Springsteen. He writes protest songs all the time. "Born in the USA" was a protest song about Vietnam , but everybody thought that it was a patriotic song. Reagan even used it as a campaign song until Springsteen made him stop using it. "41 Shots" is a protest song dealing with the police shooting of that poor guy with his wallet in his hand. The song got the name because the police shot the guy 41 times. "Galveston Bay" is a song about the terrible treatment of the Vietnamese fishermen that settled in Galveston after they were forced to flee Vietnam for helping the USA during the war. On his newest album "Devils and Dust" the title song is about a soldier comimg home from Iraq. He wrote a great song about a Vietnam vet who was a tunnel rat in "Shut out the Light". The vet came home afraid of the dark. He also writes protests against the conditions of the poor and hopeless. "My hometown" is a protest against the harshness of Reaganism and big business. I don't know of a more active protest song writer. He even received boxes of broken records and CDs from conservatives because he campaigned for Kerry last year. Jim
Does anyone do good protest music anymore?
I had the news on the radio at work this morning and there was some fellow babbling on about reinstituting the draft. At the same time I had the CDP on and Simon and Garfunkel were doing a Dylan protest song. This set my mind to wondering... but I don't remember what I was wondering about.
In the 60's and even early 70's there were lots of talented people protesting. Dylan and S&G are a couple of the obvious suspects but people like Gordon Lightfoot, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and Barry McGuire added a lot to that period.
With this reactionary fearmongering about the draft is there any chance that a new crop of 'protest' singers will emerge, or has the good stuff already been done, and if so, who did it?
In the 60's and even early 70's there were lots of talented people protesting. Dylan and S&G are a couple of the obvious suspects but people like Gordon Lightfoot, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and Barry McGuire added a lot to that period.
With this reactionary fearmongering about the draft is there any chance that a new crop of 'protest' singers will emerge, or has the good stuff already been done, and if so, who did it?