Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs by James Sullivan

Abstract

Reviewed by: Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs by James Sullivan Chris Durman Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs. By James Sullivan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. [xvii, 242 p. ISBN 9780190660307 (hardcover), $24.95; ISBN 9780197549452 (paperback), $19.95; ISBN 9780190660314 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. I guess everyone who has ever sung or shouted out the words to a protest song has questioned if adding their voice in song to the arguments of their times could possibly have any impact. Many of us who feel that music can and does touch and transform hearts still have to question whether songs can change minds. By offering readers a survey of how songs have been embraced by various protest movements over the last 120 years, James Sullivan, in his book Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs, builds a convincing case that protest songs have and continue to change both hearts and minds. Each chapter in Which Side Are You On? focuses on the protest songs associated with one overarching social movement and functions more as a survey than an in-depth study. The antiwar, labor, environmental, antinuclear, and free-speech movements are each devoted an individual chapter as are the struggles for the rights of women, minorities, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ communities. A final chapter looks at protest songs already being sung in support of some of the social movements in the twenty-first century, such as the Black Lives Matter and the Occupy Wall Street movements. All chapters other than that final chapter primarily explore their subjects chronologically. Readers particularly familiar with the protest songs associated with one or more of the movements discussed in the book may find few surprises, as the book is intended to be an overview that will appeal to the more general reader. While this would be an excellent introduction to the subject and an appropriate resource for high school and undergraduate researchers, those well versed in the subject or those doing graduate-level research will want to seek out resources that approach the subject in greater depth. Still, even the chapters that focus on familiar movements and include few songs unknown to most readers are likely to include anecdotes and historical facts readers have not heard before. An example can be found in the chapter on the labor movement, where Sullivan reveals that the phrase "pie in the sky" can be traced to Industrial Workers of the World songwriter Joe Hill's song "The Preacher and the Slave," which parodies the hymn "In the Sweet By and By" and includes the lines, "You will eat, bye and bye / In that glorious land above the sky / Work and Pray, live on hay / You'll get pie in the sky when you die" (Joe Hill, "The Preacher and the Slave," in The Big Red Song Book, ed. Archie Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont, and Salvatore Salerno [Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 2007], 99–100). Chapters documenting movements less familiar to readers will undoubtedly reveal artists, songs, and stories they've never heard or heard of before. Also included in most chapters are unexpected, unlikely songs that some readers might not even consider protest songs. Some examples include "God Bless America," which Sullivan includes in relation to the song Woody Guthrie angrily wrote in response, "This Land Is Your Land" (pp. 17–19); "Where the Boys Are," which is claimed to be the song played on the jukebox in 1969 each night at closing in the Stonewall [End Page 619] Inn, the nightclub frequently cited as the launching site of the gay pride movement (p. 125); and "America" from the musical West Side Story, which sings praises for the image America projects to the world while critiquing the reality of living in America as an immigrant in the mid-1950s (pp. 150–51). The chapter on the songs of the civil rights movement can be used to illustrate how Sullivan approached his subject throughout the book. The chapter begins with a list of the ten songs to be covered in...