush was quick to add that it\u2019s not necessarily a sense of apathy in the musical community. He\u2019ll tell you, \u201cI think it\u2019s partly enlightened self-interest. Musicians back then were actually passionate about the issues and didn\u2019t really think too hard about, \u2018Well, maybe this will turn people off.\u2019\u00a0 Now I think there\u2019s more of a commercial take on things. People say, \u2018Well I don\u2019t wanna say things that are gonna alienate anybody because I want the biggest audience I can get. So, I\u2019m gonna tread lightly and do love songs and stay away from getting involved in political or social issues.\u2019\u201d Maybe those messages have taken on a more subtle nature as well.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not proud to say it\u201d, Rush will tell you, \u201cbut I kind of do the same. I\u2019m 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\u2019s not gonna change their mind, it\u2019s just gonna ruin their experience of the evening. If I go there, I try to do it humorously, I\u2019ll put a line in a song. I used \u2018no collusion\u2019 in one of the funny songs that I do, and it gets a huge laugh but I\u2019m not dwelling on it.\u201d\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean he shies away from political issues even today.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s one called \u2018East of Eden.\u2019 It\u2019s about a family trying to migrate into the US and they\u2019re stopped by this wall. It\u2019s a very sympathetic song to their point of view. I\u2019ve got a funny song that goes \u2018I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s wrong with America, I\u2019ll tell why times are so tough. The poor have too much money and the rich don\u2019t have enough.\u2019 It goes on from there. It\u2019s a humorous song and I can see some people scowling in the audience, but they don\u2019t get up and leave.\u201d\r\n\r\nRush adds that modern politics has also taken him back to his roots.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m 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\u2019t 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\u2019s one thing, but I don\u2019t wanna just make them angry without presenting an alternative way of looking at something that\u2019s emotionally based because again, logic is totally irrelevant in the situation.\u201d\r\n\r\nRush adds that relevance is still the key, but in many cases so is a sense of impartiality saying, \u201cA lot of it is fear-based on both sides. With the gun issue, for instance, the gun people are afraid they won\u2019t 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 a little girl who was shot \u2013 and make people care about that little girl, then that song might have some impact.\u201d Also, remember what he said about preaching to the choir. Media plays a role. \u201cThere\u2019s 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\u2019t agree with. Both sides can live in their bubbles and ignore the other side and it\u2019s 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.\u201d But that\u2019s not to say certain media isn\u2019t biased. Google takes as much blame as social media.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nRush admits it can be a frustrating process. \u201cPeople who want to believe that stuff will believe it because it reinforces their bias. I think the Russians, one of the Russian\u2019s 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.\u201d Even so, Rush hopes a new standard bearer can emerge to fight the good fight.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt seems protest music from the defining age is, well, easier to define. It\u2019s too easy to point to prolific songs from that era and say, \u201cYep, that\u2019s a protest song\u201d and that\u2019s thanks to their straightforward characteristics. The formula is easy: there\u2019s a problem, a call to action, and it\u2019s easy to repeat, like a mantra that can sell the masses on the solution. \u201cAll we are saying, is give peace a chance.\u201d Easy to chant, easy to digest, easy to sell. But today\u2019s music with a message is a little more complicated than that: it\u2019s 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\u2019 available tunes.\r\n\r\nBut between then and now one thing in music with a message hasn\u2019t changed; it\u2019s always been for the masses and intended to be popular.\u00a0 Back in 1974, researchers Fox & Williams\u00a0 defined \u201cpopular\u201d as \u201cbelonging to the people,\u201d \u201cwidely favored,\u201d and \u201cwell-liked.\u201d Popular music is, of course, a category of entertainment that regularly addresses politics Moreover, it\u2019s been said that \u201cpopular music has tremendous affective power, and the affective nature of music is ineffable.\u201d\r\n\r\nRecalling 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\u2019 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\u2019s step back to an earlier time of emerging media.\r\n\r\nRadio was all the mid-1950s kids really had \u2013 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 \u2014 no beat; nothing to dance to.\r\n\r\nRock \u2018n roll, as it was originally coined, was the hero the mid-1950s kids were looking for. It didn\u2019t wear a red cape or fight crime, but its infectious energy was authoritative enough to become a something a young person doesn\u2019t just jive to on the radio, but an attitude one could embody. Today\u2019s 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\u2019s internet surfer never really feel alone and should rarely be bored \u2013 or at least as bored as the pre-rock and roll 1950\u2019s kids were.\r\n\r\nOnce the recording industry saw big dollar signs in \u201cBlack music\u201d, \u201crace music\u201d or \u201crhythm and blues\u201d as they would go on to label it, they had a new product to sell the kids. If you\u2019re only skimming the history books, it\u2019s easy to believe the term was created by Hollywood the moment in 1956 when Bill Haley\u2019s Rock Around the Clock<\/em> became the theme for the film The Blackboard Jungle<\/em> or with the release of Elvis Presley\u2019s first film, Love Me Tender<\/em>. But we know there\u2019s 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 \u2013 mostly as a fun term for sex. In a Fifties television show, Fats Domino said of the new genre\u2019s origin, \u201cRock & roll is nothing but rhythm & blues and we\u2019ve been playing it for years down in New Orleans.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe 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 \u201cRadio, Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll and the Civil Rights Movement\u201d and put rock and roll\u2019s influence during the civil rights movement into its proper timeline and highlighted the extreme (to the point of humorous) reactions\u2014from horrified conservative parents to the all-too-eager-teens who couldn\u2019t get enough.\r\n\r\nAs 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 \u201crace records\u201d \u2014 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 \u201crace.\u201d So, the industry decided to drop the term \u2014 changing it to \u201crhythm and blues,\u201d which West and Kaminski called \u201ca convenient catchall term for all Black music.\u201d\r\n\r\nDuring the post-war economic expansion, both southern Black and Whites moved North \u2014 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 \u201850s, 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,\u00a0 the infamous DJ is the one credited with having officially coined the term \u201crock and roll,\u201d 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.\r\n\r\nFor 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 \u201ca White man who had the negro sounds and the negro feel\u201d 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\u2019 dream of racking up big bucks swiftly came true (he would later sell Presley\u2019s contract to RCA for a quick buck and probably a lifetime of regret).