Protest Songs Research Articles

Social Role of the Tradition of Protest Song Tradition of Popular Music mid-20th century in the United States

Introduction. The article considers the integrating social role of the tradition of protest songs in the period 1950–1970 on the example of the United States of America. This period was characterized by a series of military conflicts against the background of geopolitical confrontation between the USSR and the USA, which was reflected in creative and sociocultural movements for peace and contributed to social and political changes in the USA. Protest music not only contributed to a positive influence on political decision-making, but also became a powerful means of expressing public opinion and feelings.Methodology and sources. The methodology and theory is based on comparative historical analysis of socio-cultural, political and historical events and facts related to the period covered. The material for the study was also made up of biographies, descriptions of events by eyewitnesses and documents of secondary analysis, telling about the social and musical impact of the phenomenon of protest songs of folk music and rock'n'roll counterculture on American society, as a reaction to the political decisions of the U.S. government to create hotbeds of military conflicts in the world.Results and discussion. The period from the late 1940s to the 1950s in the United States was marked by an acute confrontation between communism and capitalism, which was reflected in the culture and music of the time. The emergence and proliferation of protest songs, as well as other forms in the arts, occurs because of important crisis events on a global scale, or when people begin to see these events as such. Because of the impact the conflict between the two superpowers and their allies had on the world, people began to react to it in their own way. Music reacted to the events instantly and vividly. Although most protest songs were not a national success and their message was mostly appreciated by radicals, the songs united people and helped them express their discontent with what was happening.Conclusion. Folk and rock music became an integral part of life during the Cold War within the United States. Musicians and poets protested against the administration's policies, against unnecessary military conflicts, and warned against the possible destruction of the world. As a result, these genres became a powerful means of expressing public feelings, opinions, and influenced the formation of public consciousness right up to our time.

A Linguistic Analysis of the Theme of Racism Represented in Michael Jackson Protest Song's '' They Don’t Care About Us ''

A Linguistic Analysis of the Theme of Racism Represented in Michael Jackson Protest Song's '' They Don’t Care About Us ''

Cycles of Contempt: Exploring Argentine-IMF Relations Through Protest Music

Abstract: Argentina has a history of tumultuous agreements with the International Monetary Fund. While the IMF has provided essential economic support, their loan agreements have often caused further economic issues that most profoundly impact the middle and working class, such as high inflation and poverty rates. This has created much frustration among the people, and they have taken these frustrations into music, protesting the damage and harm that is produced by the IMF’s involvement in Argentina. These protest songs can be analyzed through Jeneve Brooks’ EMM- framing theory, with EMM standing for emotive, moral, and mnemonic, to understand how the IMF is negatively represented and how the songs can influence the public’s opinion on the IMF. This paper makes use of this theoretical framework to analyze three examples of Argentine protest songs against the IMF: “Estoy tocando fondo” by Viuda e Hijas de Roque Enroll,“F.M.I. (Sufre Sudamérica)” by Fun People, and “Sinceramente militamos” by La Cámpora. This analysis provides insight into the increasing reactiveness of the Argentine people against the IMF, which was witnessed in 2021 and 2022 when protests broke out over negotiations between the IMF and the Argentine government even though an agreement had yet to be made.

God Bless the Grass”: The Environmental Songs of Malvina Reynolds

The American folk singer and activist Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978) was truly instrumental in spreading awareness of environmental and ecological issues through her songs. Reynolds only began composing in her forties and performing in her fifties, but soon made a name for herself, starting in the early 1960s, with her topical protest songs touching on a range of issues, most notably the environment. Her compositions have been covered and popularized by folk and pop giants such as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte and many others. This paper will focus on her most well-known ecological songs: God Bless the Grass, What Have They Done to the Rain, Little Boxes, etc. With her white hair and granny glasses, Reynolds did not at all fit the image of the beatnik folk singer of the 1950s or the hippie movement which followed. She did, however, pioneer the embracing of environmental protection as an important theme in folk music and popular culture in general.

