{"id":24,"date":"2025-12-19T15:49:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/?post_type=front-matter&p=24"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:41:23","slug":"24","status":"publish","type":"front-matter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/front-matter\/24\/","title":{"rendered":"Preface: The Spirit of Protest"},"content":{"raw":"
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\u201cWe all want war to go away,
but you can\u2019t just sit around waiting for it to happen.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0\r\n\u2013 John Lennon<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t believe I still have to protest this fucking shit.\u201d An elderly Polish woman and her brutally honest cardboard sign went viral in 2016. She was protesting a law that would not only ban abortions in Poland but would also throw women and doctors in jail for performing them. \u201cNo Smelly Trump Allowed\u201d read the sign of a youthful protester \u2013 a girl appearing no older than eight years of age \u2013 at a 2018 demonstration in Scotland against the visit of then U.S. President Donald Trump. Elderly or adolescent, profanity-laced or PG-rated, protesting mobilizes what is arguably the most prevailing part of the human spirit, a thread that unites us all.\r\n\r\nIf anyone knows about the human longing to be heard, it\u2019s Oprah Winfrey. After interviewing nearly 30,000 people on The Oprah Winfrey Show<\/em>, she recalled on the show\u2019s finale that all of her interviewees echoed the same craving, \u201cThey want to know,\u201d she said, \u201c\u2018Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nPolitical dialogues are omnipresent today. Aside from our favorite news outlets and their various social platforms, we also have political pundits, who, after a while, start to look like bumbling bobble heads; frustrated avatars, fervently wagging their fingers as cartoon-like steam seems to blow from their noses. Maybe that\u2019s why we occasionally prefer political ideas when they\u2019re packed in a song or comedy bit. They\u2019re easier to digest and give us some relief from the angsty avatars, even some freedom to laugh at the madness.\r\n\r\nQuite often, what we have to say isn\u2019t polite (refer once again to the elderly Polish woman) but it is urgent, and it is straight from the heart. We don\u2019t have time to go gentle, we reason, as we fire up another political tweet that\u2019s saturated with angry face emojis. Former U.S. Representative Ron Paul put it this way years ago, \u201cWe don't have the freedom of speech to talk about the weather. We have the First Amendment so we can say some very controversial things.\u201d So, we do.\r\n\r\nThose of us who use our voice to resist those in power in a public sphere or otherwise known as \u201cthe powers-that-be\u201d are sometimes considered rebels or radicals. These used to be bad words, but it seems that, over time, we\u2019ve come to recognize that rebels are the ones who ever actually gotten anything done around here. In his most celebrated book, Rule for Radicals<\/em>, political activist Saul D. Alinsky insists that the \u201cconcepts of action in human politics that operate regardless of the scene or the time.\u201d\r\n\r\nYou\u2019ll see the name Tom Rush throughout this book.\u00a0 The groundbreaking folk artist continues to deliver his musical social insight and commentary to appreciative audiences, but he is quick to admit (with a nod to Bob Dylan) that \u201cthe times they are a changing.\u201d He told us, \u201cThe spotlight has become very diffused. It\u2019s no longer a spotlight, it\u2019s more of a very thin floodlight because there are so many different avenues and so many different genres and ways to get your music. The Sixties, when everybody listened to everybody and listened to the same radio stations and watched the same TV shows, you know, it was easier to get people\u2019s attention. Now, no matter what kind of music you\u2019re making or what it is you\u2019re selling, it\u2019s very hard to get people\u2019s attention because there is so much noise and so little focus.\u201d Part of this stems from progress. We have so many diversions: smart devices, digital games, and a little monster known as social media\u2026the list goes on and on with new technology introduced seemingly every day.\u00a0 Plus, musical tastes and trends can change seemingly overnight with internet access to new music often to a fickle fan base that\u2019s easily bored. As a rule, younger generations are early adapters, especially with technology, and you can easily see the challenges with traditional music genres. But all is not lost.\r\n\r\nDespite the influx of emerging new technology (tweeting each other to death and camping out in the comments sections) we are seeing droves of fed-up Americans practicing old fashion protest tactics again even after the changes with the 2020 presidential race. 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, and protests occurring in cities nationwide simultaneously linked to perceived racial injustice continue to draw thousands to the streets.\u00a0 Sadly, radical factions on both sides led to violence and even deaths at some of those rallies, and the siege on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 showed how polarizing the voices of protest can be. Perhaps the noted political commentator and activist Saul Alinsky would have derived hope from these numbers since he believed \u201cchange comes from power, and power comes from organization\u201d, though it\u2019s unlikely even he could have foreseen the frightening result of that polarization and the deviously planned chaos with an armed militia storming the halls of Congress.\r\n\r\nOnline protest tactics are beneficial, yes, but we\u2019ve clearly been re-energized and feel the palpable urgency to organize and show up in-person again, though the pandemic did its part in limiting those demonstrations for a time. Those pre and post COVID attendance numbers suggest that it\u2019s not just radicals with protest signs and, ominously, weapons in their hands. Many of us skipped work.\u00a0 Many of us pulled our kids from school and loaded up the minivan to march together. We\u2019re putting down our phones (at least for a few hours) to show up in the flesh again. The word \u201cprotest\u201d itself may be synonymous today with \u201cresistance,\u201d \u201cdissent,\u201d and \u201cdivision,\u201d but ultimately, it\u2019s a uniting affair that separates us from animals. Put simply, by Kent State Professor Jacquie Marino, \u201cwithout protest, we are a society of sheep.\u201d\r\n\r\nWe all have a platform in our own little corner of the world. We assemble at protests; we slap messages all over our social media pages and maybe we still share messages at our dinner table (an optimistic thought). But those with the greatest power to influence are arguably those with larger platforms \u2013 namely musicians and comedians. Besides both of these genres of entertainment being a great place to pitch a protest message, they have a lot of other things in common too, or so they think. It\u2019s been said that every comedian wants to be a rock star and every rock star thinks they\u2019re funny. At any rate, they both really know how to pack a punch in pop culture. One aspect of protest that continues to thrive is the use of rhetoric to compel change, and popular culture along with social media have proven to be efficient messengers.\r\n\r\nPop culture news has a way of hitting our phones seemingly faster than an Amber alert. If Kim Kardashian loses an earring, we\u2019re going to hear about it. Can a country be comforted by knowing that their message reverberates in the hearts of their favorite artists, whose very lives are a lot like megaphones? It can\u2019t hurt to try. That\u2019s the intention of this book.\r\n\r\nAs our social and political climate continues to intensify since the polarizing events of the 2016 presidential election and the divisions that were defined by the 2020 vote, our nation is experiencing an awakening of protest messaging in music and comedy. We can\u2019t help but notice how similar these messages and themes are to the Vietnam War protest messages from nearly fifty years ago. For example, Graham Nash seemed to be wrestling with D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu in a phone interview with Cleveland Scene<\/em> ahead of his Akron performance in 2019. \u201c\u2026it\u2019s a pain in the ass to have to keep singing \u2018Immigration Man\u2019 for instance \u2013which I wrote 50 years ago. Is immigration not relevant today? Is \u2018Military Madness\u2019 not relevant today? I wrote that song about my father going off to World War II for God\u2019s sake. We don\u2019t seem to have learned much.