\r\n\r\nIn a 1990 Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a> article<\/a>, reporter Robert Palmer wrote, \u201cWith 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\u2019t 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 \u2026\u201d\r\n\r\nRock and roll quickly became more than just a beat to dance to. According to West and Kaminski, it also served as \u201ca cohesive bond for a youthful generation that was searching for an identity. Further, it served as a line of demarcation from the \u2018establishment\u2019 and the \u2018old\u2019 ways of viewing society.\u201d Palmer also said about the decade of music that \u201cchanged the world\u201d that \u201cRock and roll wasn\u2019t 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor 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<\/em> magazine chronicled the results of rock and roll and reported that it bore \u201ca passing resemblance to Hitler mass meetings.\u201d 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, \u201cMuch 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\u00a0traditional American values<\/em>, than a full-tilt Little Richard show?\u201d\r\n\r\nOf course, this was not the goal radio had in mind. \u201cRadio and the recording industry did not initiate nor perpetuate the rock and roll phenomena with any regard to its potential impact on society,\u201d West and Kaminski wrote. \u201cThey 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere 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 \u201cseemed to defy authority\u201d and finally, that the rock and roll singers \u201cwere negroes or sounded like negroes.\u201d This last complaint was a \u201cmatter of most open concern in the south.\u201d Rock and roll sparked fear and hysteria within conservative communities and quite frankly, enraged racists.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d West and Kaminski wrote. Rock and Roll quickly became the musical lubricant that helped further the divide between youth and the conservative establishment. \u201cThe enemies of rock and roll were the same enemies of integration and fairness to Blacks.\u201d This new craze even had a language of its own that only the youth seemed to understand. \u201cWhether it was the lyrics or the chatter, the youth of the 1950s picked up a jargon which the adults neither liked nor understood,\u201d West and Kaminski wrote. \u201cThe language was \u2018secret\u2019 and its alienating effects upon the traditional establishment was welcomed by the youth.\u201d\r\n\r\nEd Ward, co-author of Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll<\/em>, wrote of the phenomenon, \u201cHere 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 \u2013 a White guy, at that \u2013 playing weird records with sort of dirty lyrics, talking into your ear, like a co-conspirator. He knew who you were\u2026\u2019the late people\u2019 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs the civil rights movement was under way, West and Kaminski wrote, the rock and roll advocates would soon rally together against the \u201cforces of oppression that were against their music and their musicians\u201d making the movement and the music a package deal. Eventually, rock blended with folk, creating a folk-rock hybrid \u2014 perfect for strumming away the blues, or more specifically, political woes. As we mentioned in a previous chapter, folk rock legend David Crosby \u2013 founding member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) \u2013 has a musical legacy that\u2019s marked its place in protest music history time and again.\r\n\r\nIn a phone interview with Cleveland Scene<\/em> 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, \u201cHe\u2019s just\u2026 he\u2019s a dick.\u201d He didn\u2019t have a reason to beat around the bush about the former chief executive.\u00a0 Crosby has been laying down his truth boldly and publicly for 50 years.\r\n\r\nCrosby was very vocal and equally specific in his concerns, \u201cHe\u2019s doing great harm. He\u2019s been lying to our country,\u201d 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.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey\u2019re shooting this for television. I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll edit this out. I wanna say it anyway even though they will edit it out,\u201d the 26-year-old Crosby professed to the crowd with his guitar slung over his shoulder. \u201cWhen 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,\u201d he casually finished without missing a beat. Four months after this biting declaration, he was kicked out of the Byrds.\r\n\r\nThe band\u2019s bassist, Chris Hillman put Crosby\u2019s departure from the Byrds this way, \u201cDavid just had this knack for causing trouble. ... He was an extrovert and had a lot of guts \u2013 which sometimes meant he could be an arrogant jerk.\u201d Unsurprisingly, Crosby saw it a little differently. In a 1980 interview he said of Hillman and the band\u2019s front man Roger McGuinn, \u201c[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\u2014- 'em. But it hurt like hell. I didn't try to reason with them. I just said, \u2018it's a shameful waste ... goodbye.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Needless to say, it didn\u2019t result in Crosby taking any pause in his outspoken views on personal, public and political issues.\r\n\r\nThat same fiery spirit of unfiltered defiance continues to burn over 50 years later. While discussing why mainstream protest anthems don\u2019t 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, \u201cWell, it would inspire everybody to feel better about their country. What\u2019s going on now is pretty horrific.\u201d From there, he humorously went on to describe Trump as \u201ca spoiled child who broke into his dad\u2019s office and he\u2019s peeing on all the papers because he was never allowed in there.\u201d A one-of-a-kind metaphor, but at the same time, not too outlandish.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe worst thing of all,\u201d Crosby noted about the Trump\u2019s Administration was \u201cnot 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis 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. \u201cI\u2019m not gonna let these stupid bastards kill us all because they\u2019re being so short-sighted and so focused on profit. They just don\u2019t want to have less profit. It\u2019s about money. And they\u2019re being shortsightedly stupid about the evidence because they just don\u2019t wanna look at it. But it is what it is, and it\u2019s worse than anybody knows.\u201d\r\n\r\nHis words were reminiscent of a song he and Graham Nash made together in 1989. The lyrics state, \u201cIt's not that we don't know, it's just that we don't want to care.\u201d The song is called \u201cTo the Last Whale\u201d and it\u2019s 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\u2019s oldest beasts. \u201cI can see your body lie,\u201d the song continues, \u201cit's a shame you have to die to put the shadow on our eye.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnother, perhaps even more pointed song about climate change from CSNY comes from their 1988 song \u201cClear Blue Skies.\u201d It echoed fear about the physical state of our planet before we had as much damning evidence as we do now.\r\n\r\n\u201cClear blue skies, not too much to ask for,\r\nThey were here before we came,\r\nWill they be here when we're gone?\r\nClean water, not too much to hope for,\r\nIt's the basis of our lives\r\nAnd without it we are done.\u201d\r\n\r\n(Clear Blue Skies lyrics \u00a9 Sony\/ATV Music Publishing LLC)\r\n\r\nDespite his open anxieties and criticisms about the Trump Administration, the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer offered an optimistic remedy. \u201cThis is hard times. I like to tell people that music is a lifting force, you know? Like they say, \u2018when the war drags us down, music drags us up.\u2019 I think it tells me things better,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019re in a really rough situation. People love [music], man. They love the lift of music.\u201d Crosby doesn\u2019t just use his music to speak on current events. Rolling Stone<\/em> gave him an advice column, where he regularly addressed political strife. Apathy continues to be a silent bad guy we\u2019ve all been fighting in the political arena for a while, but Crosby gives a bitter reminder of why it\u2019s important to keep going. In an early 2020 edition of the \u201cAsk Croz\u201d column, the singer was asked by a reader how to deal with apathy that was prevalent at the time. \u201cLook at the situation we\u2019re in,\u201d wrote Crosby. \u201cWe have global warming and a president who doesn\u2019t believe in it or anything that doesn\u2019t provide a personal profit to himself. The guy running the senate, Mitch McConnell, also only cares about profit. We can\u2019t not fight them. I can\u2019t conceive of rolling over and putting my paws up. We must fight.\u201d\u00a0 Crosby\u2019s fears were eased a bit soon after Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration when the new administration brought an end to the Keystone XL Pipeline and rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement that was rejected by Trump.\r\n\r\nSince we don\u2019t seem to have many new, well-known protest anthems <\/em>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\u2019s \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d). In 1978, Charles J. Stewart argued at a Purdue University graduate seminar on social movements that \u201cprotest music emerges from a felt need, social anxiety, or a perceived state of relative deprivation\u201d and that \u201cprotest songs frequently focus on the identification of a problem situation that requires the movement as a solution, thus legitimizing the movement.\u201d 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).\r\n\r\nIn a 1964 interview with Vogue<\/em>, American protest singer and songwriter Phil Ochs provided some insight on the intention of those who sang protest songs (Sixties-era) stating, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to crystalize the thoughts of young people who have stopped accepting things the way they are,\u201d he said. \u201cYoung people are disillusioned; we want to reinforce their disillusionment, so they\u2019ll get more involved and do something \u2013 not out of a general sense of rebellion, but out of a real concern for what\u2019s happening.\u201d\r\n\r\nOf 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\u2019t we hearing as many mainstream anthems? \u201cI think most of the people who get into show business get into it for the money,\u201d Crosby said, adding, \u201cWhich I don\u2019t really give a shit about. I think they don\u2019t want to be political because it gets in the way of getting the money.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe\u2019s not wrong. It\u2019s uncommon for pop music to deliver a strong, political opinion because it\u2019s just not sexy. Katy Perry tried it for a second in 2017, with something she called \u201cpurposeful pop.\u201d Her song \u201cChained to the Rhythm\u201d 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\u2019s 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.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, Crosby reasoned that his long-time role as a singer-songwriter is a different job. His role is simply to \u201ccarry the news from town to town. We\u2019re the town criers. Well, that\u2019s part of our job. It\u2019s not all of our job. But that\u2019s what protest music really is; it\u2019s us being a witness. It\u2019s us saying, \u2018Oh my God, the United States of America is shooting its own children or putting them in cages.\u2019 We have to witness this.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn my opinion,\u201d he continued, \u201cit 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\u2026 \u2018Ohio.\u2019\u201d Of course, \u201cOhio\u201d is considered the quintessential protest song. Rolling Stone\u2019s<\/em> David Browne hailed it the \u201cimpossible to top\u201d protest song. He also pointed out after watching Crosby and other artists perform it at a 2018 Carnegie Hall\u00a0<\/strong>concert that \u201cFor better or worse in terms of America, \u2018Ohio\u2019 sounded as if it had been written this year.\u201d\r\n\r\nTin soldiers and Nixon's comin'\r\nWe're finally on our own\r\nThis summer I hear the drummin'\r\nFour dead in Ohio\r\n\r\nGotta get down to it\r\nSoldiers are gunning us down\r\nShould have been done long ago\r\nWhat if you knew her and\r\nFound her dead on the ground?\r\nHow can you run when you know?\r\n\r\n(Ohio lyrics \u00a9 Universal Music - Z Tunes LLC)\r\n\r\n\u201cOhio\u201d 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,\u00a0Decade<\/em>, \u201cIt'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.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt's been over 50 years and we still haven\u2019t 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\u2019t see as many impactful or mainstream musical responses like we did 50 years ago.\r\n\r\nCrosby was asked why he thinks this is the case. He said,\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>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,\u201d he said. But unfortunately, he said he just doesn\u2019t hear as much musical activism as he\u2019d like to.\r\n\r\nChic 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. \u201cI took him on a tour of the May 4 Center,\u201d Canfora said. \u201cI had a chance to say to him, \u201cwhere are the protest songs today?\u201d There\u2019s 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\u2019s a lot of that happening in hip-hop but for some reason they\u2019re not sticking like they did with us.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut that doesn\u2019t mean Crosby isn\u2019t doing his part to push songwriters of all genres to pump out some protest songs. \u201cI\u2019ve been appealing to other writers \u2013 a shit load of people on Twitter \u2013 I put it out there saying, \u2018Anything you can write; we need a fight song. We need an \u2018Ohio.\u2019 We need a \u2018We Shall Overcome.\u2019 We need one. I\u2019m trying to write it myself, and I\u2019m also trying to encourage everybody else to write. In the meantime, I\u2019m singing \u2018Ohio,\u2019\u201d he laughed.\r\n\r\nCrosby is not the only CSNY member rallying artists to write music with a message. \u201cWe are reaching out to you as musicians and artists,\u201d Neil Young wrote on his website in the fall of 2019, \u201cwho 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.\u201d Young\u2019s call to action implored musicians to use the very words of the \u201cunaccompanied\u201d immigrant children\u00a0at 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.\r\n\r\nMaking a political issue personal is arguably what folk protest music does best. Combining a wide variety of influences, songwriter Tom Rush\u00a0has been presenting musical messages that carry a subtle intensity for the content that complements his unique style.\u00a0He 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\u00a0also expressed in an interview for this book that \u201can 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.\u201d Rush raised another good point about what Guthrie tried to accomplish in his 1948 song \u201cDeportee\u201d \u2013 a response to a tragic plane crash the same year that killed 28 illegal immigrants.\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>The plane went down,\u201d Rush said, \u201cand 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 \u2018deportees\u2019 and that bummed Guthrie,\u201d Rush said. So, Guthrie wrote a song naming each passenger by name, wishing them a personal farewell. \u201cIt was a very powerful song and I think maybe made some people stop and think \u2018wow these are people. They\u2019re not just deportees. They have names, they have lives, they have children.