Singing the New Scot: Parody, Contrafacta, and Dainty Protest Songs in Cape Breton

ABSTRACT CJCB Radio’s Cape Breton Songs Contest (1949–1952) solicited new lyric submissions on local themes set to popular songs of the day. Successful entries were recorded and became part of the station’s airplay rotation. The songs would often playfully address contemporary concerns in light of a desire for greater cosmopolitanism. One such theme was the still-nascent reframing of Nova Scotia as “Scottish,” a once maligned ethnic heritage now considered the inherent personification of place. As a means to negotiate this new interpretation of Scottishness, songwriters turned to American pop songs doing similar identity work for the Irish American.

Anatomy of a Song

Anatomy of a Song

Transdisciplinary reflections on the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968: Didactic use of the protest song in social science education

Linking the knowledge of related school subjects (history, civics and music), transdisciplinary didactics is one of the current trends in education. The aim of this article is to create an analytical-interpretive model for the didactic use of protest songs in social science education, supplemented by examples of learning tasks for pupils. The article describes the historical context of the events in Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The research focuses on the analysis and interpretation of the lyrics and music of selected protest songs to create a general analytical-interpretive model usable in school teaching of social sciences. The research into selected protest songs has found both similarities and differences in the motifs and symbols used, as well as in the overall character of the lyrics and melodies. The constructed analytical-interpretive model in connection with the didactic use of protest songs includes the level of motivation, analysis and interpretation, and creative and productive activities. The specific questions and tasks for pupils are applicable in school practice.

“May There Always Be Sunshine!”: A Symbol of Childhood in Soviet and American Cold War Songs

Introduction. The article is the first to study the use of the symbol of childhood by the USSR and the USA songs for the representation of Cold War issues. Methods and materials. Based on the methodology of constructivism, the author analyzes the reasons for the politicization of the image of childhood and the role of popular music as an instrument of symbolic politics. Qualitative content analysis is used to examine more than 400 songs of the USSR and the USA related to Cold War issues; about 70 of them use the symbol of childhood. The symbol of childhood in the Soviet song. A study of USSR songs demonstrates that images of children were an important component of the “cultural Cold War” on the musical front. The symbol of childhood in the American song. U.S. musical pieces contributed significantly to the legitimation of the Cold War and the construction of images of “us” and “them,” including with the help of images of children. Results. The comparative analysis shows that in both the USSR and the USA, it was used to represent such issues as peace, war, security, nuclear weapons, freedom, justice, and the future of humanity. Not only did it create the image of the enemy, but it also deconstructed it by showing the similarity of the two nations in basic values, including attitudes toward children. In addition to the common features, songs in the USA and the USSR also reveal different characteristics. In the former, children are primarily the object of defense; in the latter, they are also subjects of politics and active fighters for peace. In the former, one can find negative images of childhood in the USSR; in the latter, young Americans are first and foremost children, just like everyone else. In the Soviet song, these images remain practically unchanged; in the American protest song, the symbol under study is used to delegitimize the policy of the authorities.

“I Felt Frightened and Then I Started Singing”: Songs at Russian Protest Actions

This article explores the role of songs in Russian protests. Data are drawn from ethnographic observations made at protests held between 2015 and 2022, mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as part of the project, “Monitoring Contemporary Folklore,” based at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. The authors consider materials from 240 protests. Viewing protests as an act of communication, the article analyzes the circumstances for song performances and suggests a hypothesis for songs’ communicative goals. The article additionally demonstrates how song choice changes from common 1980’s protest songs to new tracks that gained later popularity. The article demonstrates how song production depends on the types of protests and the levels of participant engagement.

“The Radio Said They Were Just Deportees”: From Border Necropolitics to Transformative Grief in Tim Z. Hernandez’s All They Will Call You (2017)

Just as necropower discriminates between those who can and those who cannot live, post-mortem circumstances are explicitly affected by an irrefutable gentrification of memory and grievability. Drawing on the political dimension of mourning and on the concept of slow death, this paper proposes a necropolitical reading of All They Will Call You (2017), where Tim Z. Hernandez revisits the 1948 plane crash that killed 28 Mexican deportees at Los Gatos (California) and the subsequent oblivion that prevented their memorialisation except for a mass grave containing their remains and a protest song (“Deportees”) composed by Woody Guthrie. My analysis focuses on Hernandez’s attempts at dismantling the tropes of criminality and expendability that Latino immigrants are associated with as a result of their racialised vulnerability, which are distinctively aggravated in border contexts. Excavating in the background stories of these deportees seems to me an ironic contestation to the failed forensic work that left them unnamed and unritualised for seven decades. And, at the same time, I contend that, in line with the work of many activists and artists in the US–Mexico border, Hernandez mobilises solidarity while transforming our perception of migrant bare lives into one of migrant agency.