\u201d Then and now, in these polarized times, those with the greatest power to influence in these tense times are those with the largest platforms.\r\n\r\nOver these pages, we also explore the ways musicians, comedians and other pop commentators construct political messaging in their work, or why they choose to avoid it all together. This is a collection of in-depth entertainment perspectives that specifically focuses on the decades of protest and nonconformity since the release of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young\u2019s \u201cOhio\u201d one week after the Kent State shootings in May 1970.\u00a0 In this book, today\u2019s messaging and meaning found in political songs and commentary are analyzed and then compare and contrast it with political messaging in music and comedy (political satire) from the late 1960\u2019s.\r\n\r\nOn May 4, 1970, during a protest demonstration against the illegal bombing of Cambodia, a total of 13 unarmed students were shot on Kent State University campus \u2014 67 rounds fired in just 13 seconds \u2014 by the Ohio National Guard. Nine were seriously injured, four were killed. That piece of information has become the event\u2019s tagline and is burned in our memory, at least those of us who live, or have lived in Kent or attended the university at any point in time before or since the tragedy. But what we sometimes neglect to think about is how the tragedy had a \u201cprofound effect on the national psyche: Within a week, millions of college and high school students went on strike, and more than 100,000 young people marched on the Capitol, permanently reshaping the national dialogue on Vietnam.\u201d In 2019, Kent State welcomed two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist\u00a0Bob Woodward to the university as the keynote speaker for the 49th anniversary of the event.\r\n\r\nHe shared that in preparation for his speech, he contacted \u201cone of the nation\u2019s leading scholars on the secret recordings made by then-President Richard Nixon of his meetings in the Oval Office. They discovered a previously unknown section \u2014 recorded in 1971 \u2014 in which Nixon discusses the Attica Prison uprising, which ended when New York State troopers dropped tear gas and opened fire, killing 29 inmates. He quoted the following:\r\n\r\nNixon: \u201cYou know what I think?\u00a0This might have one hell of a salutary effect.\u00a0 You know what stops them?\u00a0Kill a few.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSure,\u201d Haldeman said.\r\n\r\nNixon: \u201cRemember Kent State?\u00a0Didn\u2019t it have a hell of an effect?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe news of May 4 quickly reached the ears and consciousness of many politically peeved artists (aside from CSNY) who publicly sounded off in distress. \u201cBefore coming here today,\u201d Stevie Wonder said during the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in 1971, \u201cI had a lot of things on my mind, a lot of things that you don\u2019t have to\u00a0see<\/em>\u00a0to understand. We are in a very troublesome time today in the world. A time in which a man can get 12 years in prison for possession of marijuana, and another who can kill four students at Kent State and come out free. What kind of shit is that?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe 50th anniversary of this event is examined in this book as a turning point for our country and for protest music by and large. May 4 visibly penetrated music on a national level, but it also shaped music careers on a local level too, as a \u201cpowerful and lasting creative response to the tragedy.\u201d \u00a0\u201cI don't think I would have started Devo had that not happened,\u201d Gerald Casale, the co-founder of the band Devo told The Chicago Tribune<\/em> in 2018. Casale formed Devo in the early 1970s with Bob Lewis, another Kent State student survivor. \u201cWe were pissed off, and we wanted to take the energy that comes from that anger and channel it, and it happened to be into the concept of Devo.\u201d\r\n\r\nChris Butler also bore witness to the tragedy of May 4 and formed his own bands, Tin Huey and the Waitresses. Butler was, in essence, \u201cborne witness to a culture.\u201d He calls it, \u201cthe uber-culture\u201d that had tried to kill him. He realized, he said, that he had \u201cto create a clean space\u201d for himself. Much as it did for other survivors, music provided him with that outlet.\r\n\r\nWe mentioned the almost immediate response from the arts community following the Kent State shootings. One of the first songs was rush released by a Florida band called The Third Condition on Sundi Records titled, \u201cMonday in May (A May Day of Hell)\u201d later subtitled \u201cThe Kent State Tragedy.\u201d The lyrics describe, \u201cBullets were flying, students were crying. Screams of the dying were burned in their mind. Monday in May, a May Day in hell.\u201d Two important points here: Billboard<\/em> magazine reported the Tampa-based Sundi had set up a Monday in May Scholarship Fund that donated 10% of the net royalties, but stressed it was not defending or criticizing the students or National Guard on May 4th. The second point, Crosby Stills Nash and Young\u2019s \u201cOhio\u201d\u2026sung by music veterans sure to get attention by a public familiar with their past work\u2026 got most of the attention by far when it was released shortly after the shootings.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe knew that there were a whole lot of people like us that were shocked that four of America\u2019s children had been gunned down on a campus doing something that they were legally allowed to do.\u201d David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) gave that assessment to Kent State\u2019s Black Squirrel Radio during a 2017 campus visit. Neil Young composed \u201cOhio\u201d \u2013 the impeccably haunting protest song about the Kent State shootings that Rolling Stone<\/em> calls \u201cimpossible to top.\u201d \u201cWe put out \u2018Ohio\u2019 right away,\u201d Crosby continued. \u201cIt was immediate, it was topical, and it was the truth. You could feel that we were angry.\u201d \u00a0It might also be sensible to note that the music industry of the time was still directed by \u201csuits\u201d who might have seen the potential marketing possibility of the tragedy by, for lack of a better word, exploiting CSNY\u2019s shared raged with the public.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s not to question the artists\u2019 sincerity or suggest that that CSNY put out its anthem for profit.\u00a0 In fact, Crosby seemed to outline (in a phone call ahead of his 2018 Kent Stage performance) his own definition of protest music, \u201c\u2026that\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 Former bandmate Neil Young also made his position clear in the lyrics of \u201cOhio,\u201d but what about the fourth voice of CSNY? After all, Stephen Stills was also heard on a previous classic anthem of the time, Buffalo Springfield\u2019s \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth.\u201d Surprisingly, while no one questions Stills\u2019 sincerity, he also told writer Steve Baltin that he wasn\u2019t a fan of protest music stating, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be motivated enough to write a powerful enough song to get their attention, but mainly you can\u2019t do too many of them. If you\u2019ve got a message that\u2019s profound and you keep trying to do that, and if you try too hard, it doesn\u2019t really happen. It\u2019s got to overwhelm you and suddenly it\u2019s all inspiration and it\u2019s very clear how it should go. But if you\u2019re grinding out this pamphleteer material it can get boring.\u201d\r\n\r\nThat wasn\u2019t lost on the song\u2019s author as well and it may call back to the urgency and widespread popularity of its message.\u00a0 CSNY\u2019s Neil Young, who penned the epic anthem himself,\u00a0 was unable to sing it for a while. \u201cI felt I was kinda taking advantage of something that happened and we were trading on somebody's misfortunes \u2026 to give the audience a kind of rush of nostalgia \u2026\u201d he said in a previous interview.