\u2019 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.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis method of making the news \u2013 particularly news about immigrants in peril \u2013 is being pulled off over seventy years later by Young in that apparent plea to give face to the unnamed \u201cothers\u201d 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. \u201cWe just need people willing to speak their minds and stuff. I think some of the big pop acts \u2014 notably Lady Gaga \u2014 and a couple others of the women are sticking up,\u201d Crosby continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2026 maybe it will get better. Maybe the rap people will get involved.\u201d\r\n\r\nBoy George \u2014 an LGBTQ legend best known for dominating the pop scene in the Eighties \u2014\u00a0 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<\/em> and also pointed to rap as the genre making the most pointed political statements today.\r\n\r\nWhen asked if music is as important today for shaping social movements as it was during that time period, George said, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think that it's the same. I think rap music definitely has more of a political voice. It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s important? It\u2019s 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\u2019t think people are using music necessarily to say political things. Maybe rap music is probably the one exception. It\u2019s a strange time for pop culture because there\u2019s no one doing that, but that\u2019s not to say it won\u2019t happen. You know what I mean? I think it could very well come back.\u201d And slowly, it has.\r\n\r\n\u201cSome of them talk about the truth,\u201d Crosby continued about rap artists. \u201cSome of them talk about important shit. It\u2019s pretty rare though. Mostly they\u2019re talking about, you know, tits and ass. But maybe it will get better. Maybe we\u2019ll get another Bruce Springsteen come walking in out of nowhere. You just never know. But in the meantime, I\u2019ve got a certain amount of time; I\u2019m gonna spend it doing this.\u201d\r\n\r\nA new Bruce comin\u2019 or not, the original Boss hasn\u2019t gone anywhere. After having campaigned for Clinton in 2016, Bruce took some heat, learning just how \u201clittle\u201d he means to Trump. Trump took aim at Springsteen at a rally in 2019 when he declared he didn\u2019t need Clinton\u2019s massive supporters, Beyonc\u00e9, Jay Z or \u201clittle Bruce Springsteen\u201d to win the election. In an interview with Gayle King<\/a>, Springsteen was asked if he was surprised to learn that Trump was still firing away at him. \u201cNot really,\u201d he responded. \u201cWe'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.\u201d\r\n\r\nOf 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<\/a> he kicked things off with, \u201cYou are a disgrace to my country.\u201d He continued. \u201cYour mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, our environment, and our relationships with friends around the world is unforgivable.\u2026 Our first Black president was a better man than you are.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut what really seemed to grind Young\u2019s gears was Trump\u2019s usage of his song \u201cRockin\u2019 in the Free World\u201d at his rallies. Despite Young\u2019s numerous requests to stop, Trump kept on rockin\u2019 the song. \u201c[It] is not a song you can trot out at one of your rallies,\u201d he writes. \u201cPerhaps 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 \u2026\u201d\u00a0 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\u2026.which was probably the mildest threat \u201cthe Donald\u201d faced by Jagger and company.\u00a0 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\u2019t start with rockers either.\r\n\r\nOf course, we can\u2019t 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<\/a> to perform some friendly, supportive songs at a White House concert. \u201cJohnny, would you be willing to play a few songs for us?\u201d He went on to specifically request, \u201cI like Merle Haggard\u2019s \u2018Okie From Muskogee\u2019 and Guy Drake\u2019s \u2018Welfare Cadillac.\u2019\u201d (He apparently missed the satire saturated throughout both of these songs.) \u201cI don\u2019t know those songs,\u201d Cash told the President. \u201cBut I got a few of my own I can play for you.\u201d In a tense but respectful show, Cash performed \u201cWhat Is Truth?\u201d an anthem for youth which lyrics ask, \u201cCan you blame the voice of youth for asking \u2018What is truth?\u2019\u201d A bold move, but an honest one.\u00a0 Another bold move came from an outspoken admirer of Richard Nixon, but also one whom was touched by the historical significance of key events.\r\n\r\nOffstage, Elvis Presley tended to keep a low profile. He paid every penny in taxes without deductions (due in part to manager Colonel Tom Parker\u2019s status as an illegal alien from the Netherlands).\u00a0 Plus, he didn\u2019t 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<\/em>\u00a0documentary, 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.\r\n\r\nIn a 2018 film that explores the evolution of Presley, The Searcher<\/em> features producer and director Chris Bearde, who helped produce Presley\u2019s esteemed 1968 comeback special. Bearde explains that they knew they wanted to end the show in a major way, but initially weren\u2019t 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\u2019s panicked response, saying he jumped to his feet, grabbing his guitar and talking a mile a minute, he said to everyone in the room, \u201cI need you to understand me because this is a time where we all have to understand each other.\u201d Then they, of course, penned \u201cIf I Can Dream\u201d and slated it as the final song of the special, resulting in an emotionally moving performance that cemented the special in history.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I Can Dream\u201d is a song of radical peace and utopia, much like Lennon would go on to describe in \u201cImagine\u201d only three years later. \u201cImagine\u201d 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.\r\n\r\nWe also have to consider the misplaced political use of Springsteen\u2019s \u201cBorn in the U.S.A\u201d some years later.\u00a0 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<\/a>. In 2019, music director Lauren Onkey described to\u00a0Morning Edition<\/em><\/a> Springsteen\u2019s process when he penned the anthem, explaining the song was originally called \u201cVietnam.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe did a big benefit in the summer of '81 for Vietnam veterans in Los Angeles and met with vets,\u201d Onkey said. \u201cAfter 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.\u201d Although the result Springsteen ended up with sounds more like an upbeat, patriotic celebration, many still understand the lyrics to be cynical and suspicious \u2013 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 \u201cBorn in the U.S.A. at rallies, making him appear out-of-touch, at least to Springsteen fans who understood the song\u2019s intent.\r\n\r\nIt seems Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate to truly master integrating himself into youth culture through music and television. In the summer of \u201992, Clinton made history when he played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show \u2013 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\u2019s Greatest<\/em>, Hall commented on the historic event, saying that having a presidential candidate on a late-night show \u201calmost unheard of\u201d and that Clinton \u201cwas intelligent enough to see the future of how we had to reach Americans.\u201d Nineties sitcom legend Fran Drescher added to the documentary\u2019s dialogue around Clinton\u2019s unprecedented \u201ccool guy\u201d image saying Clinton, \u201cpaved the way for a new generation of politicians that were raised on rock and roll.\u201d\r\n\r\n ","rendered":"

