Despite volatile times, protest music hard to find on airwaves

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

The age of oblivion
Despite volatile times, protest music hard to find on airwaves

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4946516/

<snip>

On her new album, “Trampin’,” the rock poet Patti Smith leads her veteran band through a squalling diatribe against the war in Iraq. The devastated Iraqi capital, she laments on “Radio Baghdad,” was once the cradle of civilization, the world center of scholarship.

We created the zero, and we mean nothing to you!” Smith thunders, putting herself in the historic shoes of her own country’s latest mortal enemy.

You won’t hear this song on commercial radio anytime soon, and not simply because it’s a 12-minute noise mantra. War in Iraq and other policies of the current presidential administration are effectively off-limits on the popular airwaves.

It’s perhaps not surprising that one of the top songs in America right now is called “I Don’t Wanna Know.” Despite mounting evidence that the war is dividing the nation, our pop music — at least on the surface — seems oblivious. We’re clearly living in a much different social climate than the era that made No. 1 songs of Edwin Starr’s “War” and Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction.”

<snip>

Good editorial.

[smiley_glad_hands]

1. APC

[drthais]

2. where have you BEEN?

didn't you hear the song on Randi Rhodes today?
J
"Jesus votes Republican.."

great stuff

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

3. I listened to her at work today, but got really busy so I must have missed

that part of the show.

[mmonk]

4. Yes

America is so much different from those days (Vietnam). Of course, the war had been going on for awhile. But the people today have been rained on by rightwing radio, books, talkingheads for about a decade. The war has for the most part been sanitized and information controlled. No real debate has occured worthy of the current crisis. A cult has been created that needs to be deprogrammed.

[Another Bill C.]

6. During Vietnam

there were gutsy newspeople who went off on their own to get the stories. Now there are a bunch of wimps covering the war and they stay behind their barricades waiting for the "official stories" to be handed out by the military.

Americans have no idea what's happening there and don't seem really interested in finding out.

[wyldwolf]

5. One of the biggest songs recently was "Where Is The Love?" -

by Black Eyed Peas.

Must also ask - how long had Viet Nam dragged on before the protest songs of the 60s were noticed or appeared?

[DAGDA56]

8. Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" came out in '65...

...before that I think you could hear Dylan's "Masters of War", plus a number of anit-war songs by the Byrds, Animals, etc...admittedly, it really hit a peak with Woodstock in '69. I don't think there is any less anti-war music today...I just think it isn't being heard. Spend a moment with http://www.lacarte.org/songs/anti-war/

[smallprint]

7. That's what ClearChannel is for

keeping any kind of interesting, thought-provoking, creative, rebellious music off the air. Of course there's no good protest music-- it's being shut out of the market. No market = no money for performers = no scene = no creative development. The entire entertainment industry has been stifled politically like this for the last 4 years.

The people who are running the country lived through the 60s too. They know damn well how much power the music of that era had to liberate people's minds, and they don't want it to happen again.

[Nashyra]

10. I have a series of "Folk Music"

from the early 60's and all those anti war songs are on them. Eve of Destruction, blowin in the wind, where have all the flowers gone etc. I realized while listening to those songs driving around in my little convertible in Lake Tahoe whining about my son being in college that things had not changed at all since I was in high school. I am about to turn 50 and realized that I had not done one damn thing to make things better. It propelled me into trying to do something of value. I realized I was ashamed of myself. DU has been very insightful and helpful.. We put the link to DU on our Democratic Womens home page.

[dusty64]

14. Ahh, the joys

of McRadio.

[davekriss]

9. Horses...

...one of the greatest albums ever made!

I will definately have to pick up her latest. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Been a Patti fan since the seventies.

...Can't you show me nothing but surrender?
Johnny gets up, takes off his leather jacket,
Taped to his chest there's the answer,
You got pen knives and jack knives and
Switchblades preferred, switchblades preferred
Then he cries, then he screams, saying
Life is full of pain, I'm cruisin' through my brain
And I fill my nose with snow and go Rimbaud,
Go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud,
And go Johnny go, and do the watusi, oh do the watusi...


Lately though I feel closer to Ani DiFranco's "Serpentine", from her Evolve CD.

...an i've been around the world now
and i can see this about america
the mind control is steep here, man
the myopia is deep here

and behold
those that try to expose the reality
who really try to realize democracy
are shot with rubber bullets and gassed off the streets
while the global power brokers are kept clean and discreet
behind a wall
behind a moat
and that is all
that's all she wrote

an my heart beats an sss o o o sss
cuz folks just couldn't care care care less less less
as long as every day is superbowl sunday
and larger than life women in lingerie
are pouting at us from every bus stop
shelovesme shelovesmenot shelovesme shelovesmenot...

and "big government should not stand between a man and his money"
cuz "what's good for business is good for the country"

our children still take that lie like communion
the same old line the confederacy used on the union

conjugate liberty
into libertarian
and medicate it
associate it
with deregulation
privatization
we won't even know we're slaves
on a corporate plantation
somebody say hallelujah!
somebody say damnation!
cuz the profit system follows the path of least resistance
and the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked
makes it serpentine
capitalism is the devil's wet dream
so just give me my judy garland drugs
and let me get back to work
cuz the empire state building
is the tallest building in new york
and i always got the feeling
you just liked to hear it fall


Moderators, apologies for this excursion into song lyrics, but after reading through the Berg threads I needed the diversion. DiFranco's dark lyrics are ... uplifting compared to a few moments ago. Someone says it on another thread: Don't be distracted. We are right. The violence must end. We have important work to do.

[Deja Q]

11. In 1960s, socially aware music made MONEY

Corporate america and the conservatives also saw that it got people to speak up and act up.

People having free will is a danger to these creatures in power.

The social climate is the same (social unrest). It's the media that's playing a different tune.

[WFF]

12. I heard "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" the other day

Remember that one? There was a big censorship issue in the 60's concerning that song and the Smothers Brothers. I don't remember the details.

[LoZoccolo]

13. Well, there's that Black Eyed Peas song.

The war's going on but the reason's undercover

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

15. oddly enough, in the early & mid 70s, on FM radio in Louisville..

the FM rock station had ALOT of those old protest songs on their playlist....Ohio, For What Its Worth, Fresh Air, Almost Cut My Hair, If 6 was 9, etc...lots of that stuff was what i grew up on in the 1970s..those old protest tunes...