<\/a> But by the time Young reunited CSNY for an anti-Bush Freedom of Speech tour in 2006, he changed his mind and pulled the song back on the playlist. \u201cIn this period of time, that doesn't apply. What it is now is, it's a history,\u201d he said. \u201cWe're bringing history back. That's what folk music does.\u201d\r\n\r\nHowever, not every seasoned artist of the CSNY generation admires that definitive protest anthem. Jazz and folk vocalist and lifelong activist Barbra Dane scratched her head at the tune. \u201cStuff like Crosby Stills and Nash and all that\u2026 it reaches a broad audience but then it doesn\u2019t say enough. It doesn\u2019t go far enough. It just leaves them with their illusions.\u201d When asked if \u201cOhio\u201d wasn\u2019t direct enough, she said, \u201cWell, I was just listening to the lyrics. What does it mean, \u2018we\u2019re finally on our own?\u2019\u201d She argues \u201cOhio\u201d is simply too much is up for interpretation, which makes sense for her preferred. Her own biggest protest song is hyper specific, even in the title \u2013 \u201cI Hate the Capitalist System.\u201d Some argue, however, that the \u201copenness\u201d of some protest songs gives it the flexibility to live on decades later and apply to a plethora of central political issues.\r\n\r\nFor example, Buffalo Springfield\u2019s \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d (coincidentally written\u00a0 by Stephen Stills)\u00a0 has, according to <\/a>Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>, become \u201cone of pop\u2019s most-covered protest songs \u2013 a sort of \u2018We Shall Overcome\u2019 of its time, its references to police, fun and paranoia remaining continually relevant.\u201d Heart\u2019s Ann Wilson released a cover of it in 2015 and told Rolling Stone<\/em>, \u201cIt\u2019s so open that it\u2019s brand new today. The main hook, \u2018Everybody look what\u2019s going down\u2019 \u2013 you can apply that, to say, the current election. The song is going, \u2018What the hell is this?\u2019 You can apply the song to any situation in any decade.\u201d\r\n\r\nSome other criticism aimed at bands like CSNY comes from issues with image and actions \u2013 why are these four wealthy musicians dressing like they\u2019re not living in mansions? It\u2019s criticism similar to what John Lennon received when he filmed the video for what is arguably the most moving anthem for peace (\u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d) and this book\u2019s namesake \u201cAll We Are Saying\u201d from his Montreal hotel bed-in, but later moved to the toney and spacious Dakota apartments for his remaining days.\r\n\r\nCriticism aside, this music had an impact, especially on the disillusioned.\u00a0 May 4th witness Chic Canfora will tell you, \u201cSongs like \u2018For What It\u2019s Worth,\u2019 they came from the kind of solidarity we were all feeling, campus to campus. Uniting around it. We didn\u2019t have social media to connect us, but music was the one commonality that kept us connected. We could go anywhere, and we were singing the same songs.\u201d A musical rallying cry for the masses.\r\n\r\n\u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d did get some big-time network TV exposure. Buffalo Springfield got the usual music and variety show gigs, but Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay also reached a new, and it has to be said older, audience when they appeared in a 1967 episode of CBS-TV\u2019s detective drama Mannix<\/em> titled, \u201cWarning: Live Blueberries\u201d.\u00a0 The three playing as Buffalo Springfield can be heard performing \u201cBluebird\u201d and \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d that charted the previous year. Was the message lost on most of the viewership from a different generation?\u00a0 Considering the so-called \u201cgeneration gap\u201d \u2026 did it even matter?\r\n\r\nThe primary audience for protest music from any era has always been the youth culture.\u00a0 In the 1960s and Seventies it was also the generation that indignantly demanded to be heard. That could also be one major reason CSNY\u2019s anthem was adopted so quickly. It\u2019s musical style stressed anger and urgency, buoyed in part by headlines about the tragedy in the days prior to its release, and you could vent your own feelings by yelling out the words. While other music that immediately followed the May 4th shootings can be equally compelling and insightful, \u201cOhio\u201d had that musical hook that for many provided that instant emotional link. Could that same sense of passion and concern be duplicated today?\u00a0 The comparisons may surprise you.\r\n\r\nOur country\u2019s protestors from the \u201cdefining\u201d era of resistance in America (the late 1960s) were once the youth culture who demonstrated their resistance over the Vietnam War. Suddenly, Boomers and Millennials have a lot in common. According to the Huffington Post<\/em>, Millennials are \u201cmore\u00a0likely to have gone to a protest since the election than any other age group\u201d and, \u201cMillennials are also more likely than older groups to think protesting is an effective form of political action.\u201d Plainly, protest is both popular and relevant again for any generation. 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 There are also plenty of voices to carry that message, rich with insight and musical ability, but with a very select yet highly aware audience. Ed Hammell with Righteous Babe Records is one of them.\r\n\r\nWorking as Hammell on Trial he\u2019s described by his label as a one-man punk band fueled by politics and passion. Not one to hold back, Hammell was asked if a common enemy or nagging social impasse might link the earliest days of protest to the audience and artist of today.\u00a0 After the 2016 election he stated without hesitation, \u201cOh, we have one, and his name is Trump!\u201d We told you he didn\u2019t hold back, and he stressed that he saw the former president as \u201cthe symbol for hate, racism,\u00a0fascism,\u00a0stupidity etc. But a lot of this I liken to the guy who sells horses in 1900 yelling at those new-fangled inventions, cars. And he's screaming at the side of the road, \u2018Cars are never going to take over for horses! Go away!\u2019\u00a0The times my friend, they are a changin\u2019, and a lot of this is inevitable. We are in a transitional phase but make no mistake it's changing.\u201d\u00a0 Hammell also foresaw that, \u201cTrump's quest to \u2018Make America Great Again\u2019 will come to fruition in ways he never anticipated.\u00a0The rise against him has become great. It will lead, no matter how long he is in office, to a greater democracy and a greater America. Not HIS vision of America, thank God.\u201d Despite the violent rise of the radical right wing insurgents prior to the 2021 inauguration, you can still notice that sense of hope and salvation Hammell offers, but he\u2019s also quick to point out the halting progress of music with a distinct social message.\r\n\r\nIn regard to social change, despite the Trump administration\u2019s perceived manifestation of racism, misogyny, anti-intellectualism, fascism etc., he tells us, \u201cI would venture to say there have been significant advances. We had an African American president for God's sake. And, I'm hardly a visionary but the blow back from this administration,\u00a0 i.e. the largest women's march in history, the town hall meetings, the current level of diversity in Congress, a greater engagement on the part of the public, young people almost bringing the NRA to its knees, and so on,\u00a0 all points to a progressive future. So, yeah, there's a lot of one step back but two steps forward.\u201d\u00a0 But we\u2019re also looking specifically at the arts driving that change, and Hammell\u00a0 has some specific and possibly surprising opinions about it, saying, \u201cIf you're talking about progress in protest songs since \u2018Ohio\u2019 and \u2018Give Peace a Chance\u2019...good God yes. A couple songs written by rich white guys don't hold a candle to the shit that's going on these days. Lennon wrote some good tunes, but \u2018Give Peace a Chance,\u2019 despite being a pretty cool DIY recording ain't one of them. And Rolling Stone<\/em> might claim \u2019Ohio\u2019 to be the greatest protest song, and admittedly it's not bad, were we to gauge it as our current youth demographic would, say YouTube views against the best protest song that's been written in the past year, Childish Gambino\u2019s \u2018This is America.