\n

\u201cRock and Roll is political. It is a meaningful way to express dissent, <\/em>upset the status quo, stir up revolution and fight for human rights.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Joan Jett\u00a0(Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, 2015)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here we are, 50 years since the defining era of resistance (the late Sixties) and we\u2019re showing up at demonstrations in droves again. But this time, we\u2019re doing it without massive protest anthems. On March 24, 2018, 1.2 million people joined the \u201cMarch for Our Lives\u201d protest across America, making it one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War. The Women\u2019s Marches of 2018 drew even larger numbers with a nationwide crowd of 3 million. As Rolling Stone\u2019s <\/em>Sarah Jaffe put it, \u201cAmericans 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\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not just marching for Black lives, women\u2019s rights and prevention of gun violence; we\u2019re showing up for mother nature, too. On March 15, 2019, approximately 1.4 million\u00a0students across\u00a0123 countries\u00a0skipped school in a movement called \u201cFridays for Future\u201d to demand greater climate policies. It was possibly one of the largest environmental protests in history.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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. \u201cMusic was a major catalyst for the advancement and the platform and the agenda for the civil rights movement,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cWhether 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 even almost a mutually exclusive sound \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Of course, music is more than just a powerful, often emotional release, it\u2019s also recognized as a persuasive political tool, a space for resistance, and it\u2019s even been argued by some scholars that there\u2019s also an \u201cassumption underlying the practices of propaganda, campaign, and censorship.\u201d Put simply by two Communication and Journalism at Rider University, \u201cpopular music matters politically.\u201d Few can speak on that topic with the authority of Tom Rush, a long-time soldier in the fight for equality and musical expression.\u00a0 He was asked if music is as important for moving movements forward as it was in the Sixties.<\/p>\n

Rush admits, \u201cGoing 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\u2019t agree with the song, you just turned it off, you changed the station. The problem here, and I\u2019m gonna get a little philosophical but, we\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy take was that some of the Phil Ochs\u2019 material, some of Tom Paxton\u2019s were preaching to the choir things,\u201d Rush continued. \u201cThey were more logical, intellectual presentations of an ideology. They helped to solidify a movement, but I don\u2019t think they changed anybody\u2019s mind.\u201d Let\u2019s jump to present day. Has the musical landscape become so fragmented that everything is \u201ctoo noisy\u201d to really have a clear leader? Rush says he doesn\u2019t really know the answer \u201clike so many other people,\u201d he says, \u201cI 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\u2019t listen to the radio, but I also don\u2019t listen to much music anymore which I blush to admit. There are some fabulous musicians out there. The people that I\u2019m aware of and think are really talented people are also not going down that road [of protest music].\u201d<\/p>\n

But Rush was quick to add that it\u2019s not necessarily a sense of apathy in the musical community. He\u2019ll tell you, \u201cI think it\u2019s partly enlightened self-interest. Musicians back then were actually passionate about the issues and didn\u2019t really think too hard about, \u2018Well, maybe this will turn people off.\u2019\u00a0 Now I think there\u2019s more of a commercial take on things. People say, \u2018Well I don\u2019t wanna say things that are gonna alienate anybody because I want the biggest audience I can get. So, I\u2019m gonna tread lightly and do love songs and stay away from getting involved in political or social issues.\u2019\u201d Maybe those messages have taken on a more subtle nature as well.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not proud to say it\u201d, Rush will tell you, \u201cbut I kind of do the same. I\u2019m 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\u2019s not gonna change their mind, it\u2019s just gonna ruin their experience of the evening. If I go there, I try to do it humorously, I\u2019ll put a line in a song. I used \u2018no collusion\u2019 in one of the funny songs that I do, and it gets a huge laugh but I\u2019m not dwelling on it.\u201d\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean he shies away from political issues even today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s one called \u2018East of Eden.\u2019 It\u2019s about a family trying to migrate into the US and they\u2019re stopped by this wall. It\u2019s a very sympathetic song to their point of view. I\u2019ve got a funny song that goes \u2018I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s wrong with America, I\u2019ll tell why times are so tough. The poor have too much money and the rich don\u2019t have enough.\u2019 It goes on from there. It\u2019s a humorous song and I can see some people scowling in the audience, but they don\u2019t get up and leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush adds that modern politics has also taken him back to his roots.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m 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\u2019t 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\u2019s one thing, but I don\u2019t wanna just make them angry without presenting an alternative way of looking at something that\u2019s emotionally based because again, logic is totally irrelevant in the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush adds that relevance is still the key, but in many cases so is a sense of impartiality saying, \u201cA lot of it is fear-based on both sides. With the gun issue, for instance, the gun people are afraid they won\u2019t 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 a little girl who was shot \u2013 and make people care about that little girl, then that song might have some impact.\u201d Also, remember what he said about preaching to the choir. Media plays a role. \u201cThere\u2019s 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\u2019t agree with. Both sides can live in their bubbles and ignore the other side and it\u2019s 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.\u201d But that\u2019s not to say certain media isn\u2019t biased. Google takes as much blame as social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush admits it can be a frustrating process. \u201cPeople who want to believe that stuff will believe it because it reinforces their bias. I think the Russians, one of the Russian\u2019s 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.\u201d Even so, Rush hopes a new standard bearer can emerge to fight the good fight.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems protest music from the defining age is, well, easier to define. It\u2019s too easy to point to prolific songs from that era and say, \u201cYep, that\u2019s a protest song\u201d and that\u2019s thanks to their straightforward characteristics. The formula is easy: there\u2019s a problem, a call to action, and it\u2019s easy to repeat, like a mantra that can sell the masses on the solution. \u201cAll we are saying, is give peace a chance.\u201d Easy to chant, easy to digest, easy to sell. But today\u2019s music with a message is a little more complicated than that: it\u2019s 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\u2019 available tunes.<\/p>\n

But between then and now one thing in music with a message hasn\u2019t changed; it\u2019s always been for the masses and intended to be popular.\u00a0 Back in 1974, researchers Fox & Williams\u00a0 defined \u201cpopular\u201d as \u201cbelonging to the people,\u201d \u201cwidely favored,\u201d and \u201cwell-liked.\u201d Popular music is, of course, a category of entertainment that regularly addresses politics Moreover, it\u2019s been said that \u201cpopular music has tremendous affective power, and the affective nature of music is ineffable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019 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\u2019s step back to an earlier time of emerging media.<\/p>\n

Radio was all the mid-1950s kids really had \u2013 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 \u2014 no beat; nothing to dance to.<\/p>\n

Rock \u2018n roll, as it was originally coined, was the hero the mid-1950s kids were looking for. It didn\u2019t wear a red cape or fight crime, but its infectious energy was authoritative enough to become a something a young person doesn\u2019t just jive to on the radio, but an attitude one could embody. Today\u2019s 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\u2019s internet surfer never really feel alone and should rarely be bored \u2013 or at least as bored as the pre-rock and roll 1950\u2019s kids were.<\/p>\n

