protest songs that refuse to go into specifics

In a way this is most of them - stuff like "Free Nelson Mandela" the exception rather than the rule - but there's degrees, and I'm looking for the vaguest, most contentless ones you can find. Viewing of early 90's totp has shown me that era was a golden age of sorts for this kind of number - "we need to stop war and hatred, it is important that the children be allowed to play" - but yesterday I was surprised to find a track from a 1970 Willie Nelson album that I think has them all beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GplG5r5XRfM

Gotta pick a side, man! No I won't say which one or about what.

there are some 'issue' songs that could do with being less specific if anything, Ebony and Ivory is a very pretty tune and could have been good if McCartney had been content to do his usual non-specific 'why can't we all get along' handwringing, instead of deciding to make it 'about' racism.

I'd never read the lyrics to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" before because I always assumed it would be some woolly specific 'why can't we all get along' handwringing but they're kind of worse than that:

The real battle just begun (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
To claim the victory Jesus won (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

there's stuff like The Lebanon by the Human League, which is about a specific conflict but then doesn't say anything about it other than 'wow, this sucks', the specificity of the subject matter makes the vagueness of the 'message' more jarring? I suppose if you were feeling charitable you could say that the feelings of powerlessness and confusion about what if anything can be done are intentionally the subject of the song, the way that The More I See (The Less I Believe) by Fun Boy Three does more explicitly? (Invisible Sun by the Police is maybe another one like this?)

Ditto "Belfast" by Boney M

When the children believe in
When the children believe in
When the children believe in all the people
'Cause the people are leavin'
When the people are leavin' you
When the people are leavin'
When the people are leavin' all the children
'Cause the children believe in

Say what?

Give Ireland Back To The Irish is almost the opposite of a non-specific, refusing to take sides protest song, but the opening lines (Great Britain, you are tremendous and nobody knows like me/but really, what are you doing in that land over the sea?) are funny, because you can feel the tension between McCartney's instinctive reasonableness and moderation and simultaneous desire to make a clear statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsiJMJ9GZFA

there are probably a million psychedelia-era examples of this, but Revolution by Tomorrow is pretty content free, or vague as to whether it's talking about an actual revolution vs changing your perspective and opening your mind etc

Surely John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" belongs high on the list.

Earth Song by Michael Jackson might be both the longest and the most egregious example of this phenomenon?

I don't know, it specifically singles out the elephants for example.

What about crying whales?

If anything, it's too specific about too many worthy causes all at once.

each of the specific things elicit a "well, what about them?" response though, it's a content-free list

a pretty funny one though

Tony Scott - The Greenhouse Effect (from 1992!) is clearly way ahead of its time in warning us about CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but it doesn't suggest much more than that we should, you know, think about it.

To be fair, nearly all protest songs are about raising awareness, not well-researched policy whitepapers set to music. Even when they go into specifics ("hang the pope") will elicit a jaded response of "OK, and then what?".

I was gonna agree that "Earth Song" is mostly specific and straightforward enough - "we fucked up the environment, need to do something about that" and sure it doesn't say what at all but neither do the vast majority of protest songs - but looking at the lyrics it does throw in some lines about killing fields and military conflicts that push it closer to vagueness yeah.

Another MJ tune that does this is "Heal The World", enhanced by an equally vague video featuring soldiers and perhaps terrorists...somewhere, and how the children are against that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWf-eARnf6U

Dead Prez were typically the opposite of this, and managed to elucidate their worldview so that the already-informed and new-to-the-cause alike could all vibe with it.

But stic.man had a really awkward guest verse on The Coup's "Get Up" that sounded so 'trenchant' and comically vague, and it was unfortunately my first exposure to Dead Prez. Not that they're wrong, but it's hardly the penetrating insight they're known for.

this is the offending part of the verse - there's more after it that slightly improves things, but not by much.

