Tag Archive for 'protest-songs'

Protest Songs: Advent Edition

Published
by
aly hawkins
on 14 December 2006
in art and culture, faith and theology and politics
. 0 Comments

Not long ago I started a series (which quickly fizzled out due to my burgeoning ADD) about protest songs. I may or may not get back to writing it regularly (Look! A bird…), but I thought it might be cool to highlight one very special song during this season of Advent. You can read the lyrics from the NIV here, as I have opted for the KJV (used in the Book of Common Prayer) for poetic reasons.

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:
for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things;
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him
from generation to generation.
He hath shewed strength with his arm;
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy;
As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.

This song is, of course, the Magnificat of Mary the Mother of Jesus. During her pregnancy, Mary left her hometown of Nazareth to visit her cousin Elizabeth (herself pregnant with the baby who would become John the Baptist). When Mary arrived, John started turning somersaults in Betsy’s womb, and Mary burst into song. It was quite a scene!

The political climate in first century Judea was pretty messy: Herod “the Great” was king, but instead of being an advocate for his people, he collaborated with the Roman Empire to subjugate them. There was incredible discontent on the part of the people, both politically and spiritually — these being quite wrapped up in one another in the ancient understanding of “life.” What had happened to God’s promises to make Israel a great nation? Nothing but foreign rule for hundreds of years…what the heck? The prophecies about a coming Messiah had become the one glimmer of hope for many oppressed and downtrodden people.

Then along came this little girl from a no-name hick town, leagues away from the action and expectation. She received a startling message: she had been chosen by God to bear and raise His very own Son, who would be the long-awaited Savior. She wasn’t clear on the details, but she didn’t blink or stutter or equivocate when it was time to accept or reject the mission. “I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say” (The Message).

Fully cognizant of the political and spiritual reality of the times, Mary sang a song of protest, a song of joy.

“The disestablishment of unjust powers and the establishment of just powers is how God is being faithful to the Abrahamic promises…Mary’s friends undoubtedly lifted a toast when Mary sang this song. ‘It’s about time!’ they all said when their jugs hit the table” (Scot McKnight, “Christmas is About the Poor”, Dec. 10, 2006).

A Savior was about to be born — He who would establish true justice, scatter the proud, bring down rulers, send the rich away empty, lift the humble and fill the hungry with good things.

Protest Songs: The Arrangement

Published
by
aly hawkins
on 22 October 2006
in art and culture and life
. 5 Comments

One of my favorite singer-songwriters of all time is Joni Mitchell. Her 1971 Blue has been in the #1 spot on my Desert Island Albums List for at least 10 years, and will probably never get bumped. There’s so much craft on that record it makes me want to hurl, purely out of jealous spite. Blue / Here is a song for you / ink on a pin / underneath the skin / an empty space to fill in.

Rammity-fratchit. I’ll never write a lyric that perfect.

Over the years, Joni has written more than her fair share of protest songs, but something I love about her is that she’s never been afraid to question and criticize the values, actions and assumptions of her hippie, lefty peers — not just those of the “other side.” She’s able to somehow look down the road and see where today’s popular ideas will lead to tomorrow’s problems, and she always seems a bit reluctant to throw in her lot with what everybody else “knows” is the right path. Another lyric from “Blue” demonstrates this hesitancy:

Acid, booze and ass
Needles, guns and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs…
Everybody’s saying that hell’s the hippest way to go
But I don’t think so
I’m gonna take a look around

In 1969, Joni wrote a song for the Elia Kazan film The Arrangement (based on his 1967 novel of the same name), starring Kirk Douglas and Faye Dunaway. It’s a ponderous and preachy piece of work that tells the story of an advertising executive (Douglas) who lives a double life, and begins to regret “selling out.” He eventually has nervous breakdown. (Happy stuff.) Kazan ended up not using Joni’s song for the soundtrack, probably because he recognized that she’d told the story better than he had, with more finesse and subtlety. (This is my own opinion, without documentation to support it.) She chose to tell the story from the “other woman’s” (Dunaway) point of view, and manages to accuse and sympathize by equal turns. She put the song on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon…’cause why waste a perfectly good protest song, even if it was rejected by a McCarthy-era whistleblower?