Once the recording industry saw big dollar signs in \u201cBlack music\u201d, \u201crace music\u201d or \u201crhythm and blues\u201d as they would go on to label it, they had a new product to sell the kids. If you\u2019re only skimming the history books, it\u2019s easy to believe the term was created by Hollywood the moment in 1956 when Bill Haley\u2019s Rock Around the Clock<\/em> became the theme for the film The Blackboard Jungle<\/em> or with the release of Elvis Presley\u2019s first film, Love Me Tender<\/em>. But we know there\u2019s 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 \u2013 mostly as a fun term for sex. In a Fifties television show, Fats Domino said of the new genre\u2019s origin, \u201cRock & roll is nothing but rhythm & blues and we\u2019ve been playing it for years down in New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cRadio, Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll and the Civil Rights Movement\u201d and put rock and roll\u2019s influence during the civil rights movement into its proper timeline and highlighted the extreme (to the point of humorous) reactions\u2014from horrified conservative parents to the all-too-eager-teens who couldn\u2019t get enough.<\/p>\n

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 \u201crace records\u201d \u2014 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 \u201crace.\u201d So, the industry decided to drop the term \u2014 changing it to \u201crhythm and blues,\u201d which West and Kaminski called \u201ca convenient catchall term for all Black music.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the post-war economic expansion, both southern Black and Whites moved North \u2014 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 \u201850s, 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,\u00a0 the infamous DJ is the one credited with having officially coined the term \u201crock and roll,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ca White man who had the negro sounds and the negro feel\u201d 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\u2019 dream of racking up big bucks swiftly came true (he would later sell Presley\u2019s contract to RCA for a quick buck and probably a lifetime of regret).<\/p>\n

In a 1990 Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a> article<\/a>, reporter Robert Palmer wrote, \u201cWith 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\u2019t 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 \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Rock and roll quickly became more than just a beat to dance to. According to West and Kaminski, it also served as \u201ca cohesive bond for a youthful generation that was searching for an identity. Further, it served as a line of demarcation from the \u2018establishment\u2019 and the \u2018old\u2019 ways of viewing society.\u201d Palmer also said about the decade of music that \u201cchanged the world\u201d that \u201cRock and roll wasn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/em> magazine chronicled the results of rock and roll and reported that it bore \u201ca passing resemblance to Hitler mass meetings.\u201d 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, \u201cMuch 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\u00a0traditional American values<\/em>, than a full-tilt Little Richard show?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, this was not the goal radio had in mind. \u201cRadio and the recording industry did not initiate nor perpetuate the rock and roll phenomena with any regard to its potential impact on society,\u201d West and Kaminski wrote. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cseemed to defy authority\u201d and finally, that the rock and roll singers \u201cwere negroes or sounded like negroes.\u201d This last complaint was a \u201cmatter of most open concern in the south.\u201d Rock and roll sparked fear and hysteria within conservative communities and quite frankly, enraged racists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d West and Kaminski wrote. Rock and Roll quickly became the musical lubricant that helped further the divide between youth and the conservative establishment. \u201cThe enemies of rock and roll were the same enemies of integration and fairness to Blacks.\u201d This new craze even had a language of its own that only the youth seemed to understand. \u201cWhether it was the lyrics or the chatter, the youth of the 1950s picked up a jargon which the adults neither liked nor understood,\u201d West and Kaminski wrote. \u201cThe language was \u2018secret\u2019 and its alienating effects upon the traditional establishment was welcomed by the youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Ward, co-author of Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll<\/em>, wrote of the phenomenon, \u201cHere 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 \u2013 a White guy, at that \u2013 playing weird records with sort of dirty lyrics, talking into your ear, like a co-conspirator. He knew who you were\u2026\u2019the late people\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the civil rights movement was under way, West and Kaminski wrote, the rock and roll advocates would soon rally together against the \u201cforces of oppression that were against their music and their musicians\u201d making the movement and the music a package deal. Eventually, rock blended with folk, creating a folk-rock hybrid \u2014 perfect for strumming away the blues, or more specifically, political woes. As we mentioned in a previous chapter, folk rock legend David Crosby \u2013 founding member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) \u2013 has a musical legacy that\u2019s marked its place in protest music history time and again.<\/p>\n

In a phone interview with Cleveland Scene<\/em> 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, \u201cHe\u2019s just\u2026 he\u2019s a dick.\u201d He didn\u2019t have a reason to beat around the bush about the former chief executive.\u00a0 Crosby has been laying down his truth boldly and publicly for 50 years.<\/p>\n

Crosby was very vocal and equally specific in his concerns, \u201cHe\u2019s doing great harm. He\u2019s been lying to our country,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re shooting this for television. I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll edit this out. I wanna say it anyway even though they will edit it out,\u201d the 26-year-old Crosby professed to the crowd with his guitar slung over his shoulder. \u201cWhen 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,\u201d he casually finished without missing a beat. Four months after this biting declaration, he was kicked out of the Byrds.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s bassist, Chris Hillman put Crosby\u2019s departure from the Byrds this way, \u201cDavid just had this knack for causing trouble. … He was an extrovert and had a lot of guts \u2013 which sometimes meant he could be an arrogant jerk.\u201d Unsurprisingly, Crosby saw it a little differently. In a 1980 interview he said of Hillman and the band\u2019s front man Roger McGuinn, \u201c[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\u2014- ’em. But it hurt like hell. I didn’t try to reason with them. I just said, \u2018it’s a shameful waste … goodbye.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Needless to say, it didn\u2019t result in Crosby taking any pause in his outspoken views on personal, public and political issues.<\/p>\n

That same fiery spirit of unfiltered defiance continues to burn over 50 years later. While discussing why mainstream protest anthems don\u2019t 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, \u201cWell, it would inspire everybody to feel better about their country. What\u2019s going on now is pretty horrific.\u201d From there, he humorously went on to describe Trump as \u201ca spoiled child who broke into his dad\u2019s office and he\u2019s peeing on all the papers because he was never allowed in there.\u201d A one-of-a-kind metaphor, but at the same time, not too outlandish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst thing of all,\u201d Crosby noted about the Trump\u2019s Administration was \u201cnot 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cI\u2019m not gonna let these stupid bastards kill us all because they\u2019re being so short-sighted and so focused on profit. They just don\u2019t want to have less profit. It\u2019s about money. And they\u2019re being shortsightedly stupid about the evidence because they just don\u2019t wanna look at it. But it is what it is, and it\u2019s worse than anybody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