Honestly, I'm against this government
I ain't gotta cover it up, that's what I meant
I'm sick of paying bills and I'm sick of paying rent
Seem like I work all the time but don't know where the money went
And the funny shit is we supposed to like this shit
But all y'all politicians can bite this dick

Of course the grandaddy of this whole genre ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY

To be fair, nearly all protest songs are about raising awareness, not well-researched policy whitepapers set to music. Even when they go into specifics ("hang the pope") will elicit a jaded response of "OK, and then what?".

― Siegbran, Tuesday, July 4, 2023 8:38 AM bookmarkflaglink

I agree that protest songs aren't necessarily supposed to be 'the work's as opposed to a launchpad for 'the work'.

But I did appreciate how The Coup managed to break down their communist beliefs into relatable and often funny, cynical anecdotes that made it clear why things were fucked.

I remember "Repo Man" actually opening my eyes a bit about a predatory aspect of capitalism I hadn't previously given much thought to.

Earth Song doesn't feel empty to me in the same way that some of these protest songs do, maybe because it has an explicitly religious angle, or maybe because Michael Jackson is capable of singing lyrics that would sound like platitudes coming from most people in such a way that they sound totally heartfelt (I think Tom Ewing wrote something about this once?)

haha seems like Earth Song is out then, we can probably agree it's far, far too long at least?

Yeah I don't think protest songs in general offer specific policy proposals (again excluding targeted stuff like "Free Nelson Mandela" or "Hurricane"), what I'm focusing in on more here is the songs so vague that you can't even really tell what the problem is supposed to be.

Here are some of the totp entries I was talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlWMyr5riyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtSbedMeF6s

I think some Radiohead songs have some lyrics that sound like they could be from protest songs but are also intentionally non-specific with the aim of evoking some feeling of modern-world ennui (I was thinking of the 'we're not scaremongering/this is really happening' bit from Idioteque, but I feel like there are others) - intentionally trying to communicate a feeling of hopelessness maybe in the opposite way to the early 90's "we need to stop war and hatred" stuff referred to in the first post, which is trying to communicate this uplifting sense that we *can* do you something, although unspecific about what or how

First one there is "Are You Dreaming?" by twenty4seven.

I think the 90's were a good time for this type of thing because there was a general sense that musicians should make Thoughtful Statements coupled with an End Of History aimlessness that prevents the songs from going anywhere potentially polarizing.

That being said, I'm still in awe of the Willie Nelson track I posted. Everything else has at least a vague sense of being about racism or war or the environment, but Willie just thinks you need to take a stand and no godamnit he will not elaborate on that.

xp I think y2k era Radiohead were promoting specific campaigns and issues and stuff in interviews and promotional materials, while also being nonspecific on record iirc

Of course the grandaddy of this whole genre ...

Ironically, “For What It’s Worth” was written about something very specific and relatively minor:

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-152-for-what-its-worth-by-buffalo-springfield/

The actual subject of the song couldn’t be any more trivial in the grand scheme of things — a change in zoning regulations around the Sunset Strip that meant people under twenty-one couldn’t go to the clubs after 10PM, and the subsequent reaction to that — but because rather than talking about the specific incident, Steve Stills instead talked about the emotions that it called up, and just noted the fleeting images that he was left with, the song became adopted as an anthem by soldiers in Vietnam. Sometimes what a song says is nowhere near as important as how it says it.

(I think Tom Ewing wrote something about this once?)

Dunno if we're thinking of the same thing but I remember an old ILX post zeroing in on how the song breaks out at "what about elephants" and it's like he's spent this whole time listing all these horrors and then he remembers "oh fuck there's the bloody ELEPHANTS as well" and that's what really sends him off the edge.

"What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes always struck me as being bombastically vague.

Pink, "What About Us?"

Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” is about something specific, but as Dave Marsh pointed out, the fact that it “refuses to take sides borders on obscenity. The concept that anyone, much less a major pop craftsman, lived through the war without ever acquiring an attitude about it (without ever understanding why that war was not a war like all others, even — especially — for the soldiers who fought it) says more about Joel’s ultimate shallowness than anything else one needs to mention.”

does "tupthumping" count? the politics is vague enough but the drinks are quite specific

there's a subset of these that are mostly vague/broad with one or two ultra-pointed lines - "where is the love?" calling the CIA terrorists and "pretend we're dead" dissing the moral majority (both classic lines)

then there are those songs that could be this or just confused and sending mixed messages - e.g. "revolution", "sweet home alabama", "shake it off", so many more

political songs about specific things with a vague/muddled/nonspecific message vs political songs with a clear message that don't really touch any world specifics

the former is often more admirable (not always better) because a song that engages with politics should be messy and if it's not you might be too detached - the latter can be interesting when a song like this gets picked up by politics and acquires new layers to it beyond just the writing

I don’t really get Marsh’s comments on that Billy Joel song. Whether you like the song or not, it’s focused on soldiers’ experience, not expressing an “attitude” toward the war… which doesn’t mean that Joel didn’t have one (much less an “understanding” of it).

(I get that he would prefer for Joel to have written a different song altogether, but that doesn’t require extrapolating that Joel must be an idiot…)

I think what Marsh is saying is that the soldier's experience would invariably contain an attitude towards the war. Neutral on whether that's true.

I mean, it has the two lines:

We met as soul mates on Parris Island
We left as inmates from an asylum

We came in spastic, like tame-less horses
We left in plastic as numbered corpses

those are pretty biting lines about the nature of war itself.

yes there is also

And who was wrong? And who was right?
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight

but that comes across to me more as "when we were hanging on by a thread trying to stay alive, the last thing on our minds was assessing the ethics of the war"

and remember that 2.2 million were drafted into the war so lots of these people were there against their will anyway.

25% of the soldiers in combat zones were conscripted

"when we were hanging on by a thread trying to stay alive, the last thing on our minds was assessing the ethics of the war"

Yeah, for sure – it's not like Joel is himself pondering the question from a comfortable distance. (Also, no one needed to be reminded in 1982 that the Vietnam War was bad... and the decade was later filled w/movies and other things that similarly explored the hellish experience of fighting in it, without examining the politics of it, as there was no need.)

I had never heard this song, or heard of it, before today, but that's a terrible take by Marsh imo. I agree with Neanderthal that it's also a misreading of the song, which is very much a character study, from the POV of someone who went through a life-changing traumatic experience that he knows he can never fully convey to people outside of the group he shared it with, and for whom the immediacy of that experience, both as it was happening and as lingering trauma, is strong enough to push everything else aside. If there's a political point, it's that the luxury of thinking in a detached way about whether the war was right or wrong was one that we did not grant to the people we drafted to fight it. Which is absolutely a stance, and a very valid one.

great thread idea, I see someone has already mentioned Tubthumping

does "Imagine" count?

I would say 99% yes but there is that "and no religion too" line in there which is kinda...perhaps not specific, but polarizing enough that it seems to be coming from somewhere (not nec a good place!)

it qualifies on the basis of its place in culture and the way it's treated more than what it is. turns out a communist song that becomes a wildly successful capitalist product somehow looses all its radical content in the process (which was pretty bullshit to begin with but still)

it's funny that the MORness keeps getting it into situations in which the religion line trips people up, that's the only cool part of the song

I don't think "Imagine" was ever a "communist song" tbh.

twisted sister's "we're not gonna take it"

I agree with Neanderthal that it's also a misreading of the song, which is very much a character study, from the POV of someone who went through a life-changing traumatic experience that he knows he can never fully convey to people outside of the group he shared it with, and for whom the immediacy of that experience, both as it was happening and as lingering trauma, is strong enough to push everything else aside.