\u2019 \u2018Ohio\u2019 has 1.7 million hits on YouTube,\u00a0\u2018This is America\u2019 has 591 million. More than half a billion and counting. So yeah, for\u00a0someone like me who needs righteous anger in their protest music I'd say there's been GREAT progress in protest songs available immediately, for free, to the public.\u201d\u00a0Note the word free. It\u2019s important especially when it comes to delivering and accessing music and information.\u00a0 It should also be noted that CSNY had a long head start on Childish Gambino relegating \u201cOhio\u201d to the classic rock (read that) \u201coldies\u201d bin.\u00a0 How they would stack up in online hits if both were new releases would be an interesting comparison.\r\n\r\n\u201cCell phones showing cops shooting innocent black people,\u201d he continued. \u201cCell phones showing white armed terrorists shooting up schools, mosques, Black churches\u00a0and synagogues. Social media filming the dumbest president in my lifetime and that's saying something.\u00a0And the ability for artists with progressive or activist leanings to make a video or record on their phone or via Pro Tools on their computer. For free.\u201d He also stresses the music is there and he\u2019s not alone serving that audience. The message is more plainly stated than ever before but again he points to delivery and even marketing, both of which underwent massive changes. \u201cChrist, every word that comes out of the great Ani DiFranco's mouth. These were not bathed in metaphor. This is current, this is blunt, as blunt as Billie Holiday's \u2018Strange Fruit\u2019 or Nina Simone\u2019s \u2018Mississippi Goddamn.\u2019 The Clash's \u2018Washington Bullets\u2019 and every song by Crass.\u201d But is there a music industry to market that style of messaging?\r\n\r\n\u201cWell it doesn't exist anymore,\u201d according to Hammell.\u00a0\u201cThere's no gatekeeper Artist and Repertoire guy determining the \u2018tastes\u2019 of the market. It has been democratized.\u00a0An artist can put something up on YouTube or Soundcloud and the people will decide whether it's going to be a \u2018hit\u2019 (go viral) or not. I don't think TV, radio or particularly print media is relevant anymore.\u00a0Music, news, information you can get for free, you can store it on your phone for free, in your pocket.\u00a0You can record it for free, it unquestionably democratized the process\u2026You write from your heart. You write from your conscience. There are no record companies anymore, there is no print media dictating taste anymore. You run it up the pole and see if it flies. The old way is over.\u201d\r\n\r\nA solid point, but at the same time there is a history of artists who were dismissed by critics and even Sixties era radio who reaped huge rewards essentially by word of mouth. Grand Funk Railroad out of Flint, Michigan, were part of that trend. Drummer Don Brewer says a great deal of their success was based on acting as a voice for the \u201cfreek\u201d community that felt powerless to big government. He also doesn\u2019t believe music is as important today for shaping social movements as it was in the 1960s.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. I don\u2019t see the correlation at all and it\u2019s too bad because music was really a voice of that whole movement that we had, with antiwar and anti-government. Yes, I see a lot of similarities in the amount of hate that\u2019s out there right now. I heard Trump say to a protestor, \u2018Cut your hair!\u2019 WHOA! You know that was a total flashback to all of the political people against the long hairs and the hippies! The hippies were just scum to them and I\u2019m seeing that again and I\u2019m going, \u2018This really needs to change.\u2019 But unfortunately, I don\u2019t see that music is the voice now. It was then for sure. I mean all of the bands that were involved in that time period were totally into supporting that movement, getting that war stopped. I don\u2019t see that going on right now and it needs to happen. We need a voice.\u201d\u00a0 But what is that voice?\u00a0 Is it attached to another anthem? Brewer believes, \u201cIt was the rallying call that brought a lot of people together. The music was kind of like glue that bound a lot of these people together and went \u2018Yeah it\u2019s okay to speak out. Listen, my favorite artist is speaking out and he\u2019s singing a song on the radio that is what I feel.\u2019 Yeah, I don\u2019t see that going on and it\u2019s too bad.\u201d\u00a0 The election of Joe Biden in 2020\u2026despite the politically fueled legal challenges\u2026was likely the result of technology and platforms that were distant ideas in the years Brewer refers to, and that\u2019s really just part of a rolling trend.\u00a0 Franklin Roosevelt was first elected in 1932 by an electorate crushed by economic hardship but his message was delivered by the still young medium of radio, a method of communication that has fallen by the wayside in its original form.\u00a0 But that offers an interesting comparison of views regarding the way we use currently use available media, the quick turnover in a \u201csoundbite\u201d society and the use of art as a voice for change.\r\n\r\nInterestingly enough, Brewer and Hammell share common ground when it comes to opportunity, but different views on the method of delivery. As Brewer puts it, \u201cI think the young artists are missing an opportunity to support the Parkland kids, the whole anti-gun movement. That\u2019s getting overshadowed by all the other things now. It\u2019s as if that has been forgotten already. That\u2019s too bad. I don\u2019t know why. It\u2019s not as easy anymore, I mean there\u2019s connection between artist and radio anymore because it\u2019s all gone to the internet stuff. Back then, the artist could be heard because they could get played on the radio and the radio was very supportive of artists\u2019 music and it\u2019s not now. Everything is internet based.\u201d The James Gang\u2019s Jim Fox agrees to a point stating, \u201cA lot has changed and I\u2019m not against change, but I like it better when I understand it.\u00a0It took me awhile to take to streaming.\u00a0As long as you can interface with your phone.\u00a0\u00a0You get a car radio with a USB.\u201d When there were limited sources, the audience tended to be a lot bigger.\r\n\r\nIs that simply saying that subsequent generations, coincidentally weaned on rapidly changing trends in technology and even news content, became apathetic? Ed Hammell offers his opinion, and he points out it stems from the death of the hippie aesthetic. \u201cThat's over,\u201d he says. \u201cKids aren't particularly impressed with guitars. Or real instruments for that matter. I would venture to say the most influential band of all time, thus far anyway, at least for the stuff I hear my 17-year old son and ALL his friends play is Kraftwerk. They were visionary.\u00a0So, if most of the hip-hop artists that I mentioned earlier are writing angry relevant protest songs and garnering tens of millions of views on YouTube I would say, no, the youth are not apathetic. Are you asking me, in light of the fact that Trump was elected, are there millions of people who are apathetic or worse yet fucking stupid? Then absolutely. Has there been a dumbing down of the culture maybe intentionally masterminded by the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk? Probably.\u201d\r\n\r\nHammell is also quick to point out the issues may have changed, but so do attitudes often with age. \u201cThat generation is almost dead! They're focused on retirement plans. Unless they're Noam Chomsky, and sometimes activism is exhausting. But there's been plenty of socially engaged people since, and maybe, in light of school shootings and (Trump), more youth are involved than ever.\u201d He adds, \u201cI think people got tired. Reagan didn't help. But the underground music of the 80's Black Flag, Fugazi, Public Enemy, Sonic Youth, Dead Kennedy's was VERY protest oriented and inspiring. Then came the whole Riot Grrl movement in the 90's. Bikini Kill and anything Kathleen Hanna touched was amazingly great and in my opinion some of the greatest protest songs ever written. Woody Guthrie himself would have killed to join Bikini Kill.\u201d\u00a0 But did they motivate politically on any significant level?\r\n\r\n ","rendered":"