His words were reminiscent of a song he and Graham Nash made together in 1989. The lyrics state, \u201cIt’s not that we don’t know, it’s just that we don’t want to care.\u201d The song is called \u201cTo the Last Whale\u201d and it\u2019s 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\u2019s oldest beasts. \u201cI can see your body lie,\u201d the song continues, \u201cit’s a shame you have to die to put the shadow on our eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another, perhaps even more pointed song about climate change from CSNY comes from their 1988 song \u201cClear Blue Skies.\u201d It echoed fear about the physical state of our planet before we had as much damning evidence as we do now.<\/p>\n

\u201cClear blue skies, not too much to ask for,
\nThey were here before we came,
\nWill they be here when we’re gone?
\nClean water, not too much to hope for,
\nIt’s the basis of our lives
\nAnd without it we are done.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Clear Blue Skies lyrics \u00a9 Sony\/ATV Music Publishing LLC)<\/p>\n

Despite his open anxieties and criticisms about the Trump Administration, the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer offered an optimistic remedy. \u201cThis is hard times. I like to tell people that music is a lifting force, you know? Like they say, \u2018when the war drags us down, music drags us up.\u2019 I think it tells me things better,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019re in a really rough situation. People love [music], man. They love the lift of music.\u201d Crosby doesn\u2019t just use his music to speak on current events. Rolling Stone<\/em> gave him an advice column, where he regularly addressed political strife. Apathy continues to be a silent bad guy we\u2019ve all been fighting in the political arena for a while, but Crosby gives a bitter reminder of why it\u2019s important to keep going. In an early 2020 edition of the \u201cAsk Croz\u201d column, the singer was asked by a reader how to deal with apathy that was prevalent at the time. \u201cLook at the situation we\u2019re in,\u201d wrote Crosby. \u201cWe have global warming and a president who doesn\u2019t believe in it or anything that doesn\u2019t provide a personal profit to himself. The guy running the senate, Mitch McConnell, also only cares about profit. We can\u2019t not fight them. I can\u2019t conceive of rolling over and putting my paws up. We must fight.\u201d\u00a0 Crosby\u2019s fears were eased a bit soon after Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration when the new administration brought an end to the Keystone XL Pipeline and rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement that was rejected by Trump.<\/p>\n

Since we don\u2019t seem to have many new, well-known protest anthems <\/em>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\u2019s \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d). In 1978, Charles J. Stewart argued at a Purdue University graduate seminar on social movements that \u201cprotest music emerges from a felt need, social anxiety, or a perceived state of relative deprivation\u201d and that \u201cprotest songs frequently focus on the identification of a problem situation that requires the movement as a solution, thus legitimizing the movement.\u201d 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).<\/p>\n

In a 1964 interview with Vogue<\/em>, American protest singer and songwriter Phil Ochs provided some insight on the intention of those who sang protest songs (Sixties-era) stating, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to crystalize the thoughts of young people who have stopped accepting things the way they are,\u201d he said. \u201cYoung people are disillusioned; we want to reinforce their disillusionment, so they\u2019ll get more involved and do something \u2013 not out of a general sense of rebellion, but out of a real concern for what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t we hearing as many mainstream anthems? \u201cI think most of the people who get into show business get into it for the money,\u201d Crosby said, adding, \u201cWhich I don\u2019t really give a shit about. I think they don\u2019t want to be political because it gets in the way of getting the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not wrong. It\u2019s uncommon for pop music to deliver a strong, political opinion because it\u2019s just not sexy. Katy Perry tried it for a second in 2017, with something she called \u201cpurposeful pop.\u201d Her song \u201cChained to the Rhythm\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Crosby reasoned that his long-time role as a singer-songwriter is a different job. His role is simply to \u201ccarry the news from town to town. We\u2019re the town criers. Well, that\u2019s part of our job. It\u2019s not all of our job. But that\u2019s what protest music really is; it\u2019s us being a witness. It\u2019s us saying, \u2018Oh my God, the United States of America is shooting its own children or putting them in cages.\u2019 We have to witness this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion,\u201d he continued, \u201cit 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\u2026 \u2018Ohio.\u2019\u201d Of course, \u201cOhio\u201d is considered the quintessential protest song. Rolling Stone\u2019s<\/em> David Browne hailed it the \u201cimpossible to top\u201d protest song. He also pointed out after watching Crosby and other artists perform it at a 2018 Carnegie Hall\u00a0<\/strong>concert that \u201cFor better or worse in terms of America, \u2018Ohio\u2019 sounded as if it had been written this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’
\nWe’re finally on our own
\nThis summer I hear the drummin’
\nFour dead in Ohio<\/p>\n

Gotta get down to it
\nSoldiers are gunning us down
\nShould have been done long ago
\nWhat if you knew her and
\nFound her dead on the ground?
\nHow can you run when you know?<\/p>\n

(Ohio lyrics \u00a9 Universal Music – Z Tunes LLC)<\/p>\n

\u201cOhio\u201d 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,\u00a0Decade<\/em>, \u201cIt’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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s been over 50 years and we still haven\u2019t 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\u2019t see as many impactful or mainstream musical responses like we did 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

Crosby was asked why he thinks this is the case. He said,\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>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,\u201d he said. But unfortunately, he said he just doesn\u2019t hear as much musical activism as he\u2019d like to.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cI took him on a tour of the May 4 Center,\u201d Canfora said. \u201cI had a chance to say to him, \u201cwhere are the protest songs today?\u201d There\u2019s 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\u2019s a lot of that happening in hip-hop but for some reason they\u2019re not sticking like they did with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean Crosby isn\u2019t doing his part to push songwriters of all genres to pump out some protest songs. \u201cI\u2019ve been appealing to other writers \u2013 a shit load of people on Twitter \u2013 I put it out there saying, \u2018Anything you can write; we need a fight song. We need an \u2018Ohio.\u2019 We need a \u2018We Shall Overcome.\u2019 We need one. I\u2019m trying to write it myself, and I\u2019m also trying to encourage everybody else to write. In the meantime, I\u2019m singing \u2018Ohio,\u2019\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n

Crosby is not the only CSNY member rallying artists to write music with a message. \u201cWe are reaching out to you as musicians and artists,\u201d Neil Young wrote on his website in the fall of 2019, \u201cwho 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.\u201d Young\u2019s call to action implored musicians to use the very words of the \u201cunaccompanied\u201d immigrant children\u00a0at 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.<\/p>\n