I can definitely understand this viewpoint, but your argument is vastly more thoughtful and nuanced than Joel's song (and I apologize if that sounds like damning with faint praise; that's not how I meant that to come off). I think Joel was absolutely sincere in his belief that he was putting something across close to his heart, but ended up with -- or is only capable of -- one-dimensional platitudes (and not for the first or last time, obviously).

primal scream - exterminator

but it draws its strength from its vacuity imo - ‘the’ civil disobedience, indeed

"Rise Above"?

but it draws its strength from its vacuity imo

yeah i just read this about "we're not gonna take it"

In our interview with Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, he explained: "With 'We're Not Gonna Take It,' whether I was singing about my parents, my teachers, my bosses, my peers, people around me, I felt it was important not to define it by actually naming names and singing, 'Dad, you're so trite and jaded, I hate my teachers, too.' And thus, the song has had a life in sporting events, at political rallies, at protests, pretty much anybody who's not taking something from somebody else, they're going to break into 'We're Not Gonna Take It' all over the world."

also, the first draft of "who'll stop the rain" back when it was called "who'll stop the vietnam war", it was a lot more specific than the released song, but it didn't scan nearly as well.

My first thought (perhaps because I happened to hear it on the radio yesterday) was Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On".

Apparently "Who'll Stop The Rain" was at some point licensed for an ad to promote a brand of outdoor paint, so this goes to show how versatile protest songs can be when they're vague enough.

I think protest songs are more effective the more they stick to the script of "us plucky underdogs against them the indifferent aristocracy". The risk of being specific is that while history may vindicate you ("Free Mandela"), you may be hitching your wagon to some plucky underdogs that, once the revolution has taken place, may turn out to be no different or even worse than the previous indifferent aristocracy (aka, the "Sandinista!" conundrum). Incremental change is boring, so best to stick to something everyone can rally around: we're all victims, the powers that be are at fault, and something radical needs to be done.

The other issue with anti-war protest songs is that you have to avoid unintentionally coming off as a "let's abandon our allies/friends" dick. This is even harder when war is forced upon your audience: people may generally agree with the premise that war is bad, very few songs manage to credibly pull off a blatant "People, war is bad - let's just surrender and hope for the best" anti-war message. So again, vague platitudes abound, and a focus on personal tragedy and loss to get the message across in a roundabout way.

It's a good topic, and it's true that the Willie Nelson 'where do you stand?' still beats others for sonorous non-commitment.

also, yes, 'what's up?' by 4 Non Blondes was a great nomination.

I think there's a value in being non-specific. The impulse to achieve justice is worth provoking and sustaining and leaving the details to the listener can help that resonate imo. Maybe the best protest songs do both - like "Which Side Are You On". The chorus is universal. Can apply to almost any situation of conflict. But the verses are practically journalistic:

They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J. H. Blair

The Rolling Stones - Sittin' On A Fence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBItQrlgNI

I'm just sittin' on a fence
You can say I got no sense
Trying to make up my mind
Really is too horrifying
So I'm sittin’ on a fence

(ok, this is technically not a protest song, but a great title all the same)

xpost There's a whole genre of protest song that makes a virtue of this construction, by leaving the verses to the singers to fill in with the details of the issue of the day. eg We Shall Overcome. "Black and white together" filling in as the second verse etc

We Didn't Start The Fire is another successful example of the generic chorus/specific verses structure.

Reminds me of the last line of one of my fave Christgau reviews:

The Crossing [Mercury, 1983]
With its bagpipe guitars and Celtic blues lines, Stuart Adamson's Skids-U2 hybrid avoids any hint of rock purism. Although "Chance" is the only fully realized song here, the rest sound good from a distance. But I wish Adamson didn't sing like Colonel Bryan Bowie and, even worse, write like Bishop Kahlil Masefield. Regaled with martial rhythms, I always feel safer knowing exactly what the war's about.

(No idea who/what the "Bishop Kahlil Masefield" refers to, though.)