\n

\u201cWe all want war to go away,
but you can\u2019t just sit around waiting for it to happen.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0
\n\u2013 John Lennon<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe I still have to protest this fucking shit.\u201d An elderly Polish woman and her brutally honest cardboard sign went viral in 2016. She was protesting a law that would not only ban abortions in Poland but would also throw women and doctors in jail for performing them. \u201cNo Smelly Trump Allowed\u201d read the sign of a youthful protester \u2013 a girl appearing no older than eight years of age \u2013 at a 2018 demonstration in Scotland against the visit of then U.S. President Donald Trump. Elderly or adolescent, profanity-laced or PG-rated, protesting mobilizes what is arguably the most prevailing part of the human spirit, a thread that unites us all.<\/p>\n

If anyone knows about the human longing to be heard, it\u2019s Oprah Winfrey. After interviewing nearly 30,000 people on The Oprah Winfrey Show<\/em>, she recalled on the show\u2019s finale that all of her interviewees echoed the same craving, \u201cThey want to know,\u201d she said, \u201c\u2018Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Political dialogues are omnipresent today. Aside from our favorite news outlets and their various social platforms, we also have political pundits, who, after a while, start to look like bumbling bobble heads; frustrated avatars, fervently wagging their fingers as cartoon-like steam seems to blow from their noses. Maybe that\u2019s why we occasionally prefer political ideas when they\u2019re packed in a song or comedy bit. They\u2019re easier to digest and give us some relief from the angsty avatars, even some freedom to laugh at the madness.<\/p>\n

Quite often, what we have to say isn\u2019t polite (refer once again to the elderly Polish woman) but it is urgent, and it is straight from the heart. We don\u2019t have time to go gentle, we reason, as we fire up another political tweet that\u2019s saturated with angry face emojis. Former U.S. Representative Ron Paul put it this way years ago, \u201cWe don’t have the freedom of speech to talk about the weather. We have the First Amendment so we can say some very controversial things.\u201d So, we do.<\/p>\n

Those of us who use our voice to resist those in power in a public sphere or otherwise known as \u201cthe powers-that-be\u201d are sometimes considered rebels or radicals. These used to be bad words, but it seems that, over time, we\u2019ve come to recognize that rebels are the ones who ever actually gotten anything done around here. In his most celebrated book, Rule for Radicals<\/em>, political activist Saul D. Alinsky insists that the \u201cconcepts of action in human politics that operate regardless of the scene or the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll see the name Tom Rush throughout this book.\u00a0 The groundbreaking folk artist continues to deliver his musical social insight and commentary to appreciative audiences, but he is quick to admit (with a nod to Bob Dylan) that \u201cthe times they are a changing.\u201d He told us, \u201cThe spotlight has become very diffused. It\u2019s no longer a spotlight, it\u2019s more of a very thin floodlight because there are so many different avenues and so many different genres and ways to get your music. The Sixties, when everybody listened to everybody and listened to the same radio stations and watched the same TV shows, you know, it was easier to get people\u2019s attention. Now, no matter what kind of music you\u2019re making or what it is you\u2019re selling, it\u2019s very hard to get people\u2019s attention because there is so much noise and so little focus.\u201d Part of this stems from progress. We have so many diversions: smart devices, digital games, and a little monster known as social media\u2026the list goes on and on with new technology introduced seemingly every day.\u00a0 Plus, musical tastes and trends can change seemingly overnight with internet access to new music often to a fickle fan base that\u2019s easily bored. As a rule, younger generations are early adapters, especially with technology, and you can easily see the challenges with traditional music genres. But all is not lost.<\/p>\n

Despite the influx of emerging new technology (tweeting each other to death and camping out in the comments sections) we are seeing droves of fed-up Americans practicing old fashion protest tactics again even after the changes with the 2020 presidential race. 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, and protests occurring in cities nationwide simultaneously linked to perceived racial injustice continue to draw thousands to the streets.\u00a0 Sadly, radical factions on both sides led to violence and even deaths at some of those rallies, and the siege on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 showed how polarizing the voices of protest can be. Perhaps the noted political commentator and activist Saul Alinsky would have derived hope from these numbers since he believed \u201cchange comes from power, and power comes from organization\u201d, though it\u2019s unlikely even he could have foreseen the frightening result of that polarization and the deviously planned chaos with an armed militia storming the halls of Congress.<\/p>\n

Online protest tactics are beneficial, yes, but we\u2019ve clearly been re-energized and feel the palpable urgency to organize and show up in-person again, though the pandemic did its part in limiting those demonstrations for a time. Those pre and post COVID attendance numbers suggest that it\u2019s not just radicals with protest signs and, ominously, weapons in their hands. Many of us skipped work.\u00a0 Many of us pulled our kids from school and loaded up the minivan to march together. We\u2019re putting down our phones (at least for a few hours) to show up in the flesh again. The word \u201cprotest\u201d itself may be synonymous today with \u201cresistance,\u201d \u201cdissent,\u201d and \u201cdivision,\u201d but ultimately, it\u2019s a uniting affair that separates us from animals. Put simply, by Kent State Professor Jacquie Marino, \u201cwithout protest, we are a society of sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

We all have a platform in our own little corner of the world. We assemble at protests; we slap messages all over our social media pages and maybe we still share messages at our dinner table (an optimistic thought). But those with the greatest power to influence are arguably those with larger platforms \u2013 namely musicians and comedians. Besides both of these genres of entertainment being a great place to pitch a protest message, they have a lot of other things in common too, or so they think. It\u2019s been said that every comedian wants to be a rock star and every rock star thinks they\u2019re funny. At any rate, they both really know how to pack a punch in pop culture. One aspect of protest that continues to thrive is the use of rhetoric to compel change, and popular culture along with social media have proven to be efficient messengers.<\/p>\n

Pop culture news has a way of hitting our phones seemingly faster than an Amber alert. If Kim Kardashian loses an earring, we\u2019re going to hear about it. Can a country be comforted by knowing that their message reverberates in the hearts of their favorite artists, whose very lives are a lot like megaphones? It can\u2019t hurt to try. That\u2019s the intention of this book.<\/p>\n

As our social and political climate continues to intensify since the polarizing events of the 2016 presidential election and the divisions that were defined by the 2020 vote, our nation is experiencing an awakening of protest messaging in music and comedy. We can\u2019t help but notice how similar these messages and themes are to the Vietnam War protest messages from nearly fifty years ago. For example, Graham Nash seemed to be wrestling with D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu in a phone interview with Cleveland Scene<\/em> ahead of his Akron performance in 2019. \u201c\u2026it\u2019s a pain in the ass to have to keep singing \u2018Immigration Man\u2019 for instance \u2013which I wrote 50 years ago. Is immigration not relevant today? Is \u2018Military Madness\u2019 not relevant today? I wrote that song about my father going off to World War II for God\u2019s sake. We don\u2019t seem to have learned much.\u201d Then and now, in these polarized times, those with the greatest power to influence in these tense times are those with the largest platforms.<\/p>\n