You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard

While you still have the time
You could get away and find
A better life you know the grind is so ungrateful
Racing cars whisky bars
No one cares who you really are
You’re the keeper of the cards
Yes I know it gets hard
Keeping the wheels turning
And the wife she keeps the keys
She is so pleased to be
A part of the arrangement

You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a consumer
Lying in some room trying to die
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard
You could have been more than a name on the door
You could have been more than a name on the door
You could have been more
You could have been more
You could have been more

Now, it might be tempting to hear this song as a run-of-the-mill whine about The Man, but I think there’s some deeper wisdom to take away, especially since (as I mentioned) Mitchell tends to be a bit more balanced in her perspective than many of her contemporaries: What are we about? What are our priorities? What are we truly pursuing, and is it worth what we must leave behind to get it? Are we becoming who we are meant to become, making choices along the way to get us there? Are we being shaped into better people, or are we salving our feelings of regret or uselessness with empty pleasure?

Next week: “The Mystery of Iniquity” from Lauryn Hill’s MTV Unplugged.

Protest Songs: If I Had a Rocket Launcher

Published
by
aly hawkins
on 15 October 2006
in art and culture, current events and politics
. 83 Comments

I’m starting a new series at The Road and it commenceth here.

I’m a big, big fan of protest songs as a genre. Even if I don’t agree with the sentiment of a particular tune, I love that music can be a powerful conveyor of ideas, and can still fulfill one of art’s greatest functions: criticism and questioning of the prevailing culture’s values and actions. Over the next few weeks (or months…we’ll see), I’d like to share some fine examples of songs of protest. I’ll try to give some background on the situation the artist was addressing when he/she penned the lyrics and then try to point out why I think the song is still relevant and even applicable to our current circumstances. (This is, I believe, a hallmark of a truly great protest song: that it transcends the time and place and situations in which it was written by capturing an idea that is somehow universal.) Feel free to chime in with your agreement and hearty amens…okay, and also any dissenting views. Please be aware that I have a smidgen of a left-leaning bias, and know that I’ll try not to get too soap-boxy. (Who am I kidding? No, really. I’ll try.)

Our first entry in the Wonderful World of Protest Songs comes to us from a friendly — yet occasionally critical — neighbor to the north, Bruce Cockburn (pronounced KO-burn). Cockburn became a devout Christian early in his career, and his beliefs have had a profound influence on both his songwriting and his activism, even as his fanbase remains largely outside the “Christian ghetto.” In 1983, he spent time in refugee camps in Mexico for the hundred-thousand Guatemalans who had fled the civil war, and was so impacted by his experience that he wrote the lyrics to “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” a protest song that explores the impulse to retaliatory violence (which inevitably leads to still more violence, in a never-ending cycle of death and destruction).

Here comes the helicopter — second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they’ve murdered…only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
I’d make somebody pay.

I don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate
I don’t believe in generals or their stinking torture states
But when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
I would retaliate.

On the Rio Lacantun one hundred thousand wait
To fall down from starvation — or some less humane fate.
Cry for Guatemala, with a corpse at every gate
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
I would not hesitate.

I want to raise every voice — at least I’ve got to try.
Every time I think about it, water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
Some sonofabitch would die.

The first time I heard this gut-crunching song three years ago, the insurgency in Iraq was just revving up. I saw clips on the news of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters combing the streets of Baghdad, filled with rage and helplessness that their kids, spouses, parents had been taken from them. And then I remembered the horrible days following September 11, seeing clips of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters combing the streets of Manhattan, filled with rage and helplessness that their kids, spouses, parents had been taken from them. Cockburn’s song captures the futile — yet seemingly inescapable — human compunction to avenge, and laments (even though he doesn’t come right out and say it) no end in sight.

[After writing this whole thing, I suddenly realize this series may be depression-inducing for some sensitive souls. Oops. Sorry. I guess protest songs aren't, as a rule, terribly happy-clappy...unless they're written by Woodie Guthrie. Maybe I'll get voted off the island for thinking this was a good idea.]

Next week: “The Arrangement” from Joni Mitchell’s album The Ladies of the Canyon.