I always thought that Dr. Who-sounding Muse song I hear a lot was maddeningly vague, with that old standby antagonist "they."

I think there's a value in being non-specific. The impulse to achieve justice is worth provoking and sustaining and leaving the details to the listener can help that resonate imo. Maybe the best protest songs do both - like "Which Side Are You On". The chorus is universal. Can apply to almost any situation of conflict.

The Bull by Jake Thrackray is another good intentionally non-specific. 'universal' protest song imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PG6sITiNEs

(No idea who/what the "Bishop Kahlil Masefield" refers to, though.)

Presumably a portmanteau of Kahlil Gibran and John Masefield, suggesting a spiritual sententiousness?

I can definitely understand this viewpoint, but your argument is vastly more thoughtful and nuanced than Joel's song (and I apologize if that sounds like damning with faint praise; that's not how I meant that to come off). I think Joel was absolutely sincere in his belief that he was putting something across close to his heart, but ended up with -- or is only capable of -- one-dimensional platitudes (and not for the first or last time, obviously).

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, July 4, 2023 3:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

I don't agree at all. his aim was to write a simple song from the perspective of Vietnam veterans whose lives were shattered by the war, and he succeeded in that regard. if Joel was writing this song *during* the Vietnam war, I get the desire for a more Edwin Starr approach to things, but it was almost a decade after. Veterans who returned home were still struggling, even a decade later, to adapt to what had happened to them, many who wound up homeless, with permanent disabilities, PTSD, and not much more than platitudes thrown their way as opposed to actual help.

Now, Joel's song wasn't exactly a statement on that - that was never his forte. But it was something he observed, so he wrote a sympathetic song from their perspective, which is what he does (similar to "Allentown").

xpost Is the "Bishop" doing the spiritual lifting? Anyway, I don't know those others, said likely portmanteau definitely above my pay grade.

It feels like Joel is attempting — and failing — to write a song from the soldiers’ perspective, like the Broadway musical equivalent thereof. As with Lily Dale’s take on it, your argument is much more thought-out and more deeply considered than Joel’s song. Again, I don’t doubt that his heart was in the right place, but it lands in the uncanny valley between hamfisted and cowardly.

I’m not saying he shouldn’t have done it (though I think Marsh is), but he’s out of his depth — and a cynic would argue that it’s also a bid to be taken more seriously than as a breezy pop craftsman.

xp

Ha, here’s Marsh on “Allentown”:

…about as defeatist as even a song about unemployment can be, the product of Joel’s attempt to provide the kind of bogus objectivity that makes straight newspaper and TV journalism a bore.

At the risk of posting another dud- he admittedly does actually mention George Floyd by name- ("shout-out to his family"!) but this is embarassing on so many levels and has some choice "the world is going through some tough times" empty rhetoric too

https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZgEtgxxg0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZgEtgxxg0

xxp What was Marsh’s take on similar songs by Springsteen?

Springsteen's protest song led to there being a thousand channels and nothing on

Lol

I’d say you might have to be told “Morning Dew” is about nuclear apocalypse.

I don’t think that’s any more of a protest song than, say, “Wooden Ships”…?

come on, next you'll be saying like Vamos A La Playa or sth is about nuclear apocalypse

That’s a whole category in itself, fatalistic 1980s songs with the message “why care, they’ll drop the bomb anyway”.

That’s a whole category in itself, fatalistic 1980s songs with the message “why care, they’ll drop the bomb anyway”.

― Siegbran

and whether or not any of them are better than "1999"

Fly Like an Eagle is a bit of a turkey lyrically, it's very unclear.
Grooves for days, though.

Does 'it's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)' belong on the thread?

I don't get the sense that one wants to protest anything, it's just doing fun word salad?

protests coherency

Shocked to see any thread about protest songs go this long without a Dylan mention. He has some of the most specific protest songs out there ("Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", "Only a Pawn in Their Game"), but also some of the most general. I'd put in that latter category first and foremost "The Times They Are-a-Changin'", but maybe also "When the Ship Comes In," "Chimes of Freedom," "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".

