This week a Facebook acquaintance who’s been attending protests in Westminster – great days out, apparently, these protests – shared videos of these ladies singing along to various songs while waving their flags about. One was a Chas ‘n’ Dave song – Chas ‘n’ Dave, who released a song criticising Brexit. That Chas ‘n’ Dave.
The other song they were shrieking along to was Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. Yes, it’s become associated with English football in the past five years, but I’m pretty sure Diamond would object to it being used to protest against migrants and migration. Diamond, the grandson of Jewish migrants, who in 1980 wrote the song America about their journey escaping oppression in Eastern Europe and the welcome they hoped to receive in the States. Diamond, who got on the phones to gather support for Obama. That Neil Diamond. (I am looking forward to the biopic with Hugh Jackman).
I suppose any song can be a ‘protest song’ depending on who’s singing it, and when and why, but my feeling is that you should probably do a bit of research into its background first. We all spent a lot of time at school discos shouting ‘We Don’t Need No Education’ at our poor teachers, despite the double negative proving that we clearly did. None of us had seen the film at that point.
Musicians are, of course, entitled to object to this. Just ask that orange basketcase, who’s probably received enough cease-and-desist letters from musicians objecting to the way their music was being used to wallpaper his garish new ballroom. John Fogerty objected to the use of Fortunate Son – about people who avoided the draft thanks to rich and influential parents (bone spurs,anyone?). Neil Young’s Rockin’ In The Free World. REM, Rihanna, Tom Petty, Aerosmith, the Stones…the list goes on. Even Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister, who originally gave permission to use We’re Not Gonna Take It then withdrew it when he heard Trump’s policies.
Labi Siffre has spoken out this week about his beautiful anti-apartheid anthem Something Inside So Strong being used at a far right demo in London, issuing a cease-and-desist against Tommy Robinson. The irony of Robinson claiming to tell ‘his’ stories* through song and then choosing one written by a black, atheist, gay man was not lost except, perhaps, on Robinson’s (or Yaxley-Lennon, or whatever) supporters who messaged Siffre to thank him for the song. The importance of research can’t be underestimated, as I said…. (*he also claims to be a journalist)
My own acquaintance with protest songs stems from my parents’ record collection – political satire in the form of Pete Seeger’s Little Boxes, protest folk from Steeleye Span and Joan Baez. Later I graduated to Springsteen (another biopic to look forward to) and Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan and Creedence, U2, Little Steven, Peter Gabriel’s Biko.
‘We Shall Overcome’ is a song which, in various languages, is common on every known world in the multiverse. It is always sung by the same people, viz., the people who, when they grow up, will be the people who the next generation sing ‘We Shall Overcome’ at.
Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
In my first term at uni our tutor introduced us via his guitar and banjo to Woody Guthrie‘s Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos). Springsteen’s covers of Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land and his homage in the shape of The Ghost of Tom Joad still haunt my playlist. A friend played me Alice’s Restaurant Massacree by Arlo Guthrie – I wanted to call Thing 3 Woody but my Beloved objected, but his middle name is Arlo and his first name is Dylan (so there).
Uni also coincided with the release of Rage Against The Machine’s Killing in the Name, and an introduction to Dead Kennedys and punk. My self-initiated credit essay was on anti-war songs in the Vietnam era.
I suppose every generation has their own protest songs and singers, but it does seem somewhat reductive that the bugbears of the Guthries and the Seegers are coming back around and their music is becoming relevant again. Fighting fascists, racism, the poor and downtrodden, the treatment of migrants – Woody Guthrie even wrote a song about ‘Old Man Trump’, the OB’s father, and his actions as a crooked landlord.
I may have mentioned once or twice that TODAY I will be walking the Cardiff half-marathon for Choose Love, originally as I’ve worked with refugee and asylum-seeking families but now it’s mostly out of sheer anger at the way people are behaving in Epping. A lot of my training in the past few weeks has been soundtracked by this playlist, put together by Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine in response to the behaviour of ICE agents in the US. It’s good angry music. Morello’s alter ego The Nightwatchman is also a good source of protest songs.
In a world where comedians can get taken off air for making jokes about the President, where mis- and dis- information gets further than truth….we need protest songs and singers. We don’t, however, need this fascist groove thang.
“I’m saying, sir, that a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth
More here and British ones here. Happy listening. What’s your favourite protest song?
Things I’m not protesting about this week
- Autumn colours
- Baby cuddles with gorgeous Indrani and a good catch-up with her mum Jhinuk
- Making people happy by offering them jobs
- When your direct report phones to say thank you for being supportive and kind
- Finding new walks to the new office – my favourite is through Clerkenwell Green so far
- Exciting kick off conversations about playful furniture with the wonderful Play Build Play team who ‘got’ exactly what was in my head when I wrote the brief
- Family dinner out on Saturday night in Cardiff
- Meeting the panellists from the Borough of Sanctuary grants team on Tuesday
- Discovering a new crime series to read. Curses!
- Thing 3 taking up baking, and Thing 2 making amaretti
- A gorgeous mistbow over the village on Wednesday morning
Next week I’ll be at Copped Hall Family Apple Day touting my crocheted wares! Pop along if you’re in the area.
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
The October Man/Tales From The Folly/The Masquerades of Spring – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)
The Grey Wolf – Louise Penny
The Legacy of Arniston House – T.L.Huchu
What Kirsty did next 