Kisan Andolan in India (2020–21): Punjabi singers’ perspective

ABSTRACT The Kisan Andolan (2020–21) was a unique protest in independent India that kept the struggle at high pitch for 13 months girding Delhi at all its borders. Besides the protesting farmers, the general populace too frequented the protest sites in huge numbers. It was much akin to doing pilgrimage and of participation in the peoples’ struggle. The top pop stars of the Punjabi music industry were active participants in entertaining the protesting masses and also writing and singing the protest songs. An attempt is made here to present their perspective on the kisan andolan revolving around four themes: the Indian state, peasants’ self-perception, issues involved and the protest site.

Jirra: Oromo protest songs as weapons of resistance against domination in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT Beginning from the 1960s, the Oromo struggle for emancipation from authoritarianism in Ethiopia took dimensions of peasant uprisings, liberation movements, and everyday forms of resistance through which discourses and institutions of domination have been resisted and defied. As part of their resistance strategies, the Oromo use art in defying political oppression, economic inequalities, and socio-cultural marginalization. From legendary musicians to amateur singers, Oromo artists have been speaking to power and inspiring the people in the struggle for freedom. Haacaalu Hundessa, a young Oromo artist and resistance singer who has garnered a reputation as an icon within a short period of time – murdered on 29 June 2020 – is one of those whose works revolutionized modern Oromo resistance music. Three of Haacaalu’s latest songs, namely, Maalan Jiraa (What existence is mine), Jirra! (We are still alive), and Jirtuu? (Are you still there?), were released between 2015 and 2017 during a critical juncture in Oromo Protests and thus deserve critical analysis to unpack spatially and temporally grounded state violence against the Oromo. These lyrics reveal a postcolonial or post-imperial land dispossession, on the one hand, and decolonial struggles the Oromo launched against the violent Ethiopian state, on the other hand.

BLACKS' PROTEST SONGS: THE EXPRESSION OF LYNCHING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN THE USA

The protest has become the main, dominant inner-structure, and predominant theme not only in black writings, especially literary works, like; novels and poetry but also in the song writings. The protest is rooted in black slavery and racism has been felt and may continue to be felt throughout U.S. history. This article sought to indicate the mode of racism and ways of black in resisting it reflected in three protest songs written by blacks. Looking at the three decades of protest songs, three are standing out as important examples for this study: “Strange Fruit” (1937), “Say It, I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968), and “Blue Lights” (2018). These protest songs are consistent in messaging the racism in the criminal justice system and black resistance against it over time. Critical race theory enables how racism as a legal, cultural, and political condition is reproduced and maintained, primarily in the US context. Strange Fruit portrays about lynching in the era of Jim Crow. They were tortured and lynched, reflecting how black people were experiencing discriminatory treatments and extrajudicial punishment after the civil war. Say It, I’m Black and I’m Proud portrays racial inequality in the post-Civil Rights Movement. Whites are still privileged and blacks are undervalued. More advances, Blue Lights portrays the concern of black people in facing racism that affects institutions like law enforcement, which leads to arbitrary shooting of black people in crime scenes in the present time. Taken together, the songs reflect the dynamic nature of racism, as well as the shifting mode and attitude of blacks in struggling against racism from the past up to the present time in the US from passive, radical, and subtler