Over these pages, we also explore the ways musicians, comedians and other pop commentators construct political messaging in their work, or why they choose to avoid it all together. This is a collection of in-depth entertainment perspectives that specifically focuses on the decades of protest and nonconformity since the release of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young\u2019s \u201cOhio\u201d one week after the Kent State shootings in May 1970.\u00a0 In this book, today\u2019s messaging and meaning found in political songs and commentary are analyzed and then compare and contrast it with political messaging in music and comedy (political satire) from the late 1960\u2019s.<\/p>\n

On May 4, 1970, during a protest demonstration against the illegal bombing of Cambodia, a total of 13 unarmed students were shot on Kent State University campus \u2014 67 rounds fired in just 13 seconds \u2014 by the Ohio National Guard. Nine were seriously injured, four were killed. That piece of information has become the event\u2019s tagline and is burned in our memory, at least those of us who live, or have lived in Kent or attended the university at any point in time before or since the tragedy. But what we sometimes neglect to think about is how the tragedy had a \u201cprofound effect on the national psyche: Within a week, millions of college and high school students went on strike, and more than 100,000 young people marched on the Capitol, permanently reshaping the national dialogue on Vietnam.\u201d In 2019, Kent State welcomed two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist\u00a0Bob Woodward to the university as the keynote speaker for the 49th anniversary of the event.<\/p>\n

He shared that in preparation for his speech, he contacted \u201cone of the nation\u2019s leading scholars on the secret recordings made by then-President Richard Nixon of his meetings in the Oval Office. They discovered a previously unknown section \u2014 recorded in 1971 \u2014 in which Nixon discusses the Attica Prison uprising, which ended when New York State troopers dropped tear gas and opened fire, killing 29 inmates. He quoted the following:<\/p>\n

Nixon: \u201cYou know what I think?\u00a0This might have one hell of a salutary effect.\u00a0 You know what stops them?\u00a0Kill a few.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d Haldeman said.<\/p>\n

Nixon: \u201cRemember Kent State?\u00a0Didn\u2019t it have a hell of an effect?\u201d<\/p>\n

The news of May 4 quickly reached the ears and consciousness of many politically peeved artists (aside from CSNY) who publicly sounded off in distress. \u201cBefore coming here today,\u201d Stevie Wonder said during the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in 1971, \u201cI had a lot of things on my mind, a lot of things that you don\u2019t have to\u00a0see<\/em>\u00a0to understand. We are in a very troublesome time today in the world. A time in which a man can get 12 years in prison for possession of marijuana, and another who can kill four students at Kent State and come out free. What kind of shit is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The 50th anniversary of this event is examined in this book as a turning point for our country and for protest music by and large. May 4 visibly penetrated music on a national level, but it also shaped music careers on a local level too, as a \u201cpowerful and lasting creative response to the tragedy.\u201d \u00a0\u201cI don’t think I would have started Devo had that not happened,\u201d Gerald Casale, the co-founder of the band Devo told The Chicago Tribune<\/em> in 2018. Casale formed Devo in the early 1970s with Bob Lewis, another Kent State student survivor. \u201cWe were pissed off, and we wanted to take the energy that comes from that anger and channel it, and it happened to be into the concept of Devo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Butler also bore witness to the tragedy of May 4 and formed his own bands, Tin Huey and the Waitresses. Butler was, in essence, \u201cborne witness to a culture.\u201d He calls it, \u201cthe uber-culture\u201d that had tried to kill him. He realized, he said, that he had \u201cto create a clean space\u201d for himself. Much as it did for other survivors, music provided him with that outlet.<\/p>\n

We mentioned the almost immediate response from the arts community following the Kent State shootings. One of the first songs was rush released by a Florida band called The Third Condition on Sundi Records titled, \u201cMonday in May (A May Day of Hell)\u201d later subtitled \u201cThe Kent State Tragedy.\u201d The lyrics describe, \u201cBullets were flying, students were crying. Screams of the dying were burned in their mind. Monday in May, a May Day in hell.\u201d Two important points here: Billboard<\/em> magazine reported the Tampa-based Sundi had set up a Monday in May Scholarship Fund that donated 10% of the net royalties, but stressed it was not defending or criticizing the students or National Guard on May 4th. The second point, Crosby Stills Nash and Young\u2019s \u201cOhio\u201d\u2026sung by music veterans sure to get attention by a public familiar with their past work\u2026 got most of the attention by far when it was released shortly after the shootings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that there were a whole lot of people like us that were shocked that four of America\u2019s children had been gunned down on a campus doing something that they were legally allowed to do.\u201d David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) gave that assessment to Kent State\u2019s Black Squirrel Radio during a 2017 campus visit. Neil Young composed \u201cOhio\u201d \u2013 the impeccably haunting protest song about the Kent State shootings that Rolling Stone<\/em> calls \u201cimpossible to top.\u201d \u201cWe put out \u2018Ohio\u2019 right away,\u201d Crosby continued. \u201cIt was immediate, it was topical, and it was the truth. You could feel that we were angry.\u201d \u00a0It might also be sensible to note that the music industry of the time was still directed by \u201csuits\u201d who might have seen the potential marketing possibility of the tragedy by, for lack of a better word, exploiting CSNY\u2019s shared raged with the public.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to question the artists\u2019 sincerity or suggest that that CSNY put out its anthem for profit.\u00a0 In fact, Crosby seemed to outline (in a phone call ahead of his 2018 Kent Stage performance) his own definition of protest music, \u201c\u2026that\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 Former bandmate Neil Young also made his position clear in the lyrics of \u201cOhio,\u201d but what about the fourth voice of CSNY? After all, Stephen Stills was also heard on a previous classic anthem of the time, Buffalo Springfield\u2019s \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth.\u201d Surprisingly, while no one questions Stills\u2019 sincerity, he also told writer Steve Baltin that he wasn\u2019t a fan of protest music stating, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be motivated enough to write a powerful enough song to get their attention, but mainly you can\u2019t do too many of them. If you\u2019ve got a message that\u2019s profound and you keep trying to do that, and if you try too hard, it doesn\u2019t really happen. It\u2019s got to overwhelm you and suddenly it\u2019s all inspiration and it\u2019s very clear how it should go. But if you\u2019re grinding out this pamphleteer material it can get boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t lost on the song\u2019s author as well and it may call back to the urgency and widespread popularity of its message.\u00a0 CSNY\u2019s Neil Young, who penned the epic anthem himself,\u00a0 was unable to sing it for a while. \u201cI felt I was kinda taking advantage of something that happened and we were trading on somebody’s misfortunes \u2026 to give the audience a kind of rush of nostalgia \u2026\u201d he said in a previous interview.<\/a> But by the time Young reunited CSNY for an anti-Bush Freedom of Speech tour in 2006, he changed his mind and pulled the song back on the playlist. \u201cIn this period of time, that doesn’t apply. What it is now is, it’s a history,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’re bringing history back. That’s what folk music does.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, not every seasoned artist of the CSNY generation admires that definitive protest anthem. Jazz and folk vocalist and lifelong activist Barbra Dane scratched her head at the tune. \u201cStuff like Crosby Stills and Nash and all that\u2026 it reaches a broad audience but then it doesn\u2019t say enough. It doesn\u2019t go far enough. It just leaves them with their illusions.\u201d When asked if \u201cOhio\u201d wasn\u2019t direct enough, she said, \u201cWell, I was just listening to the lyrics. What does it mean, \u2018we\u2019re finally on our own?\u2019\u201d She argues \u201cOhio\u201d is simply too much is up for interpretation, which makes sense for her preferred. Her own biggest protest song is hyper specific, even in the title \u2013 \u201cI Hate the Capitalist System.\u201d Some argue, however, that the \u201copenness\u201d of some protest songs gives it the flexibility to live on decades later and apply to a plethora of central political issues.<\/p>\n