Making a political issue personal is arguably what folk protest music does best. Combining a wide variety of influences, songwriter Tom Rush\u00a0has been presenting musical messages that carry a subtle intensity for the content that complements his unique style.\u00a0He 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\u00a0also expressed in an interview for this book that \u201can 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.\u201d Rush raised another good point about what Guthrie tried to accomplish in his 1948 song \u201cDeportee\u201d \u2013 a response to a tragic plane crash the same year that killed 28 illegal immigrants.\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>The plane went down,\u201d Rush said, \u201cand 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 \u2018deportees\u2019 and that bummed Guthrie,\u201d Rush said. So, Guthrie wrote a song naming each passenger by name, wishing them a personal farewell. \u201cIt was a very powerful song and I think maybe made some people stop and think \u2018wow these are people. They\u2019re not just deportees. They have names, they have lives, they have children.\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

This method of making the news \u2013 particularly news about immigrants in peril \u2013 is being pulled off over seventy years later by Young in that apparent plea to give face to the unnamed \u201cothers\u201d 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. \u201cWe just need people willing to speak their minds and stuff. I think some of the big pop acts \u2014 notably Lady Gaga \u2014 and a couple others of the women are sticking up,\u201d Crosby continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2026 maybe it will get better. Maybe the rap people will get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boy George \u2014 an LGBTQ legend best known for dominating the pop scene in the Eighties \u2014\u00a0 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<\/em> and also pointed to rap as the genre making the most pointed political statements today.<\/p>\n

When asked if music is as important today for shaping social movements as it was during that time period, George said, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think that it’s the same. I think rap music definitely has more of a political voice. It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s important? It\u2019s 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\u2019t think people are using music necessarily to say political things. Maybe rap music is probably the one exception. It\u2019s a strange time for pop culture because there\u2019s no one doing that, but that\u2019s not to say it won\u2019t happen. You know what I mean? I think it could very well come back.\u201d And slowly, it has.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them talk about the truth,\u201d Crosby continued about rap artists. \u201cSome of them talk about important shit. It\u2019s pretty rare though. Mostly they\u2019re talking about, you know, tits and ass. But maybe it will get better. Maybe we\u2019ll get another Bruce Springsteen come walking in out of nowhere. You just never know. But in the meantime, I\u2019ve got a certain amount of time; I\u2019m gonna spend it doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new Bruce comin\u2019 or not, the original Boss hasn\u2019t gone anywhere. After having campaigned for Clinton in 2016, Bruce took some heat, learning just how \u201clittle\u201d he means to Trump. Trump took aim at Springsteen at a rally in 2019 when he declared he didn\u2019t need Clinton\u2019s massive supporters, Beyonc\u00e9, Jay Z or \u201clittle Bruce Springsteen\u201d to win the election. In an interview with Gayle King<\/a>, Springsteen was asked if he was surprised to learn that Trump was still firing away at him. \u201cNot really,\u201d he responded. \u201cWe’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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> he kicked things off with, \u201cYou are a disgrace to my country.\u201d He continued. \u201cYour mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, our environment, and our relationships with friends around the world is unforgivable.\u2026 Our first Black president was a better man than you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what really seemed to grind Young\u2019s gears was Trump\u2019s usage of his song \u201cRockin\u2019 in the Free World\u201d at his rallies. Despite Young\u2019s numerous requests to stop, Trump kept on rockin\u2019 the song. \u201c[It] is not a song you can trot out at one of your rallies,\u201d he writes. \u201cPerhaps 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 \u2026\u201d\u00a0 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\u2026.which was probably the mildest threat \u201cthe Donald\u201d faced by Jagger and company.\u00a0 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\u2019t start with rockers either.<\/p>\n

Of course, we can\u2019t 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<\/a> to perform some friendly, supportive songs at a White House concert. \u201cJohnny, would you be willing to play a few songs for us?\u201d He went on to specifically request, \u201cI like Merle Haggard\u2019s \u2018Okie From Muskogee\u2019 and Guy Drake\u2019s \u2018Welfare Cadillac.\u2019\u201d (He apparently missed the satire saturated throughout both of these songs.) \u201cI don\u2019t know those songs,\u201d Cash told the President. \u201cBut I got a few of my own I can play for you.\u201d In a tense but respectful show, Cash performed \u201cWhat Is Truth?\u201d an anthem for youth which lyrics ask, \u201cCan you blame the voice of youth for asking \u2018What is truth?\u2019\u201d A bold move, but an honest one.\u00a0 Another bold move came from an outspoken admirer of Richard Nixon, but also one whom was touched by the historical significance of key events.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s status as an illegal alien from the Netherlands).\u00a0 Plus, he didn\u2019t 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<\/em>\u00a0documentary, 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.<\/p>\n

In a 2018 film that explores the evolution of Presley, The Searcher<\/em> features producer and director Chris Bearde, who helped produce Presley\u2019s esteemed 1968 comeback special. Bearde explains that they knew they wanted to end the show in a major way, but initially weren\u2019t 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\u2019s panicked response, saying he jumped to his feet, grabbing his guitar and talking a mile a minute, he said to everyone in the room, \u201cI need you to understand me because this is a time where we all have to understand each other.\u201d Then they, of course, penned \u201cIf I Can Dream\u201d and slated it as the final song of the special, resulting in an emotionally moving performance that cemented the special in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I Can Dream\u201d is a song of radical peace and utopia, much like Lennon would go on to describe in \u201cImagine\u201d only three years later. \u201cImagine\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

We also have to consider the misplaced political use of Springsteen\u2019s \u201cBorn in the U.S.A\u201d some years later.\u00a0 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<\/a>. In 2019, music director Lauren Onkey described to\u00a0Morning Edition<\/em><\/a> Springsteen\u2019s process when he penned the anthem, explaining the song was originally called \u201cVietnam.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did a big benefit in the summer of ’81 for Vietnam veterans in Los Angeles and met with vets,\u201d Onkey said. \u201cAfter 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.\u201d Although the result Springsteen ended up with sounds more like an upbeat, patriotic celebration, many still understand the lyrics to be cynical and suspicious \u2013 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 \u201cBorn in the U.S.A. at rallies, making him appear out-of-touch, at least to Springsteen fans who understood the song\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n

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 \u201992, Clinton made history when he played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show \u2013 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\u2019s Greatest<\/em>, Hall commented on the historic event, saying that having a presidential candidate on a late-night show \u201calmost unheard of\u201d and that Clinton \u201cwas intelligent enough to see the future of how we had to reach Americans.\u201d Nineties sitcom legend Fran Drescher added to the documentary\u2019s dialogue around Clinton\u2019s unprecedented \u201ccool guy\u201d image saying Clinton, \u201cpaved the way for a new generation of politicians that were raised on rock and roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

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