I mean if "Fly Like an Eagle" and "What's Up?" are protest songs, surely these qualify!

The folk tradition he was coming out of also had a lot of very specific protest songs (a lot of Woody Guthrie’s songs) but also general songs like “If I Had a Hammer”

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" certainly all the more powerful without getting specific.

I really like Green on Red’s version of “We Shall Overcome” (no specifics detected).

I mean, it seems comparable that you could separate gospel songs and hymns into ones that are specific and ones that anyone could sing and understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRFqstwd_6c

I mean if "Fly Like an Eagle" and "What's Up?" are protest songs, surely these qualify!

Fly Like an Eagle demonstrates... not so much a *commitment* to social justice and eradicating poverty, as an attitude of "let someone else do it"

"there's a solution" without saying what it is = you figure it out.

"i want to fly like an eagle to the sea" = besides, i've got other fish to fry

and then i think the eagle and spirit imagery is supposed to make him sound Native American. it's not good.

idk to me it's a case where specifics are avoided and there's also a 'that'll do' approach to songcraft and those two things didn't work well together.

I'm waiting for a band called the Shirt Brothers to record the protest song (nay, anthem) "Never Do Another Rule."

I wanna feed the babies, who can't get enough to eat
Wanna shoe the children, with no shoes on their feet
I wanna house the people, livin' in the street

This doesn't sound like "let someone else do it", dude wants to do it himself. But, you know, time keeps on slippin', man. Can't we just be flying like an eagle into the future?

He wants to do a lot things--to reach out and grab ya for instance

I don't hear the "I wanna..." part except when it's paired with "fly like an eagle", the work of feeding, shoeing and housing is a demand being made on someone else, not the space cowboy.

wow, i don't remember those wanna's being there! he sounds so chilled out idk

he doesn't spend a lot of time on the issues before taking flight. maybe flying like an eagle to the sea is the solution. there, he can swim like a fish.

xp

abracadabra works for me, i'm fine with the random catcall after "some people call me maurice" etc. it's silly, so it works.

imo he's just gotta keep it light, doesn't do heavy real well.

I don't hear the "I wanna..." part except when it's paired with "fly like an eagle", the work of feeding, shoeing and housing is a demand being made on someone else, not the space cowboy.

been struggling to remember where i've heard those "i wanna's" paired with the shoeing and housing part, i believe Seal felt it needed clarification.

he might have also specified that he wants YOU to fly like an eagle, i'm not completely sure. selfless of him, if so.

No, Steve Miller definitely wants himself to fly like an eagle, he could care less about us plebes. He also wants his spirit to carry him (i.e. do all of the heavy lifting) so he's a lazy-ass too.

In my interpretation Steve starts flying like an eagle, then looks down and sees all these hungry kids and homeless people on the streets and thinks, "Someone should fix that."

And then Miles Davis looks up and sees him and says, “Is that the non-playing motherfucker with only one or two sorry-ass albums out?”

xp ah well, into the future

Steve Miller definitely wants himself to fly like an eagle

oh yah, i meant Seal

Steve Miller is trying to demonstrate the kind of compassion you'd expect of someone spiritually 'ascended' but comes across removed, looks down on all the hungry kids is otm

Later Steve Miller:

Living in a world of justice
Living in a world of shame
Living in a world of freedom
Living in a world of pain
You know (you know, you know)
I want to make the world turn around
Make the world turn around
Make the world turn around
Turn the darkness into light
Turn the hunger into life
Turn the wrong into right
Put an end to the strife
Turn the blindness into sight
Save a human life
Make the world turn around
Make the world turn around
Make the world turn around

All you back room schemers, small trip dreamers
Better find something new to say
'Cause you're the same old story
It's the same old crime
And you got some heavy dues to pay