For example, Buffalo Springfield\u2019s \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d (coincidentally written\u00a0 by Stephen Stills)\u00a0 has, according to <\/a>Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>, become \u201cone of pop\u2019s most-covered protest songs \u2013 a sort of \u2018We Shall Overcome\u2019 of its time, its references to police, fun and paranoia remaining continually relevant.\u201d Heart\u2019s Ann Wilson released a cover of it in 2015 and told Rolling Stone<\/em>, \u201cIt\u2019s so open that it\u2019s brand new today. The main hook, \u2018Everybody look what\u2019s going down\u2019 \u2013 you can apply that, to say, the current election. The song is going, \u2018What the hell is this?\u2019 You can apply the song to any situation in any decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some other criticism aimed at bands like CSNY comes from issues with image and actions \u2013 why are these four wealthy musicians dressing like they\u2019re not living in mansions? It\u2019s criticism similar to what John Lennon received when he filmed the video for what is arguably the most moving anthem for peace (\u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d) and this book\u2019s namesake \u201cAll We Are Saying\u201d from his Montreal hotel bed-in, but later moved to the toney and spacious Dakota apartments for his remaining days.<\/p>\n

Criticism aside, this music had an impact, especially on the disillusioned.\u00a0 May 4th witness Chic Canfora will tell you, \u201cSongs like \u2018For What It\u2019s Worth,\u2019 they came from the kind of solidarity we were all feeling, campus to campus. Uniting around it. We didn\u2019t have social media to connect us, but music was the one commonality that kept us connected. We could go anywhere, and we were singing the same songs.\u201d A musical rallying cry for the masses.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d did get some big-time network TV exposure. Buffalo Springfield got the usual music and variety show gigs, but Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay also reached a new, and it has to be said older, audience when they appeared in a 1967 episode of CBS-TV\u2019s detective drama Mannix<\/em> titled, \u201cWarning: Live Blueberries\u201d.\u00a0 The three playing as Buffalo Springfield can be heard performing \u201cBluebird\u201d and \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d that charted the previous year. Was the message lost on most of the viewership from a different generation?\u00a0 Considering the so-called \u201cgeneration gap\u201d \u2026 did it even matter?<\/p>\n

The primary audience for protest music from any era has always been the youth culture.\u00a0 In the 1960s and Seventies it was also the generation that indignantly demanded to be heard. That could also be one major reason CSNY\u2019s anthem was adopted so quickly. It\u2019s musical style stressed anger and urgency, buoyed in part by headlines about the tragedy in the days prior to its release, and you could vent your own feelings by yelling out the words. While other music that immediately followed the May 4th shootings can be equally compelling and insightful, \u201cOhio\u201d had that musical hook that for many provided that instant emotional link. Could that same sense of passion and concern be duplicated today?\u00a0 The comparisons may surprise you.<\/p>\n

Our country\u2019s protestors from the \u201cdefining\u201d era of resistance in America (the late 1960s) were once the youth culture who demonstrated their resistance over the Vietnam War. Suddenly, Boomers and Millennials have a lot in common. According to the Huffington Post<\/em>, Millennials are \u201cmore\u00a0likely to have gone to a protest since the election than any other age group\u201d and, \u201cMillennials are also more likely than older groups to think protesting is an effective form of political action.\u201d Plainly, protest is both popular and relevant again for any generation. 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 There are also plenty of voices to carry that message, rich with insight and musical ability, but with a very select yet highly aware audience. Ed Hammell with Righteous Babe Records is one of them.<\/p>\n

Working as Hammell on Trial he\u2019s described by his label as a one-man punk band fueled by politics and passion. Not one to hold back, Hammell was asked if a common enemy or nagging social impasse might link the earliest days of protest to the audience and artist of today.\u00a0 After the 2016 election he stated without hesitation, \u201cOh, we have one, and his name is Trump!\u201d We told you he didn\u2019t hold back, and he stressed that he saw the former president as \u201cthe symbol for hate, racism,\u00a0fascism,\u00a0stupidity etc. But a lot of this I liken to the guy who sells horses in 1900 yelling at those new-fangled inventions, cars. And he’s screaming at the side of the road, \u2018Cars are never going to take over for horses! Go away!\u2019\u00a0The times my friend, they are a changin\u2019, and a lot of this is inevitable. We are in a transitional phase but make no mistake it’s changing.\u201d\u00a0 Hammell also foresaw that, \u201cTrump’s quest to \u2018Make America Great Again\u2019 will come to fruition in ways he never anticipated.\u00a0The rise against him has become great. It will lead, no matter how long he is in office, to a greater democracy and a greater America. Not HIS vision of America, thank God.\u201d Despite the violent rise of the radical right wing insurgents prior to the 2021 inauguration, you can still notice that sense of hope and salvation Hammell offers, but he\u2019s also quick to point out the halting progress of music with a distinct social message.<\/p>\n

In regard to social change, despite the Trump administration\u2019s perceived manifestation of racism, misogyny, anti-intellectualism, fascism etc., he tells us, \u201cI would venture to say there have been significant advances. We had an African American president for God’s sake. And, I’m hardly a visionary but the blow back from this administration,\u00a0 i.e. the largest women’s march in history, the town hall meetings, the current level of diversity in Congress, a greater engagement on the part of the public, young people almost bringing the NRA to its knees, and so on,\u00a0 all points to a progressive future. So, yeah, there’s a lot of one step back but two steps forward.\u201d\u00a0 But we\u2019re also looking specifically at the arts driving that change, and Hammell\u00a0 has some specific and possibly surprising opinions about it, saying, \u201cIf you’re talking about progress in protest songs since \u2018Ohio\u2019 and \u2018Give Peace a Chance\u2019…good God yes. A couple songs written by rich white guys don’t hold a candle to the shit that’s going on these days. Lennon wrote some good tunes, but \u2018Give Peace a Chance,\u2019 despite being a pretty cool DIY recording ain’t one of them. And Rolling Stone<\/em> might claim \u2019Ohio\u2019 to be the greatest protest song, and admittedly it’s not bad, were we to gauge it as our current youth demographic would, say YouTube views against the best protest song that’s been written in the past year, Childish Gambino\u2019s \u2018This is America.\u2019 \u2018Ohio\u2019 has 1.7 million hits on YouTube,\u00a0\u2018This is America\u2019 has 591 million. More than half a billion and counting. So yeah, for\u00a0someone like me who needs righteous anger in their protest music I’d say there’s been GREAT progress in protest songs available immediately, for free, to the public.\u201d\u00a0Note the word free. It\u2019s important especially when it comes to delivering and accessing music and information.\u00a0 It should also be noted that CSNY had a long head start on Childish Gambino relegating \u201cOhio\u201d to the classic rock (read that) \u201coldies\u201d bin.\u00a0 How they would stack up in online hits if both were new releases would be an interesting comparison.<\/p>\n

