started working on this post a week ago; postponed it; got sidetracked; forgot it. so forgive its lateness, please. the topic is still interesting if not actually pre-election pertinent anymore.
—3 nov.
I had encountered so few recent protest songs when I set out to write this column a week ago that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find enough of them. How foolish of me! The Internet is teeming with them, if you only look. There were so many protest songs readily available that it made me start to take seriously for the first time the complaint I’d heard from a number of politically oriented musicians: that their music was ignored simply because it was political. But then I started listening to the songs. This music isn’t ignored because it’s political. It’s ignored because it’s bad. Dreadful, actually. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to so much bad music in one week. If I were in a meaner mood I’d devote this column to the very worst songs I encountered this week, and we’d all have a good time — bad protest songs are a terrific source of unintentional humor. If you’re in the mood to laugh, just Google “protest song” and “Iraq war” and “George W.” and you’ll find plenty of specimens that are delicious in their awfulness.
the good news is that what good protest music there is is not limited to sappy, weepy joan baez crap (sorry, mom.) or joni mitchell or whatever. nor is it limited to whitebread rock artists like r.e.m. and bruce springsteen (sorry, guys). and don’t get me started on sting, you big adult-contemporary whiner, you’ve gone far afield from “Dead-End Job.” i don’t want to hear y’all whitebread musicians’ opinions on politics in the form of music, because your music bores me (and your opinions are pretty predictable, as well).
