It’s interesting that people are falling all over each other to come out with another protest song, another anti-Bush song, another addition in a long and storied tradition of civil disobedience in popular culture. Everyone has something terrible to say about government, and everyone seems to be thrilled about it.
Protest music has a valuable and viable place in American society and culture. We’re a people born of telling the power structure where to shove it and how hard. I’m going to guess (sociologists, historians and anthropologists, back me up here) that there were Quakers singing “hell no, we won’t stay” to King Whatever His Name Was Back Then.
And there was a certain sense of danger in the sixties, that certain feeling that music connected you to a culture and a population that was standing in solidarity with you. There were songs that connected you to your friends, your comrades, the people marching with you.
So why do I feel so cynical about all of today’s protest songs of the week? How come I can’t shake the feeling that they’re not so much terribly for or against anything but making money? That they’re selling what some people are buying, much in the same way that Toby “Boot in the ass” Keith claims to be a Democrat?
Maybe it’s not so much that they’re not putting their product where their mouths are – that’s the responsibility and the right of every artist. But for every Dixie Chick that’s standing up to Red State the Cable Guy, there’s another mindless hatriot babbling to the tune of some Daily Kos talking point.
None of this is necessarily bad – I just wish that it was better. All the great songs of the sixties spoke to a community. Nowadays, the only community is the one of record-buyers, which translates to a shrinking populace. We’re a bunch of loners now, downloading P!nk’s “Dear Mr. President” off of LimeWire, and then quickly deleting it when we realize how piss-poor it is.
There was something so gleefully apocalyptic about songs like “Feel Like Fixin’ To Die Rag” by esteemed lyricist and statesman of his generation, Mr. Country Joe MacDonald. Alongside that whoop-de-doo death trip was a song with balls, man. “Whatever, fuck it, pull my draft card, I don’t care, I’ll go hang out in some jungle and wait for my bullet. Maybe I’ll get high.” Try moping yourself around to that point, Bright Eyes.
I certainly comprehend that there might be some distinct distress or maybe even some rage in the dissent, but they duck around it. They don’t hit it head on, do they? Green Day may be the exception to the rule, coming close to a point but settling on nothing more than a “W is dumb and we are sheep” argument. Theirs was the anthem for the ‘06 election, and now I double dog dare them to put out a song called “Your Kids Died in a Desert For No Good Goddamn Reason.”
Hell, Bill O’Reilley might be so incensed he’d forget to book them on his show for a couple heartbeats. We’d still be a far cry away from Country Joe leading a crowd of hundreds of thousands in a rousing chant of “F! U! C! K! What’s that spell! What’s that spell!”
Two things would have to change for things to seriously coalesce into a community of protest, anger and anti-government action. First off, we’d have to bring back the draft. An army of volunteers doesn’t evoke the same kind of vitriol that forced service does. Getting shipped off to die apparently doesn’t have the same kick when you’re not being threatened with jailtime if you don’t go.
Step two would be to blow up the internet. It’s awful easy to sit behind your dormitory desk with a laptop and an axe to grind. If I feel like I’m doing something with my two cents that four people read, I might not feel obligated to stand up and wave a flag and yell at a recruiter. If I sign up for daily updates from the Daily Kos, I’ll consider myself “with it, man” and then maybe I won’t go hassle the power structure.
We call it a community that we’re all plugged into but we’re all sitting down. It used to be that just sitting down would work, but you’d all have to be in the same place. Sit ins, sleep-ins, love-ins, so on. Blog-ins just don’t do much for anyone. Hell, I could lie and say I’ve been typing this for 24 hours straight. Solidarity!
Or maybe I’m just the one seeing things wrong. Maybe my perspective is all skewed. There is a distinct possibility that people are getting rallied as I speak. The next wave of American protest is gearing up and ready to go. We can work backwards this time – provide the content and someone else reacts with a soundtrack.
Maybe we don’t need a Woodstock – we’ve got it on YouTube. Who needs new protest songs – someone can do a mashup of “Ohio” by CSNY and something by Aphex Twin if really necessary. Loop this line in there:
