Protest Songs for the 21st Century

It occurred to me just the other day that I miss the protest song.

As far back as the minstrels who followed inept knights around the forest, criticizing their failures (if we can believe Monty Python's version of medieval history, and I see no reason not to) there have been voices in the darkness railing against the establishment.

Beethoven's Ode to Joy was a protest song. I didn't really know that. Wikipedia told me.

The 20th century saw (or I suppose, more correctly, heard) musical howlings on behalf of causes ranging from unionization to women's suffrage to the end of the Vietnam War. Troubadours with names like Guthrie, Seeger, Cisco, Leadbelly, Dylan, Baez, Ochs and even Dion sang out against what they saw as injustice and tyranny.

Just three weeks after the Kent State shootings in May of 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's song protesting that tragic event, where four college students died, was on the Billboard charts. Ohio peaked at number 14. It's hard to imagine a song like that being popular in these times.

Today's problems are surely different from those of the past. But we can use the intense spirit of outrage so associated with the great movements of those times to express our dissatisfaction with our own troubles. That's my rationalization, anyway. In fact, since I have no musical ability I thought I'd respectfully steal the music of people who do, and update the words, thereby adding my own very small part to revive the genre.

Not every protest song has to be about world-changing events. Sometimes it's the small troubles that wear us down day by day. Why not a protest song for those problems? Problems like the constant road construction we see every single day:

To the Tune of Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan
How many roads will the state shut down
Before they publish a plan?
How many times will a detour fail
Before I sleep in my van?
Yes, and how many times must I look at that guy
“Slow Down” sign in his hand?
The answer, my friend, is drivers never win,
The answer is drivers never win.

Naturally, the environment is always a cause that draws a wide, motivated group of followers. So whether you believe in global warming or not, I think we all like trees, don't we? Maybe you're not the hugging type, but they are nice to have around. So here's something Pink or that Ga Ga lady might want to try out. (I'm no John Lennon scholar, but I think the main goal here is not so much to make sense, as to keep saying those last lines for several hours until you get what you want.)

To the Tune of Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon
Everybody's talkin' 'bout
Scarlet oak, up in smoke, goin' broke, it's a joke
Redwood, Deadwood, Ed Wood, Ken would ...
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.

(Come on!)
Everybody's talkin' 'bout
Sugar maple, forest staple, hardly papal, Tower Babel
Baptize, chastise, black eyes, wise guys, bye bye, bye byes
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.
All we are saying … is give trees a chance.

Protest singers don't always have to be right, either. I'm sure they existed, but I suppose the pro-slavery and anti-women's suffrage ditties have faded into historical oblivion.

Just because you're wrong, it doesn't mean you don't get a song.

Today, about one out of five Americans is under the mistaken impression that their president is a Muslim. Given the intense campaign controversy over Pastor Jeremiah Wright, from the Christian church that Mr. Obama attended, that's kind of surprising … but true just the same.

A similar percentage of the citizenry is convinced that the president should not even be allowed to be the president since he was not born in these United States. This in spite of a verified birth certificate shown to the public over and over and over. And over some more. And then over again. Their philosophy seems to be, in the words of that great thinker, Larry Fine: “I can't see! I can't see! … I've got my eyes closed!!”

So for those misguided souls, I offer this wail against reality:

To the Tune of Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen
Born down in a mystery town
The first breath he took there were no Yanks around
Liberal JFK was an easy touch
So he's spent half his life just covering up

Born in the USA, he's not born in the USA
He's not born in the USA, born in the USA

Got in a little hometown jam
So he thought up his Hawaiian scam
We all realize that's a foreign land
Poi sure ain't apple pie, my man

Born in the USA, he's not born in the USA
He's not born in the USA, born in the USA

Dressed up in his best finery
When a man said “Son, we'll fool 'em all, you'll see.”
Went down to see the ID man
He said, “Son, now you're Ameri-CAN!

He had a brother, now withdrawn
Ditched him like a rancid prawn
Was he al-Qaeda? Where's he gone?

There's a woman he called “mom”
Paid to photoshop him in her arms

Down in the shadows where the gays marry
And the stem cells let them have their gay babies
In ten years they'll call us Mosque-Go
Tell the Death Squads you're not sick no mo'

Born in the USA, he's not born in the USA
He's not born in the USA, He's no long gone daddy in the USA
Born in the USA, he's not born in the USA
He's not born in the USA, He's a fool mocking daddy in the USA

Well, I'm not sure that I've done the protest song any good here. But maybe there's an angry young man or a ferocious woman or maybe even another old coot out there who can revitalize the music that really didn't ask too much of its listeners ...

Just to change the world.