Rock bands like The Rolling Stones were accused of being Satanic because of the sexual “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and their previous album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which didn’t have any Satanic themes. In the 60s, rock and roll was still considered controversial, even though youth widely listened to it.
References were made to WWII and the assassination of the Kennedys. Mick Jagger wrote this song in the point of view of the Devil, originally using working titles like “The Devil Is My Name” and “Fallen Angels”, who boasts about his role in atrocities throughout history, but also says that we are all the Devil inside and responsible for horrible things. Sympathy For The Devil – The Rolling Stones (1968) History Now let’s look at some protest songs with timeless lyrics. Rock and roll is an interesting way to look at history. Paul Weller snapped back and said that song was about people like David Cameron. These songs are largely from a left wing perspective, but even if your politics are conservative, you might want to read these lyrics and realise what these songs are about so you don’t look as foolish as David Cameron when he said he loved The Jam’s “The Eton Rifles”. Many of these songs talk about issues during that time: racism, the Vietnam War, the economy, and women’s rights. In the classic rock world, most of these protest songs come from the US and UK and are in the folk, hard rock, and punk genres. The playlist also has songs that didn’t make it on this list and a few “newer” protest songs from the 90s and 2000s. An accompanying playlist will be on my playlist page. Of course, this isn’t every single protest song, but it’s a good sample of what the time period had to offer. In this blog post, my goal is to show the diversity of protest songs by sharing 40 that I picked. Protest songs were huge in the 60s with the folk music revival and folk protest songs inspired musicians in other rock subgenres to write protest songs with a different sound.
The 20th century was a turbulent time with The Great Depression, labour movement, WWI and WWII, the Civil Rights Movement, many assassinations, and the Vietnam War. Britain has had a long history of protest songs since the Medieval times. America has had a tradition of protest songs since the 19th century with songs about the Civil War and black spiritual songs. Songs have been written about abolition, feminism, worker’s rights, LGBT rights, anti-war, animal rights, you name it. Protest songs are sang in every part of the world, are all kinds of genres, and are about many issues. The year on the calendar is just a construct anyways.įirst, let’s talk a little bit about the history of protest songs and politics in music: Good music has no expiry date and you can always make good music. Or if you’re musically inclined, start a rock band and speak your mind through your lyrics. Write to your MPs/representatives, sign petitions, go to protests, register to vote, vote in local elections and primaries, do your research on the candidates, volunteer for a candidate or cause you believe in, canvass, phone bank, heck – run for office! However, I think we can’t just be hippies and sit around talking about and wishing for change and not doing anything about it. “Rock n’ roll seems to have changed society much more than any politician, I think it really has.” The golden age of protests songs was the 60s with the folk scene and later with psychedelic and hard rock. When I think of the music from between 1965-1975, I think of optimistic songs to cheer people up and I think of protest songs. You had all kinds of songs then because music, like any other form of entertainment or art, is an escape from life. Historically, in times when governments are controlled by conservatives, I find that’s when the best music came out. Will we have to leave because the top 0.1% screwed up the planet? I doubt everyone will be able to leave because we don’t all have the means. While on the plane home, I watched Interstellar and I was thinking about if that could be our future. We are living in such a divided time with so much uncertainty. Australia is on fire and the Prime Minister doesn’t care and denies climate change is a thing. The US and UK are run by far right men who don’t care about the poor, racial minorities, or women. Well… 2020 is starting off crazy, to say the least.
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