\u201cCell phones showing cops shooting innocent black people,\u201d he continued. \u201cCell phones showing white armed terrorists shooting up schools, mosques, Black churches\u00a0and synagogues. Social media filming the dumbest president in my lifetime and that’s saying something.\u00a0And the ability for artists with progressive or activist leanings to make a video or record on their phone or via Pro Tools on their computer. For free.\u201d He also stresses the music is there and he\u2019s not alone serving that audience. The message is more plainly stated than ever before but again he points to delivery and even marketing, both of which underwent massive changes. \u201cChrist, every word that comes out of the great Ani DiFranco’s mouth. These were not bathed in metaphor. This is current, this is blunt, as blunt as Billie Holiday’s \u2018Strange Fruit\u2019 or Nina Simone\u2019s \u2018Mississippi Goddamn.\u2019 The Clash’s \u2018Washington Bullets\u2019 and every song by Crass.\u201d But is there a music industry to market that style of messaging?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell it doesn’t exist anymore,\u201d according to Hammell.\u00a0\u201cThere’s no gatekeeper Artist and Repertoire guy determining the \u2018tastes\u2019 of the market. It has been democratized.\u00a0An artist can put something up on YouTube or Soundcloud and the people will decide whether it’s going to be a \u2018hit\u2019 (go viral) or not. I don’t think TV, radio or particularly print media is relevant anymore.\u00a0Music, news, information you can get for free, you can store it on your phone for free, in your pocket.\u00a0You can record it for free, it unquestionably democratized the process\u2026You write from your heart. You write from your conscience. There are no record companies anymore, there is no print media dictating taste anymore. You run it up the pole and see if it flies. The old way is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

A solid point, but at the same time there is a history of artists who were dismissed by critics and even Sixties era radio who reaped huge rewards essentially by word of mouth. Grand Funk Railroad out of Flint, Michigan, were part of that trend. Drummer Don Brewer says a great deal of their success was based on acting as a voice for the \u201cfreek\u201d community that felt powerless to big government. He also doesn\u2019t believe music is as important today for shaping social movements as it was in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I don\u2019t see the correlation at all and it\u2019s too bad because music was really a voice of that whole movement that we had, with antiwar and anti-government. Yes, I see a lot of similarities in the amount of hate that\u2019s out there right now. I heard Trump say to a protestor, \u2018Cut your hair!\u2019 WHOA! You know that was a total flashback to all of the political people against the long hairs and the hippies! The hippies were just scum to them and I\u2019m seeing that again and I\u2019m going, \u2018This really needs to change.\u2019 But unfortunately, I don\u2019t see that music is the voice now. It was then for sure. I mean all of the bands that were involved in that time period were totally into supporting that movement, getting that war stopped. I don\u2019t see that going on right now and it needs to happen. We need a voice.\u201d\u00a0 But what is that voice?\u00a0 Is it attached to another anthem? Brewer believes, \u201cIt was the rallying call that brought a lot of people together. The music was kind of like glue that bound a lot of these people together and went \u2018Yeah it\u2019s okay to speak out. Listen, my favorite artist is speaking out and he\u2019s singing a song on the radio that is what I feel.\u2019 Yeah, I don\u2019t see that going on and it\u2019s too bad.\u201d\u00a0 The election of Joe Biden in 2020\u2026despite the politically fueled legal challenges\u2026was likely the result of technology and platforms that were distant ideas in the years Brewer refers to, and that\u2019s really just part of a rolling trend.\u00a0 Franklin Roosevelt was first elected in 1932 by an electorate crushed by economic hardship but his message was delivered by the still young medium of radio, a method of communication that has fallen by the wayside in its original form.\u00a0 But that offers an interesting comparison of views regarding the way we use currently use available media, the quick turnover in a \u201csoundbite\u201d society and the use of art as a voice for change.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, Brewer and Hammell share common ground when it comes to opportunity, but different views on the method of delivery. As Brewer puts it, \u201cI think the young artists are missing an opportunity to support the Parkland kids, the whole anti-gun movement. That\u2019s getting overshadowed by all the other things now. It\u2019s as if that has been forgotten already. That\u2019s too bad. I don\u2019t know why. It\u2019s not as easy anymore, I mean there\u2019s connection between artist and radio anymore because it\u2019s all gone to the internet stuff. Back then, the artist could be heard because they could get played on the radio and the radio was very supportive of artists\u2019 music and it\u2019s not now. Everything is internet based.\u201d The James Gang\u2019s Jim Fox agrees to a point stating, \u201cA lot has changed and I\u2019m not against change, but I like it better when I understand it.\u00a0It took me awhile to take to streaming.\u00a0As long as you can interface with your phone.\u00a0\u00a0You get a car radio with a USB.\u201d When there were limited sources, the audience tended to be a lot bigger.<\/p>\n

Is that simply saying that subsequent generations, coincidentally weaned on rapidly changing trends in technology and even news content, became apathetic? Ed Hammell offers his opinion, and he points out it stems from the death of the hippie aesthetic. \u201cThat’s over,\u201d he says. \u201cKids aren’t particularly impressed with guitars. Or real instruments for that matter. I would venture to say the most influential band of all time, thus far anyway, at least for the stuff I hear my 17-year old son and ALL his friends play is Kraftwerk. They were visionary.\u00a0So, if most of the hip-hop artists that I mentioned earlier are writing angry relevant protest songs and garnering tens of millions of views on YouTube I would say, no, the youth are not apathetic. Are you asking me, in light of the fact that Trump was elected, are there millions of people who are apathetic or worse yet fucking stupid? Then absolutely. Has there been a dumbing down of the culture maybe intentionally masterminded by the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk? Probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hammell is also quick to point out the issues may have changed, but so do attitudes often with age. \u201cThat generation is almost dead! They’re focused on retirement plans. Unless they’re Noam Chomsky, and sometimes activism is exhausting. But there’s been plenty of socially engaged people since, and maybe, in light of school shootings and (Trump), more youth are involved than ever.\u201d He adds, \u201cI think people got tired. Reagan didn’t help. But the underground music of the 80’s Black Flag, Fugazi, Public Enemy, Sonic Youth, Dead Kennedy’s was VERY protest oriented and inspiring. Then came the whole Riot Grrl movement in the 90’s. Bikini Kill and anything Kathleen Hanna touched was amazingly great and in my opinion some of the greatest protest songs ever written. Woody Guthrie himself would have killed to join Bikini Kill.\u201d\u00a0 But did they motivate politically on any significant level?<\/p>\n

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