BLACKS' PROTEST SONGS: THE EXPRESSION OF LYNCHING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN THE USA

The protest has become the main, dominant inner-structure, and predominant theme not only in black writings, especially literary works, like; novels and poetry but also in the song writings. The protest is rooted in black slavery and racism has been felt and may continue to be felt throughout U.S. history. This article sought to indicate the mode of racism and ways of black in resisting it reflected in three protest songs written by blacks. Looking at the three decades of protest songs, three are standing out as important examples for this study: “Strange Fruit” (1937), “Say It, I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968), and “Blue Lights” (2018). These protest songs are consistent in messaging the racism in the criminal justice system and black resistance against it over time. Critical race theory enables how racism as a legal, cultural, and political condition is reproduced and maintained, primarily in the US context. Strange Fruit portrays about lynching in the era of Jim Crow. They were tortured and lynched, reflecting how black people were experiencing discriminatory treatments and extrajudicial punishment after the civil war. Say It, I’m Black and I’m Proud portrays racial inequality in the post-Civil Rights Movement. Whites are still privileged and blacks are undervalued. More advances, Blue Lights portrays the concern of black people in facing racism that affects institutions like law enforcement, which leads to arbitrary shooting of black people in crime scenes in the present time. Taken together, the songs reflect the dynamic nature of racism, as well as the shifting mode and attitude of blacks in struggling against racism from the past up to the present time in the US from passive, radical, and subtler

(Special Section) The Hymn as Protest Song in England and its Empire, 1819–1919

(Special Section) The Hymn as Protest Song in England and its Empire, 1819–1919

African Protest Songs in South Africa and Beyond: An Analysis of “Bhuti Ngiceli Ilift in your Zola Budd”

African Protest Songs in South Africa and Beyond: An Analysis of “Bhuti Ngiceli Ilift in your Zola Budd”

Criticising Capitalism in the City and on the Stage: The City Street Movement Occupy Wall Street and Tim Price’s Protest Song

Abstract Following the 2022 CDE conference’s concern regarding “how theatre and the city are productively embroiled and [. . .] how contemporary Anglophone theatre has redefined [. . .] [and blurred the] borders between centre and periphery, street and stage, performer and spectator” (Garson et al.), I will focus on Tim Price’s Protest Song, which was commissioned by the National Theatre and was staged there in December 2013. Setting the play in the streets of London in front of the iconic urban space of St Paul’s Cathedral, starring a homeless main character, and transgressing the boundaries between theatrical and actual spaces, Price arguably questions conventional urban and social binaries as well as economic and social hierarchies. With the help of experimental and critical strategies, he examines the city street movement Occupy Wall Street and its repercussions. The present article analyses these strategies and asks how they represent, perform, question, and assess urban hierarchies, city street activism, and the financial sector, as they are symbolised by the (urban and mental) spaces of London as capital and London as city of capital. I will furthermore look into how Price’s strategies reframe social inequality and turbo-capitalism as well as to what extent they redefine the borders between centre and periphery, street and stage, performer and spectator.

The humiliated began to sing

In this article, the protest songs of teachers on strike were analysed as a traditional pedagogical tool of popular education, social movements, and trade unions. An important context for this was the commodification of the entertainment market, expectations towards the teaching profession, and the state of musical competencies in the population. By identifying what the essence of teaching in the teachers' protest songs was, recommendations for making these activities more educational and politically more effective have been presented. The songs might have played a role in the demise of the strike, in the specific political context, described in the paper. Using the comparisons of teachers to animals by the teachers themselves was a common, but risky tactic.

Revolutionary Songs from Myanmar: Reconsidering Scholarly Perspectives on Protest Music

Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anti-coup songs, which are usually called “revolutionary songs.” This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these revolutionary songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? Depending on ethnographic findings derived from interviews with musicians, disseminators and listeners, I argue that Burmese revolutionary songs are intended to support those already involved in resisting the military regime. The songs’ reception is complicated, suggesting that scholars must be cautious about making liberatory claims for protest music, even in cases such as this, where the lyrics of the songs are unambiguous and well-understood by listeners.

Minjung Kayo: Imagining Democracy through Song in South Korea

AbstractDuring South Korea's authoritarian period (1961–87), student activists employed songs to express their anti-government and pro-democratic views. Known as minjung kayo (people's songs), these protest songs can be traced to the modern American folk music embraced by South Korean youth in the 1960s. By the late 1980s, however, minjung kayo carried emphatically anti-American, nationalistic, and socialist tones, echoing the minjung ideals that strove to achieve authentic ‘Koreanness’. This article unravels the complexities underlying the process of minjung kayo's development into an emblem of the pro-democratic movement, which entailed a shift away from its initial reflective and poetic style inspired by American folk music (exemplified in the songs of Kim Min-ki) and a move towards the militant style influenced by the Marxist composer Hanns Eisler. It argues that minjung kayo embodied the complex relationship South Korean activists held with their colonial past and autocratic present, as well as visions of their democratic future.