Protest Music

[alankin]

Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" still haunts me.

Interesting aside -- The author of the song later adopted the Rosenberg's children after their execution.

[Guy Berger]

Nobody's mentioned Peter Gabriel, who's done some of this stuff... "Biko", "Wallflower", a few others. I guess "Big Time" protests against modern materialism in a witty way.

Guy

[ghost of miles]

Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" still haunts me.

Interesting aside -- The author of the song later adopted the Rosenberg's children after their execution.

Yes--didn't he also co-write "The House I Live In?" (For those unfamiliar, a great anti-racism song from the 1940s recorded by Sinatra as well as Paul Robeson.)

For an interesting book about the song, its origin, and its impact, check out David Margolick's book Strange Fruit.

[maren]

Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" still haunts me.

Interesting aside -- The author of the song later adopted the Rosenberg's children after their execution.

Yes--didn't he also co-write "The House I Live In?" (For those unfamiliar, a great anti-racism song from the 1940s recorded by Sinatra as well as Paul Robeson.)

For an interesting book about the song, its origin, and its impact, check out David Margolick's book Strange Fruit.

Yes, "Lewis Allen" (pen name of Abel Meeropol), wrote "Strange Fruit" and "The House I Live In" -- and adopted Robby and Michael Meeropol (sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg).

And as I always say when his name comes up, there's a great documentary by Joel Katz, also called "Strange Fruit."

(If you click on that link, it will take you to a PBS page about the film, with filmmaker Q&A, and a topic called "Protest Music Overview")

[sonic1]

I WANT CANDY! Edited February 27, 2005 by sonic1

[maren]

The Lydia Lunch version?

[sonic1]

lol, ironically I was thinking of The Gories version on "outa here", quite a raunchy version itself.

[Bright Moments]

Freedom Now Suite (candid).

B-)

[WD45]

Fela "Anikulapo" Kuti

James Brown

[paul secor]

Some of Archie Shepp's early recordings.

[AfricaBrass]

Fela "Anikulapo" Kuti

James Brown

How could I forget Fela!?!?

[clifford_thornton]

There's a great record on Broadside of protest music by the Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick and Jimmie Collier called "Everybody's Got a Right to Live." One I immediately think of, anyway.

Other than that, well, all those jazz records I have...

[skeith]

I love Mercedes Sosa, and now Brownie will say that he thinks I don't understand a word of it.

[Jazzmoose]

I love Mercedes Sosa, and now Brownie will say that he thinks I don't understand a word of it.

[Johnny E]

My favorite protest singer was Woody Guthrie.

One album of his that I find very interesting is:

Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti

I'm just now getting into these recordings and I love them. Does anybody know what the best book out there is on the sacco & vanzetti case?

[porcy62]

What about THE CLASH?

One of my favourite band.

[ep1str0phy]

Hell, if Ornette Coleman isn't protest music, I don't know what is (and Albert Ayler, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk...)

[Alexander Hawkins]

My favorite protest singer was Woody Guthrie.

One album of his that I find very interesting is:

Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti

I'm just now getting into these recordings and I love them. Does anybody know what the best book out there is on the sacco & vanzetti case?

Not a book, but if I remember correctly, Karl Llewellyn wrote very intelligently (no surprise) about it - although I forget the precise reference.

[Neal Pomea]

From the world of country music, I like Iris Dement's song There's a Wall in Washington.

None finer, though, than Hazel Dickens. See Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People, It's Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song, and Coal Mining Women, which includes Florence Reece's Which Side Are You On?

Come all you good workers,

Good news to you I'll tell

Of how the good old union

Has come in here to dwell.

CHORUS:

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

My dady was a miner,

And I'm a miner's son,

And I'll stick with the union

'Til every battle's won.

They say in Harlan County

There are no neutrals there.

You'll either be a union man

Or a thug for J. H. Blair.

Oh workers can you stand it?

Oh tell me how you can?

Will you be a lousy scab

Or will you be a man?

Don't scab for the bosses,

Don't listen to their lies.

Us poor folks haven't got a chance

Unless we organize

Edited March 22, 2006 by It Should be You

[Chuck Nessa]

Anyone mentioned the Hot 5s yet?

[md655321]

Don't even get me started on Rage Against the Machine. I went to high school with those guys. Heck, I even jammed with Zack (when he was a really BAD drummer). We all lived in highly sheltered in Irvine, California. If you've ever read interviews about Zack being oppressed because of his race; he wasn't, he was way more popular than I was (and I had tons of friends).

I dont really remember Zack talking about his personal oppression much, if ever. And ive read a ton of his interviews.

Regardless, lyrics like this show a great deal of poetic and political skill.

March Of Death

by Zack De La Rocha

I was born with the voice of a riot, a storm

Lightening the function, the form

Far from the norm, I won't follow like cattle

I'm more like the catalyst,

calm in the mix of battle

Who let the cowboy on the saddle?

He don't know a missile from a gavel

Para terror troopin' flippin' loops of death upon innocent flesh

But i'm back in the cipher my foes and friends

with a verse and a pen

against a line I won't tow or defend

instead I curse at murderous men

in suits of professionals who act like animals

This man child, ruthless and wild

Who's gonna chain this beast back on the leash?

This Texas fuhrer, for sure a

compassionless con who serve a

lethal needle to the poor, the cure for crime is murder?

Well I was born with the voice of a riot, a storm

Lightening the function, the form

Far from the norm, I won't follow like cattle

I'm more like the catalyst,

calm in the mix of battle

Who let the cowboy on the saddle?

He don't know a missile from a gavel

I read the news today

oh boy

a snap shot of a midnight ploy

Vexed and powerless

devoured my hours I'm motionless

with no rest

'Cause a scream now holds the sky

under another high-tech driveby

A lie is a lie this God is an eagle

or a condor for war nothing more

Islam peace, Islam stare into my eye brother

please off our knees

To beef now we feed their disease

interlocked our hands across seas

What is a flag is a rag but a shroud out loud

outside my window is a faceless crowd

'Cause a cowering child just took her last breath

one snare in the march of death

here it comes the sound of terror from above

he flex his Texas twisted tongue

the poor lined up to kill in desert slums

for oil that burn beneath the desert sun

now we spit flame to flip this game

all the targets are taking aim

all targets are taking aim

we're the targets are taking aim

One of the few coherent songs about the most recent Iraq War.

[gdogus]

What about THE CLASH?

One of my favourite band.

At one time, they were widely referred to as "the only band that matters." And the wide referrers were right.